I was just fiddling with the Neverwinter Nights toolset and the thought crossed my mind. In many games (mostly RPGs) there's at least one fixed love interest. In some others like Harvest Moon there could be up to 20 of them... too many, I think.

So, what do you people think would be the ideal number of "romantic love interests" and what kind of people should they be?

None.

Depends on the kind of game you're trying to make. Honestly, I don't think 20 potential love interests is too many in a game like Harvest Moon. In the end you still get only one, and it's good to have variety in an open-ended game like that. For something like Neverwinter Nights, though, I don't see it as a necessity. I guess it depends on what kind of story you're trying to create and how likeable you can make the characters. Most JRPGs will have a main love interest, but they also have the design aesthetics and the linear story with emphasis on characterization to go along with it. Neverwinter Nights never struck me as the kind of game that had the design essentials for strong character attachment. You would need some incredibly strong writing in the campaign to pull it off.

For the purpouse of dramatic interesting plot, two.
That way the whole love triangle thing comes into play.

Atom Apple
None.

Agreed.

Depends entirely on the game. In Harvest Moon, the romance is a big part of the plot, but in quite a lot of the other games, the romance is inconsequential.

So the answer for me is few, or none at all.

Atom Apple
None.

Yeah, asking how many love interests should be in a game is like asking how many enemies should be in a game. It really depends on the game. I think it's safe to say not to have so much that you're drowning in them, but that just might be the point.

Every genre except Visual Novels: None.

Visual Novels: 25.

therealtj

Atom Apple
None.

It depends on the game. In Harvest Moon, they are way overdoing it recently. The romantic options should stay at the number they had in the best games (64 and Back to Nature), namely, five.

Why? How is more variety a bad thing? What do you lose by having more love interests in Harvest Moon? Having 5 or 50 doesn't change the game. Hell, they could make every character in town of the opposite gender and make them marriage candidates and it wouldn't change the game in any way.

If there's too many different choices, you lose the whole personal touch feel of the game. It's better when there are many different types of villagers. The girls you marry,their parents, your rivals, the mystic people, the townspeople. If the entire town was eligible, then marriage would overtake the well rounded feel of the game. Harvest Moon is best when it's fairly balanced between all of it's concepts. Planting, ranching, making friends, wooing girls, drinking. If there are too many choices, the balance shifts and pretty soon the whole game becomes about woo.

reader
If there's too many different choices, you lose the whole personal touch feel of the game. It's better when there are many different types of villagers. The girls you marry,their parents, your rivals, the mystic people, the townspeople. If the entire town was eligible, then marriage would overtake the well rounded feel of the game. Harvest Moon is best when it's fairly balanced between all of it's concepts. Planting, ranching, making friends, wooing girls, drinking. If there are too many choices, the balance shifts and pretty soon the whole game becomes about woo.

I guess part of that challenge would be choosing just one. There's not enough time to pay attention to all of them. And you can only marry one girl. Still, I wish they'd make it so the girl you marry changes some aspect of gameplay (for instance, if you marry certain girls you don't have to worry about farm chores since she may do them for you while marrying others might make prices for stuff cheaper at some stores...).

Lonnehart

reader
If there's too many different choices, you lose the whole personal touch feel of the game. It's better when there are many different types of villagers. The girls you marry,their parents, your rivals, the mystic people, the townspeople. If the entire town was eligible, then marriage would overtake the well rounded feel of the game. Harvest Moon is best when it's fairly balanced between all of it's concepts. Planting, ranching, making friends, wooing girls, drinking. If there are too many choices, the balance shifts and pretty soon the whole game becomes about woo.

I guess part of that challenge would be choosing just one. There's not enough time to pay attention to all of them. And you can only marry one girl. Still, I wish they'd make it so the girl you marry changes some aspect of gameplay (for instance, if you marry certain girls you don't have to worry about farm chores since she may do them for you while marrying others might make prices for stuff cheaper at some stores...).

Actually, in the N64 version, each of the wives did different chores. Maria would feed the chickens, Popuri would water the plants, etc. You are right, though. It'd be better if the shifts were more dramatic.

Maybe, but if the effect is too dramatic who you decide to marry in the game would largely be based on what chore you don't want to deal with, rather than any immersion in the game world.

If there are too many choices, the balance shifts and pretty soon the whole game becomes about woo.

Not really. Like Lonnehart said, in the end you can still ultimately only pick one. That doesn't throw off the balance in any way. As it is, You are already trying to befriend all of the villagers, which is basically the same thing as wooing, only without the cutscenes. When I was talking about making all of the villagers marriage candidates, that was more to make a point. Doing something like that wouldn't change the gameplay in any significant way. Aesthetics, perhaps, but the game would still play the same. You would just have to decide between wooing and befriending, just like you do already. So I still see no benefit in having less potential marriage candidates in a Harvest Moon game. I could see having more adding a bit of strategy and replay value to the game, but I don't see either as necessarily a bad thing.

Hell, you can marry any adult to any other adult in The Sims, and no one seems to miffed about that.