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inhuman-obey-me · 1 year

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If obey me wasnt a otome game what do you think will be different? And it makes me laugh that we are romanticising the devil which just seems so funny. Ik its a game but its just a funny concept

Okay but we love romancing the devil. More games should let us smooch Lucifer/other demon royalty. Please.

But this is a fun thing to think about!

(long game design rambles below the cut)

Even if Obey Me was still a visual novel game but without the romance, there is a lot that could change. We'd have a lot less of the characters vying for the player's attention, meaning the game would also be less prone to gag-type situations and allow for a consistently more serious storyline. It could be something like Twisted Wonderland, where the MC still has a role but it isn't as big nor central to the conflicts and problems of the story, thus playing more of an observer role.

The devs actually mentioned in early videos that when making the game, they had to scale back some of their ideas because they "didn't want it to feel too much like an adventure game" and still focus on the romance since it was a dating sim. Interestingly, Nightbringer seems to be testing the waters on this now and going back to a more dramatic story, so maybe we'll actually get to see that kind of adventure vibe now!

If the game was still following the main points of gathering pacts with the demon brothers...well, maybe we really are just becoming Solomon 2.0 at that point, new title is Solomon Simulator 2023 BC. But really, there would probably be less of MC playing therapist and more letting us have adventures of our own, exploring the world in various ways. Hell, MC might even be living in Purgatory Hall with the other exchange students instead of oddly being the only one put in the House of Lamentation. And this more adventurous theming could also be reflected in events, with more AU themes (Pirates, Spies, Circus, etc) that allow for more fun event storylines that aren't so focused on "romantic" situations and fanservice moments.

Going along with that, we would likely get more character variety in a non-otome game, since it wouldn't be trying to make every character (except Luke) dateable or potentially future-dateable -- less ikemen, more non-male characters, maybe more body diversity! And because there'd be no expectation of romance, you could have more outright hostility too. Maybe Mephisto and Raphael could have actually fulfilled the more aggressive or antagonistic personalities they had been hinted to have! There might also be more of a canonical MC character personality too, since part of the reason it's left more open and vague is to let players self-insert for the romance. This could allow for more narration from MC as well.

Now, if we step away from the Visual Novel style, that could open up a whole new world of possibilities! Imagining OM as more of a fantasy RPG? Super fun thought.

Other characters could potentially be playable, and if so, we could perhaps see more of the characters without MC needing to be in the scene, allowing for more interactions between different characters outside the current format of occasional side/hard-mode stories.

We'd probably get a truer combat system too, even if we were just fighting random minor demons or something like the Little D's in Nightbringer's gameplay. (Apparently the only instruction the team got in making the original game was "it needs dance battles"???) The characters' skills could also be more unique to the characters since it wouldn't have to fit the rhythm/dance game format, so stuff like summoning Lotan could actually be a useful powerful thing instead of just a running gag! In fact, we could see way more powerful magic from all the characters, which would be great since OM as it is now just always conveniently forgets that these are extremely powerful demons for the sake of setting up random shenanigan situations.

A combat mechanic could also add to the narrative design of the game -- what better way to show us what a scary and dangerous place the Devildom is than to have the player have to defend themselves while navigating through it? Or imagine the characters' relationships with one another actually mattering to the gameplay, like Beel and Belphie getting a boost if they're in the party together, as with Fire Emblem's support system! Simeon being a healing angel member of the party at the start and then actually tangibly losing that as a combat ability when that part of the story happened? It would certainly hit different, that's for sure.

The story also wouldn't be confined to the 20-lesson format in that case, which could give more room for fleshing things out properly. And with a freer adventure-based storyline, it might also be a lot less focus on RAD, or maybe it wouldn't be a school setting at all! Perhaps it would focus more on the inter-realm diplomacy parts of the story. Plus, some aspects could get relegated to more environmental storytelling and interactable objects around you, leaving character interactions freed up to focus more on actual events going on.

And speaking of character interactions, there could also be a more complex and interesting system for relationships in a more RPG style game. Instead of an intimacy bar that only ever goes up and doesn't directly impact story events, you could have a more complex interaction event system, like in Telltale stuff or Mass Effect. That could still include romance without it being the central point of the game, and maybe they would also hold grudges over certain decisions, which could feed back into the combat system somehow. Unlike now, you wouldn't be able to go back to change your decisions, but there's a lot of replayability potential there.

Of course, the downside to all that it's way more work to make...game dev is hard, after all! So updates would be slower, it'd probably cost a whole lot more, and it's probably not feasible as a mobile game anymore then. But hey, a game like that would be pretty damn cool.

#yes mod chaos did study game dev in college; why do you ask?#but solmare please license someone to make this #or at least solmare please learn what narrative design is #learn a lot of things actually #we wanna kiss demons but we want to do other cool shit too #obey me #obey me!#obey me swd #obey me shall we date #omswd #obey me nightbringer #ask and ye shall be answered #ask and ye shall receive (essays)

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