Hello! This is Doris, our team’s artist and programmer, writing on our approach to dialogue options and choice in Breathless Winds. I’m speaking for Amelia to some extent, but our approach to both the writing and the look of the game is something we coalesced on together, so it’s safe for me to talk about.

Choices are something that pop up often throughout the routes of Breathless Winds, like they do in our demo. If you played the demo, though, you might have noticed that the love interest Poppy chooses to pursue is determined by a straight-forward prompt, rather than drawing from any of the choices made previously (we only let you flirt with Rue so Poppy can embarrass herself).

So what’s the point of having choices at all?

Ultimately, we don't want people playing Breathless Winds to think of the choices mechanically, or in terms of "right" and "wrong" answers. Dialogue options are a tool we use to create fun scenarios or interesting moments, and we believe attaching them to alternate endings will naturally discourage players from taking them at face value.

All that being said, when writing choices into Breathless Winds, we think of them as having two purposes, varying in degree from case to case: immersion and player expression.

Early on in one route, Poppy checks in on Gallardia and finds that he’s having trouble getting his younger siblings ready for the day, and Poppy is faced with a series of choices as she has to navigate dealing with the children. By making the player think about how they would deal with a particular problem or help with a homework question neither you or Poppy know the answer to, we want to put you in Poppy’s shoes as she finds herself in a hectic situation.

Another type of choice that comes up often in the game is like one seen in the demo: “Flirt with Rue” or “Be serious”. When we offer this kind of choice to the player, we’re hoping to ask “What do you want out of this scene?” Picking “Be serious” will give the player some interesting characterization and background info from Rue, while having Poppy flirt will give you a cute character interaction.

Other choices will ask the player whether they find a character trustworthy, or what an emotional beat makes you feel - none of these choices are so disparate as to subvert Poppy’s characterization, but we want to give the player a chance to express what they’re thinking about where the narrative is at.

This kind of interaction might come across as superfluous to some players, and maybe you think of it this way. In my mind, though, a lot of what goes into making a story work is tone and pacing. Giving the player a chance to stop and think about something going on in the story, and have other characters react to those thoughts, can change how a moment lands.

Approaching choices this way also allows us to write branches where Poppy can say things that a character dislikes. I think it’s natural that most players won’t want to upset the love interest by default, but in any relationship it’s normal to have times where people disagree and it’s not the end of the world. And so we can explore this through choices and not just the route’s greater arc.

Anyway, that’s our thought process. I’ve read a lot of discussion on how visual novels are written, and it seems this is a topic everyone has an opinion on! However you feel, I hope you’ll enjoy playing our game and messing around with our characters. (Please laugh at Gallardia’s jokes. He has a lot going on.)

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