How do you track semantic plot holes in massive branching scripts?
Hi everyone! I work as a data scientist and occasionally play visual novels in my free time. I really love when the player's choice influence the story like in Fate or Steins Gate. However, sometimes I notice that for example in chapter 2 of some game I was mean to a character and then in chapter 3-4, this character behaves the same way as if I was nice. I think it ruins the perception of player's choice.
So, I was wondering how authors keep track of all branches and specific player choices. Do you maintain a massive personal wiki/bible, or do you just rely on aggressive proofreading and alpha testers?
I’m currently experimenting with a parsing engine that builds an NLP-driven semantic continuity graph of a script to automatically flag tone drift and narrative contradictions before compilation. I'd love to know:
1)Is plot-hole/continuity tracking an actual time-sink in your development flow, or do you have a system that already works perfectly?
- What's the hardest logic bug you’ve had to untangle in a branching narrative?