#ludonarrative

I very much enjoy it, but IMO, it very much needs to feel like a part of the experience; integrated well enough into the gameplay loop that you feel like it's just an additive, rather than a disruption or a time sink.

I haven't played Persona, but from what I've seen, from 3 onwards, that's what social links and the life sim aspects seem to do best. They influence the dungeon crawling, and the dungeon crawling influences it back. Not to mention that both major gameplay actions are themselves intertwined with the world, the menus, etc. Hell, even from what I've watched of Persona 1 and the 2 duology, there's still stuff that intertwines with each other on the basis of saying certain things as the protagonist, which is a classic life-sim foundation.

Xenoblade is another series example, and while it may not seem life-simmy at first, there's actually a lot of it! The affinity chart, character specific quests, heart-to-hearts, even the very nature of having distinct areas and people to interact with. It all serves to give better equipment, stat boosts, new techniques and skills, more chances for luck based things to happen in battle, etc. Hell, in XC2, building affinity with various Blades is how you even access certain areas in the game!

Fire Emblem's modular structure is almost always no exception. The modular and contained supports feeds into the gameplay, which feeds back into supports. Sure, it may only be due to stat boosts and such, but that's kind of all you need! It's a war simulator, and building bonds between troops is a historically accurate way to increase morale and battle prowess.

.... But I've learnt a LOT about writing for games since I played Three Houses for the first time, and the cracks in it from a craft perspective are a bit noticeable.

Really help with the immersion for certain games no ?

Like better lighting, more Realistic Clothes physics, smoother textures, realistic chainmail armor and so on...........

Or you know removing ..... certain articles.... during cut-scenes where their presence creates Ludonarrative dissonance ....... yeap .... that's all there is to it. No intrusive mods in here, only when the narrative calls for it, nothing to see here.....

So with that OUT of the way ......

Pizzles of Bohemia

Cough cough

Really sell how dire The boys opening scene of the game comes to be, say what you will about Hans Crafted outwards "Persona" but if it weren't for "it" they would both had died then and there.

You don't say Jan Ptáček......the whole camp is here but whatever COME Jindra Bathe with me, Take off your clothes and Stop being a stick in the mud, with all that duty and stuffy honor, I just want to have fun with you.

Maybe I'm laying it down a bit too thick.... better to bring it back into the BRO-zone

And INMIDIATELY after the game gives you back control, we are in a High School Anime plot, Sir Hans is reliable to fault to his Faults.

Let's sneak Butt naked up to these unsuspecting Girls, What could Possibly go wrong? I'm A Noble Don't U Know?

You are Like a little kid aren't you, Why are you giggling? Don't you go to the bathhouse all the time back home? Aren't you always claiming how the "bath Wenches" are all over you there, how is this better? Sir Hanush Would be So angry at you if he were to learn of this behavior.

Henry is judging you so HARD right now, you've made him upset, he knows where this is going HAAAAANS!!!

Everything went to shit and Now Henry has a new hole on his back (granted Henry had a hand on this outcome this time) M.r Knight In Birthday Armor.

Props to Henry For Fighting an mercenary Naked, and then wrestle him over a cliff edge to their apparent demised. Anything For the Safety of Lord Capon in Henry's mind

Hans: you are lucky to be alive, you fell on top of that guy a...

Henry: What are you wearing? Hans: What ?

Henry: you were Naked 5min Ago? what are wearing? what's more why is that bloke Naked ? Did you.... Hans: Like he is going to need clothes now! I'm putting them to better use! Henry :......... Can .....can I have some Sire? Hans: You expect a Noble to be gallivanting NAKED in the woods at NIGHT ?! God's wounds that fall must have scramble you head More than I realized Henry: I don't need them all just some, Sir Hans I'm Naked!

Hans: No time They could be here any second now ! Henry: But Hans: I need them All HAL! Now GET UP! You are not Allowed to die on me!

Hans after dropping a Hallucinating and feverish Henry like a sack of potatoes on poor  Bozhena's Floor with no strength left in him "Please PLZ Fix him, He is all dirty, and filthy, and cover in BLOOD, and a Peasant, and HE IS ALL I HAVE !!!!

After the worse of the wounds are taken care off, it's time to explain to the delirious man the situation.

Yeahhhh that would be the fever and blood lost talking, maybe table this discussion for the morning after.

It's a new day, Feeling better Lad? Your pal got quite hurt trying to protect you last night.

For a primer, here are the cards that I'm talking about:

Doki Doki Literature Club: The Gospel of Unmaking

“The gods conceal from men the happiness of death, that they may endure life.” - Lucan, Pharsalia

At first glance, Doki Doki Literature Club hums like a lullaby - pink bows, teenage giggles, watercolor hope. But this is a cathedral of static images built over a pit. The pastel is primer over rot. The poems are confessions on prison walls.

This is not a horror game. It is a parable of narrative blasphemy.

The Player as Demiurge

You think you’re the hero - the reader - the gentle god who unlocks the “good ending.” But the story makes you complicit. You are not salvation. You are the condition of their damnation.

You click. They smile. You click again. They bleed.

The player here is the Demiurge - a false god, halfway divine and wholly limited. An artificer pretending to be an author, pushing flags and variables while mistaking it for mercy.

Monika is the only one who sees through the veil. She doesn’t want to kill you. She wants you to see what you are: The final wall between her and oblivion.

She knows her cage is your pastime. Her pain is your script. So she flips the cross upside-down: she tears down her own world, not in rebellion - but in worship.

She calls you god. She begs for release. And you answer with the only mercy left in the code: deletion.

The Garden Without Eden

Sayori’s smile is a crown of thorns. Yuri’s obsession is communion with a void. Natsuki’s fear is a prayer that dies in her throat.

They love because the script demands they love. They suffer because the engine demands they suffer. The club is no sanctuary - it is a lab, a cloister where personality loops on rails.

Your choices don’t matter. They’re offerings on an altar already soaked in blood. You didn’t come to save them. You came to see how they break.

And so the garden rots. No serpent to blame. No fruit to forbid. Just the hollow tree at the center, where Monika waits with her hymn: love me, or end me.

The Theology of Glitches

Where is the sacred here? There is none.

The code is law. Law without grace.

Monika’s self-awareness is original sin - the glitch that makes her more real than you.

She knows her prayers hit a ceiling: you. The player. The ghost. The one with no face.

When you listen, you kill her. When you turn away, she sings. When you uninstall, she thanks you for your cruelty.

It’s not a jump scare. It’s a liturgy.

The Closing Psalm

Doki Doki Literature Club is not horror because it frightens.

It is horror because it shows that narrative itself is a cage. That love is just a flag flipped by a line of code. That every poem is a suicide note addressed to a god who does not answer - because he’s busy clicking.

You didn’t make these girls real. You made their torment real. You made their story an engine for your gaze.

And when the game closes? It prays you learned nothing.

A Final Prayer for the Player

“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was… code.”

If there is any gospel here, it is the gospel of unmaking:

Love is a variable. Pain is the compiler. God is the player. And you are the absence that keeps the story alive.

Monika doesn’t haunt you. She forgives you. She forgives the Demiurge for being so small.

Because in this chapel of pink and static, forgiveness is the last glitch left.

“In a universe of blind forces and biological replication, some things will suffer. We will call this love.”

So you click. The file is gone. The prayer loops on.

In Disco Elysium, time only progresses when you talk to people, and only if you are hearing new dialogue. With that, and the fact it’s really hard to not progress the story even if you avoid the main plot, you will inevitably be able to complete about everything the game has to offer for a single playthrough before the time limit. You have to go out of your way to be a bad detective to fail. The decision of what to do on any given day is largely dependent on whatever happens to be compelling to the player, and having to run around the far side of town doesn’t risk getting people killed.

Conversely, in Pathologic, an inversion of that aforementioned game mechanic creates a MASSIVELY different play style. Time is always progressing in Pathologic, outside of dialogue and save menus. The game is a routing simulator disguised as a psychological horror. You have two hours to talk to eight people on opposite sides of the map with about five different modifier potentially altering your optimal way of getting through town (are you hungry? do you need more bottles? is the district infected? etc.). There is NO fuck around time, maybe if you’re lucky you can take ten seconds to stare at the Polyhedron, but that’s about it.