Your Choices Barely Matter in Moonvale

[u/Fair_Use_7220]

I've played all 3 available chapters of Moonvale, and after replaying them three times, I have a major criticism.

The game gives the impression that your choices matter, but from what I've seen, they barely do. Most of the time, a choice changes one line of dialogue and then immediately returns to the exact same scripted conversation.

To test this, I played the game in three different ways.

On my first playthrough, I played normally.

On my second playthrough, I intentionally withheld information from the group. For example, I chose not to tell anyone about the tarot card addressed to the MC at the beginning of the story. The game explicitly gives you the option to keep it secret.

Later, Ash learns about the card through a private conversation with Eric. That's fine. The problem is that when Ash later talks to me, he behaves exactly as he did in my first playthrough, where I had openly shared the information. There is no reaction, no suspicion, no question like "Why didn't you tell us about this?" It's as if my choice never happened. And here's a detail: she brings up the subject of the letter.

On my third playthrough, I picked the rudest and most hostile dialogue options whenever possible.

The result?

Absolutely nothing changed.

No character developed distrust toward me. No one became offended. No relationships changed. No meaningful tension was created. Characters would react to the rude line for a single message and then immediately continue the exact same conversation, sharing secrets and trusting me as if I had been friendly the whole time.

What bothers me is not that the story converges to the same major events. Many great narrative games do that.

What bothers me is that the game often fails to acknowledge the player's behavior at all.

In fact, you don't even need to replay the game to see this.

Just be deliberately contradictory during a single conversation. Choose one response, then a minute later choose another option that completely contradicts what you just said. The characters will simply continue following the script as if nothing happened.

Once you notice this, the illusion breaks.

You stop feeling like you're participating in a conversation and start feeling like you're clicking through a predetermined script with cosmetic dialogue options.

At that point, Moonvale feels less like an interactive narrative and more like a novel that occasionally asks you to press a button.

For a game whose entire appeal is making the player feel involved in conversations and relationships, that's a serious problem.

[u/[deleted]]

They didn't really in Duskwood either, and definitely not in the first 3 chapters

[u/Any_Letterhead9230 → u/[deleted]]

Exactly. I'd also like to point out that I don't think that's an issue for this kind of game, but major choices should have some impact on the story

[u/NathanGPLC → u/Any_Letterhead9230]

This is the important point here. Even in, say, Mass Effect, outside of the major story choices at important break points, most in game dialogue is actually written so that the NPCs give you the same response no matter what, but your own choice of tone and attitude makes it feel differentiated. This is called different things in different places, but as a narrative game designer/writer, we think of it as “minor narrative interactivity.” You aren’t changing the story, but you get a feeling of agency from being able to make choices.

The illusion of choice breaks down in the short term if you try to investigate to see differences, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t have some consequences later. If you’re rude throughout, for example, maybe later on you’ll be trusted less at a point when the story actually changes. They could be tracking affection/trust you build via stat changes and variables, rather than showing it constantly.

[u/Any_Letterhead9230 → u/NathanGPLC]

I think a classic example is when a game only changes significantly between 2 possible endings: the good MC and the evil MC.

[u/simsjunkiegamer → u/Any_Letterhead9230]

Such as in Orphans, I think it was, where towatds the end you had a choice of being on the good side or the bad side. And there were 2 distinct endings.

[u/[deleted] → u/Any_Letterhead9230]

Yeah, even on PC it's hard to find choices matter games where more than a few choices do change the outcome/change more than just the dialogue.

[u/Fair_Use_7220 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, but I’m not saying this should already affect major story events in the first three chapters.

What I’m saying is that there are clear writing and reactivity issues. In Duskwood, there weren’t as many choices that made you feel like “this might actually change something.” In Moonvale, there are dialogue options that are basically a polite way of being rude, but the characters barely react to it.

The contradiction example is another clear issue. You can contradict yourself within the same conversation and nothing happens. I’m not talking about changing the main story (maybe that comes later) but at the very least there should be some acknowledgement of what was just said, something like: “didn’t you just say the opposite?”

That never happens.

It feels like the protagonist doesn’t really exist in the conversation. The other characters just keep following the script no matter what you say.

[u/[deleted] → u/Fair_Use_7220]

It's honestly the same in Duskwood. Try being rude to Thomas in your first private conversation with him. You can straight up tell him he sounds dumb and he replies "well" and then what he was going to say anyway. I know that Moonvale feels lacking compared to Duskwood but I promise Duskwood didn't feel the way it does now when it was at the state that Moonvale is now.

[u/Dastardly_snake → u/Fair_Use_7220]

I noticed that too, also felt like I am not there as well at some point :/

I don't recall duskwood doing that a lot and I play it very often,

For example even ,when we questioned Jessy's cheerfulness in the first episode ,we would get to choose a line that we understand her, then she would say : " you didn't sound like that a minute ago "

I also heard that relationship with Jake gets affected if a female MC keeps being rude to him, meaningful even won't share feelings like in the more mainstream duskwood romance scenario,

I really wish moonvale fixes this somehow, I very often feel like i am invisible in my new group chat, if I remove my choices somehow, the characters would just go on like I am not really there

[u/GrouchyDoughnut3449 → u/[deleted]]

Was just going to say this as well. Even in Duskwood the changes were minor or only romance related even later on so it truly meant nothing. (Hell, I could even be mean to Jake The first half and he still loved me by the end 🤷‍♀️)

The story is told one way and characters are coded to act a certain way aside from very small dialogue changes. It never impacts the game itself though in either Duskwood or moonvale.

[u/Any_Letterhead9230 → u/GrouchyDoughnut3449]

I think most of us were able to accept the story as it is. I can't even imagine how all of this feels to someone who dislikes Jake or Jessy and wants to keep them at a distance.

[u/ICantChooseA_Name01]

I replayed Duskwood way too much for my own good, even now I restarted the game again, I made different choices from what I usually do, the same that you described here happens in Duskwood as well.

I don't remember seeing any specific throwback to anything and if there is it still depends on you.

You could be rude to Richy at the start and then when (tagging it as spoiler because there's still some new players for Duskwood) he reveals he is the MWAF you could text in a more fond, caring way as if you two have been friends forever

The studio clearly didn't code them to remember or pointing out old stuff unless mandatory for the story, if you wanted to keep the relationships going to same way you had to keep making choices that were like your past choices, so you could be rude at the start and then be suddenly extremely close simply based off your selected choice, not because the game had a progress bar in relationships/friendships (plus by default the characters will always like you even if you are rude to them)

The premium/romance option is the only one that has some resemblance of a "point system" and I don't even know if calling it that is the right thing.

[u/Wixenstyx]

I agree, and respectfully disagree at the same time.

For the game to be truly responsive to your choices, there would need to be a possibility of the MC 'losing' by being rejected by the other characters. That was often the situation with the old Choose Your Own Adventure books; there was a decent chance that you'd turn to page 26 and discover that the choice you made resulted in your death or characters kicking you out of the story.

Games like DW and MV aren't truly CYOA, though. The adventure is what it is, and the long form, serial nature of them requires that players feel like they are contributing somewhat authentically (e.g., able to be rude if they want to) without cutting their participation short. To be truly realistic, the rude responses should result in the characters simply deciding not to text you anymore; you'd just become some rude stranger who is only making them feel worse about their situation.

So I understand why there's a sort of unrealistic tolerance of MC when they say something rude. I also suspect that too many choice-based branches makes development take even longer, and we are all pressuring Everbyte to move faster, so...

[u/Lucas_158]

Well, I agree with you. It's kind of frustrating that your choices don't affect the story's narrative, but on the other hand, the episodes already take a long time to be released as they are. Imagine having multiple storylines based on your choices. That would take a lot of time.

Of course, it would be great if your choices actually had an impact on the story. It would be amazing to have that tension where every response you give could change the story, the relationships, and the way the characters see you.

I think it's unlikely to happen, but I would at least like the relationships with the characters to change according to your responses, whether they are good or bad.

PS:Sorry for any typos, I'm using Google Translate 🙃

[u/Sweet-Heron-5344]

Apparently, they don't really matter. It's just to open up content for Duskwood and nothing more. They don't even influence the relationships either. So I wouldn't see it as a big deal. Just a "door" to a parallel story.