Visual novels and adventure games with choices that matter?
So I've been wanting to host some gameplay sessions on Discord for a while now, and I figured the best option would be visual novels or adventure games and similar types of games that are more story-driven. You don't have to worry about the video lagging as much, and you can pretty easily pause playing to talk to people without worrying about getting distracted.
What I particularly want are games that have choices that matter so people can give input. Someone once mentioned playing "Your Turn To Die" with friends where they could vote on the choices, and it's been stuck in my head ever since. If you haven't played that game, there are multiple points where you have to choose between two characters dying, which definitely shapes later chapters. Obviously I know what goes on in that game though, and I'd prefer to be just as blind as everyone else.
So please give me suggestions! Funny games, mystery games, horror games, psychological thrillers, I'm open to anything! (Except most dating sims. Those can be long and tedious if they don't have some twist to them.)
Minor edit: It doesn't have to be just visual novels or adventure games. I'm open to basically any game that doesn't depend on real-time reaction speeds (e.g. most platformers), so that we don't have to worry about getting killed while talking, or the video lagging and/or quality dropping for some people. (That's the main reason I've eliminated movies as an option, video lag and connection quality issues can really hamper the experience.)
Disco Elysium may be great. While it's sort of RPG-ish, there's no combat; you're solving a murder and talking with people. Plenty of great choices for people to disagree upon in the course of the investigation.
This would be my pick too. A good game for people who don't mind slow-paced, dialogue-driven gameplay with relatively simple (if unconventional) game mechanics, similar to the 'skill check' system used in Dungeons and Dragons. Yet for all these limitations it has one of the most colorful, fully-fleshed out, lore-filed settings of any game I've played, and I felt that by the end of it I had come to recognize the full weight of the decisions I made as I played it. Don't get the Nintendo Switch port though; it's buggy as hell.
Can anyone tell me how the PS4/PS5 version of this plays? I need to check it out but I tire of being hunched over my computer.
It's not a demanding game, nor mechanically complex. I can't imagine it having any issues on Playstation.
That's on my to-play list for sure. I only ever hear good things about it and the story.
I bought Disco Elysium after I read your comment and I‘m so happy that I did! This will definitely be one of my top 3 favourite games of this year. What an incredible art style and unique skill tree system. I love how elaborate it is. Thank you for recommending this!
It's got a lot of cutscenes, so I'm not sure how well it would work for you, but Life is Strange was a great experience. My friends at work and I would all go home and play a chapter and then talk about our choices at work the next day. We all got really invested in the story.
Edit: Looks like season 1 is on sale for $4 this week
This is a great suggestion! I haven't played it myself but did watch someone else play it online, it's a perfect example of choices mattering. Now that you mentioned it, I remember I got the sequel last year but haven't played it yet. I'll add it to the list!
Just a heads up, there is a fundamental difference in how Life is Strange 2 functions that makes certain choices matter more in the long run than in the original game, in which the consequences tend to be more graph-immediate.
Graph-immediate? Not familiar with the term, what does that mean?
Sorry, I meant to say that the consequences don't have long lasting effects, they make something happen once. This means
Spoiler
All consequences have resolved by the time the ending arrives and therefore cannot influence the ending.Ahh, got it. Thanks for clarifying.
Also, play Before the Storm, the prequel to LiS. I recommend you still play LiS before you play the prequel though. Some of the choices totally broke me emotionally and I still think of it today.
I'm also going to pile in here and recommend Life is Strange: True Colors, which is probably my favorite one out of the series (other than the first one)
Also the remastered versions still have some bugs, so if you can deal with the lower quality the "un-remastered" versions are still on Steam (and Life is Strange 1 is on sale for $4).
I don't know how good it's streamer integration is (though iirc it does have one!) but I highly recommend Pentiment. Your choices matter, often in ways that are tough to foresee, and its story is very emotionally gripping. The art style is also amazing and it's very rooted in its historical moment without being boring.
The reviews are definitely promising! This kind of recommendation is exactly why I made this post, that's not a game I'd think to look at normally.
It's by Obsidian, the same devs who made Fallout: New Vegas, if you've heard of them. That's honestly the only reason I heard about it and bought it in the first place, but it's probably second only to Disco Elysium in terms of my favorite story-driven games atm.
I knew I'd heard of Obsidian. I did a double-take when I saw the name because while I couldn't remember where I knew them, I knew they're a pretty reputable one that worked on some big titles. Also funnily enough, the top review is "Basically, Disco Elysium but in the middle ages."
I gush about Pentiment here if you're interested (all significant spoilers are hidden).
Beautiful beautiful game.
I thoroughly enjoyed To Be Or Not To Be, a choose-your-own-adventure Hamlet: https://store.steampowered.com/app/324710/To_Be_or_Not_To_Be/
Since it's Hamlet, you know how the 'canon' path turns out, but that's just one of many. The rest are very silly. It's written by Ryan North (of Dinosaur Comics fame) so it is hilarious throughout.
Writing this recommendation made me realize I didn't 100% it! I had thought I did everything... new weekend goal!
As someone who never actually read Hamlet, this definitely looks fun. Particularly the screenshot with the explosion, I feel like that alone shows the potential for sheer chaos. Thanks!
Excellent......what a fun and whacky trailer. Gorgeous art and Alan North! I'm in!
This will also pair nicely with reading Hamlet at home next semester. thank you.
I don't really know if this counts as either a visual novel or an adventure game, per se. It's more Adventure RPG + Management Sim + Interactive Fiction / CYOA, but King of Dragon Pass (Steam, GOG) has always been a favorite of mine. Your choices really do matter in it too, since you and your tribe can fail pretty hard as a result of your choices and mismanagement (or bad luck). It's not a particularly well known game, but IMO it should be. I've replayed it countless times over the years.
This sort of game definitely counts! I suppose a better way to phrase my request is that I'm looking for games that aren't (too) dependent on real-time reactions. Visual novels and adventure games were just the first examples to come to mind, but games like that are just as perfect! I'll look into this one for sure.
I haven't seen anyone mention two games I feel fit the "choices that matter" criteria perfectly:
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
Yes, Your Grace
I don't often complete games, my ADHD gets in the way, but both of these captivated me and had me through to the end.
With Sir Brante, I thought I was making the right choices all along, and then everything ended in horror.
With Yes, Your Grace it worked out better for me, and I got a decent ending, but it still had some emotional moments.
I love them both, and highly recommend them!
Thanks, both look great! Especially liked the trailer for Yes, Your Grace. Adding them to the list!
Have fun!
Sir Brante has so many branches and paths I keep going back to the game to retry various choices. Definitely a lot of replayability.
I really should give it another go. It's been over a year since I've played it. I wonder if I can reach a better ending - I tried playing with the choices I might make and it all fell apart.
There are three paths you can take and then several branches down that. I definitely messed up the first few times. Eventually, I got a better ending where family all survived and we beat the Empire. After every good ending, I always do a chaotic run and just don't even try to be good.
Bit of an obscure one but "Long Live The Queen" on Steam. It's been years since I played it but if I remember correctly each playthrough is quite short, and each "run" you get to level different stats which affect how the story plays out and what decisions you're able to make based on what you levelled up to that point in the story. There's no quick time events or anything just choice based decisions.
Seconding Long Live The Queen, as stated it's very short form and lots of various branching paths you can go down each playthrough, so that increases the replay value. Trying to figure out what to do to get past that check you've always failed could be a good group discussion/ vote activity as well.
I actually do know this one! It could potentially work, especially if runs are usually short. I'll add it to a list of possibilities.
Not really a visual novel game or an adventure game, but "Killer Frequency" is definitely a game where choices definitely matter. Its a first-person thriller game set in 1987, where you play as a late-night radio talk show host that has to takeover being the 911 operator while a mysterious killer rampages your town. There are comedic choices, serious choices, and difficult choices. Your callers call in with various scenarios thats occurring, and it is your choices that impacts whether they survive or not. There are puzzles and clues throughout your interactions and for the observant viewers, they can help you make the choices to succeed. Overall, its a funny, interactive, and thrilling choice-based dialogue game.
Looking it up, this seems like it could work perfectly! I can tell it definitely has a fun atmosphere. Thanks for the recommendation!
Ha I was about to suggest YTTD until I saw you mentioned it. For me picking the characters wasn't even the most mindblowing part it was the Russian roulette puzzle. Whereas in other VNs some character would just explain the solution to you, in YTTD you actually had to come up with it yourself, it was great. Final chapter when I've been waiting forever :(
Yeah, same. I keep checking if there's any news. Looking at the creator's Twitter, I think he may have been busy with personal stuff and preparing for the Steam release...? Would help if A) I spoke Japanese, or B) Google Translate was working for Twitter's website so I could translate the whole page and didn't have to click each individual tweet to click "translate tweet". Apparently Twitter's been having connection issues with it though. Still, fingers crossed we get some news soon!!
From what I've gathered he's both busy personally and working on the side story game (the island one). Personal opinion: it's hard to finish a project you love so much so he's probably trying his hardest to make it as good as possible. We just don't know and time will tell us. I'll probably just replay the entire game by then. Positive news is the recent steam release so there does seem to be some traction towards the final chapter now.
Oh absolutely, I don't fault him for taking his time. Especially since he has to effectively write multiple versions of some parts due to the various different characters. Off the top of my head, the character variables include:
Spoilers of Determinant Deaths
The dolls probably won't have as much of an impact as the other characters since they're inactive and essentially "dead" at the moment, unable to interact with the characters. But just Kanna vs Shin had major impacts on the story and flow of events. I expect that there will be a similar major choice in the next chapter where it will have to account for even more variations.
I've written one branching narrative so far, with a much smaller cast and shorter story, and even that was pretty time-consuming. It's easy to get details mixed up and lose track of individual plot threads when you're working on them versus playing through it sequentially. So I don't mind waiting for the conclusion if it means it will be well-written, that's way better than rushing through it.
I didn't even know most of those outcomes hahah. yeah I'm definitely replaying when he releases the final chapter
Don’t know if these are your cup of tea, but I‘m a big fan of the Zero Escape trilogy. I used to play them on my 3DS, but they were released on PC aswell. Your choices do matter, but just a heads up without spoiling too much, you‘ll be able to come back later and see where your other decisions lead. They‘re your classic Japanese visual novel with a pretty whack story.
I've played them! Or at least VLR, snagged it in a 3ds eshop sale not realizing it was part of a series and watched people play the other two. Personally consider the first one to be the best. The sequels felt really dark and gritty compared to the first, the tone and stakes just changed so much. Still pretty fun though!
I was thinking about recommending those, but I figured that even with the nonlinear storytelling the actual plot is still set in stone.
If you are in a game that presents you a choice and branches based on your choice, but you have to go back and make the opposite choice to finish the game, it's not really a meaningful choice from the perspective of the player.
(They are great games, though, and I do recommend them generally)
Honestly I'm cool with suggestions of games with nonlinear storytelling too. It gives us time to speculate on what's going on, and the order we see each part can impact our theories. Heck, with VLR, I think I ended up making a choice that revealed one of the characters' dark nature pretty early on. Totally changed how I looked at that character in the rest of the game. Pretty sure a similar thing happened in the videos of 999 I watched.
The fact is, a lot of games do have the overall story set in stone. But if there are multiple ways to get there, that can make the journey different for every player and thus much more interesting.
VLR is actually one of my favorite games in the series because of how well they handle the character writing. The others aren't quite as good.
By the way, if you have only played the DS version of the original game, you might be interested in playing through the remake they made a while back. It's available on Steam.
If you enjoyed those games, you might also want to play through Yu-No. They rather blatently stole some of the game mechanics from it.
Always Sometimes Monsters should be a pretty good option for what you're looking for. It's sometimes described as an RPG but I would consider it more of an adventure or even a life sim game. You are basically constantly making choices and they have an affect on the story - though not necessarily the plot. To be honest I never finished the game because the Linux port was pretty bad and it would always crash on me.
It also has a sequel called Sometimes Always Monsters.
I know it's not quite what you're asking for but there are two board games based on Choose Your Own Adventure books; War with the Evil Power Master is actually really fun as long as you've got a group to play it with. You can play it alone but it's not quite the same.
I watched someone play the first one years ago, and while I enjoyed it, it's definitely a "your mileage will vary" type of game. I've always heard some pretty mixed things about them, people seem to either love or hate them. (I also always got the "Always" and "Sometimes" mixed up, I swear they chose that sequel title to mess with people.) Thanks for the recommendation though!
I'm not looking for board games, but glad for the suggestions anyway! Could always use some, especially stuff that can be played single-player. Looking up videos about how they're played is honestly making me itch to design my own version more than play them, or at least something similar. Just one of the pitfalls of liking game design I guess!
In that case, maybe a turn-based game could work? Into the Breach and Slay the Spire come to mind. Both of them involve a lot of strategy and it could be fun to discuss the merits of different possible lines of play on a given turn.
Both could work, though I'd want to do some tests with "lighter" games first to see how viable it could be. Mainly in terms of "can people take stuff seriously when they need to, or will this turn into a Twitch Plays Pokémon scenario". If the overall mood leans towards the latter... Well honestly, we might not beat it but it can still be pretty fun to see how badly we can screw things up!
How about Telltale games, The Walking Dead series in particular was really great.
The new, revived, Telltale studio is even working on some new games, like The Expanse or the sequel to The Wolf Among Us.
I love The Walking Dead (first two seasons) and The Wolf Among Us, but unfortunately the choices don't really matter. TWD 1 & 2, and TWAU managed to create a good illusion of choice, but with each entry it became more and more obvious that they didn't matter. (hopefully the new studio won't make the same mistake!)
But totally recommend most of their games for the story alone
Maybe! I'm just a little wary given how it ended. I was in college studying game dev at the time Telltale went down, and as someone with a specific interest in writing and narrative design, I was following it closely. Seems like the later games stopped having choices matter nearly as much. I might wait a bit for the new studio to release the new games and see what people say before pulling the trigger.
You might enjoy I Was A Teenage Exocolonist? I wrote a bit about it here.
I think I've heard of that one! Thanks, I'll add it to the list!
The Sorcery series is a choose-your-own-adventure type of roleplaying game. Lots of fun decision points! Suzerain also comes to mind. That's part roleplaying, part political sim. Engrossing and very rich in detail.
This is a bit different speed but a game like RimWorld works pretty well in groups from my experience. I used to do exactly that with a group of 3 or 4 friends.
RimWorld is a colony sim where you can design your colonists (each of your friends can have their own character each with their own skills and traits) andanage the colony.
As the player you plan out base design, set things to build, things to craft, etc and your colonists will complete their tasks. Colonists are mostly autonomous but you can give specific orders. The game is also full of random events that can really change how you manage the colony. You also have full control to pause and speed up times. When I played through with my friends we would talk about what's going on and decide what to do or where to build as a group.
I can definitely see some chaos from seeing what happens to our colonist characters. Pretty sure I've heard some wild stuff can happen in Rimworld. Onto the list it goes!
To add to my previous post, I realize you said discord streaming. If you don't mind adult content (which is skippable, iirc), then I recommend some of the VNs with tactical combat systems such as Kamidori Alchemy Meister and Eiyuu Senki. Kamidori isn't allowed on twitch so I didn't think to mention it earlier.
I played some of the Myst games in a group, a long time ago. I think deciding where to go next, working on puzzles together, and having different group members that have different strengths make these a pretty fun collaborative experience.
I think #2 (Riven) and #3 (Exile) seem to have the best balance for a group.
Ooh, thanks! Those games are supposed to be classics, so this would be a great way to try them!
I suggest AI: The Somnium Files. It's a visual novel, and sort of an adventure one as well, according to Wikipedia at least.
That is honestly one of my all-time favorite games. The sequel is the first time I ever ordered a collector's edition because I enjoyed the original that much. Thanks to the nonlinear narrative, it's absolutely the kind of game I could use for this.
Game writer here: one of my favourites is Save the Date, a really fun and fairly bite-sized take on dating sims. Don't read anything about it, go in blind. There's nothing violent or NSFW, so there's no need to worry about that, but be prepared to do a few playthroughs!
But if you're okay with NSFW...
Ladykiller in a Bind is one of my favourite games of all time. It's got wickedly sharp writing and some of the best narrative design you'll ever see. It's available on Steam and Itch, can't recommend it enough.
Thanks, I'll add it to the list! I think I've seen people recommend it before back on reddit. The fact it's free just makes it even better!