Tools to help you map out the story paths

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

The threads about MangaGamer and how people need walk-thrus got me thinking— what tools/techniques do people use to map out a game? You know, to make sure you got all the CGs and Endings and whatnot?

Lately, I’ve been using Personal Brain version 4 ( you can find it, for free, over at http://www.thebrain.com). I do a screen cap of the choice screen, flip over into Personal Brain, create a thought summarizing the situation, paste in the screen cap as the icon, and then create a thought for the choice I take, and then go back to the game. This gives me the entire flow of the paths, allows for me to merge various paths that end up at the same endings, and allows for me to note identical events in different paths (using jump connections) so I can examine by simply looking at the paths which choices affect which events happening or not and which ending/story I end up with. There’s some advanced features to improve the usage as well.

Prior to that, I was using personal wikis. But PB does extremely well at mapping out flows (click streams, code, data, etc), and with the ability to put a screenie of the choice point right there in the flow— flawless victory!

If you don’t have a system, check it out. If you do, hey, let us know your system.

#2

O.O trail and error… I use a Pencil… Map what choices I made and which lead me to the same spots… Make guesses and go… but know i feel really really Stupid.

#3

I used to just use ABC Flowcharter for that. Nowadays I just play the games with kouryaku (capture) guides.

#4

I use my head and something called “memory” :slight_smile:

#5

I write notes in a notebook of every decision i made, and i write points about them, like decision a. will take me to point b., decision c. will be GAME OVER, and so on. :roll:

If everything fails and i don’t get the ending i want, there’s allways the walkthru. :lol:

#6

I usually just use my memory, but if a game is too long and complicated for me to do trial and error over and over, I’ll just use a guide. I don’t have the spare time to figure out how to get all the endings on my own.

#7

same here. I simply make multiple saves is all.

#8

I think the OP was more talking about games that are a little bit meaner than the average; have you played ONE or Kagetsu Tohya by any chance? Just using saves and your memory can make that a little difficult!

#9

I made a flowchart in MS Excel that I use when playing games with a lot of choices.

#10

Personal Brain, eh? Sounds hi-tech. I use (or used to) the simple paper and pencil method. But after awhile I found I was doing more bookkeeping than game-playing. Now I just prefer to wander thru a game and see what happens. I’m not in a hurry to clear all the screens in one weekend or anything like that,you know. After all, for what these games cost, I figure I might as well take my time using it up. However, I will admit that I have resorted to using a cheat every now and then. Mainly when I really really want to see a particular girl naked.

#11