...
And that is my main idea.. make your storytelling so that it manipulates players to fail. As they try to achieve good endings to their stories, make player think the game guides them towards it but if they follow the "obvious" choises, they end up failing, so it kinda becomes a challenge to find the correct choises, correct path to achieve the kind of ending you want to achieve. And moreover, as you reveal to your player that they have failed, that they have been tricked, rub it into their face so hard they want to smash their keyboard to the wall, make players feel sadness, disappointment and failure, possibly even in black-humorous way. That is anti-clichee and very good story telling technique for a game that people play multiple times.
Whenever you know you can surprise the player, for example when player thinks he has won a battle for something and saved the day.. Then villain returns out of nowhere and rips apart everything and rubs it into player's face as they stare their screens with their mouth open :OOO in shock unable to take action.. that should be the bar you set yourself. Next step from this is that once player finaly finds the secret and correct path, they have to live in excitement and wait and wait until out of nowhere game reveals that even the villain came back and annihilated nearly everyone, you had figured out some secret that finaly saves the day and is revealed on the darkest moment when player thinks he has failed and everything is over. That kind of reveal method maximizes the satisfaction of finally succeeding.
If this idea feels radical or very obviously bad idea.. then remember there is movies that make people feel all kinds of feelings, sadness and sorrow among them yet people still like those movies.. what separates games stories from movie stories is that games can be replayed. So make story harder please.
This is what happens in Clair-Obscur Expedition 33. Only, it's not because of a failed dice roll or a wrong choice in a response. I don't want to spoil too much. Let's just say that I believe that this story twist is for a large part the reason why this game has become so popular and won so many prizes . At least, for me it did, and when I watch PT's on YT, everyone seems to be reacting the same way. Disbelief, then, sadness and emotion and when the meaning finally comes in, oh *f* THAT explains alot. But it was brilliantly written and cinematically presented. I'm sure that Larian has taken notice of this game and will find some inspiration in it.
