Video game creators should consider offering more complex depictions of interactive romance, designer Michelle Clough said in a talk at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Why it matters: More interesting in-game depictions of love, flirtation and courtship could attract players who crave more than the medium’s current simplistic approaches.
The details: Clough critiqued “kindness coins,” a common transactional form of game romance, arguing for more complex systems tied to chemistry and attraction.
- Blockbusters such as Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey use the “kindness coins” approach, in which players romantically engage computer-controlled characters with “nice” interactions — usually simple dialogue choices or the giving of a gift — and expect eventual reciprocity.
- Player choices gradually fill an invisible meter until the other character…
