Recently I’ve been working both on the structure of the Visual Novel itself as well as some of the actual quests the player will go on. The current idea is that you get the artifact in the first chapter, then follows a number of chapters where you go on adventures/quests, helping people in various ways. How you choose to help as well as your general choices throughout these quests affects a few different aspects of the artifact:
- How aggressive versus empathetic it is. Does it become more inspired to attack or to try to help/believe the best in people?
- How much trust it has in you. If it gets hurt, the trust decreases which can cause it to abandon you in the end.
I’ve also been considering situations where the player can get themselves or the ribbon hurt or even die and get a proper Game Over. One of my favourite games is actually Long Live the Queen, where you die a lot when you make mistakes! Perhaps this game won’t be just as difficult as that – but it would be interesting to be able to get a Game Over here and there rather than always making it to the end.