IF Seal: What do you think about shapeshifting/customisable love interests?
Dear IF Seal,
I am writing an if for the first time and yet to release a demo. I have an idea on character customization that I haven't really seen in the many ifs I've played. I'm looking forward to writing it but also nervous on how it would be received, which is why I'm asking for your opinion. A bit of background, my if only has five deities as love interests (none of them are gendered, gender-locked, or gender flippable, but there are some gendered secondary character deities). Because of their supernatural nature, the love interests can choose how their human form manifests. Question: What do you think, as a player, about customizing the (human) looks of a love interest?
This one love interest is cheerful, energetic, always up for a new experience! But they have no real desires of their own, even though they are the deity of ambition. They don't care for a human form so I'm thinking their default could be mist or if needed, some animal form that can grab like an octopus (yes, this is also for the wanton ones who do-not-care-about-looks and who do-love-these-kinds-of-looks). If the MC chooses not to help them customize, but in the future they get into a serious romantic relationship, the LI would observe the preferences of the MC and make a human form based on that so that they could "properly" kiss. (If it matters, the LIs are really young for deities, so no age gaps with the human player, lol.)
I've been toying around with this idea and sometimes I think it's great and other times I feel like it's a terrible one. Flipping a coin is no help. I feel like I would be exposing some sort of hidden desire of my own in asking my if player friends so I'm too shy to mention it to them yet (⸝⸝⸝╸﹏╺⸝⸝⸝). If for some miracle, someone figured out the game's name, no need to mention it or me, but feel free to share your reactions on this, bc that is what I'm asking about.
No worries if you don't reply soon, take your time! Thank you ❤︎
Dear Customising Romance Friend,
Thank you for your patience! I hadn't reached your first message by the time your second one came in, so I am delighted to hear that you feel more confident in allowing flexibility in the romantic interests you are writing. I do hope that you have been having fun writing your new project and best of luck with it!
I do have a couple of additional thoughts about customisation to add, if I may share!
I believe your idea about shapeshifting gods sounds like it could be plenty of fun, especially for those folks who enjoy monster--ah, kissing. I prefer to eat octopi rather than kiss them but I know others will feel differently about such things.
I was interested in what you said about feeling shy about potentially revealing a hidden desire - perhaps it does to some degree, but we always reveal aspects of ourselves in some ways when we write. The romantic side of things may feel more revealing than other aspects of writing, but it would be wrong to assume that for example an author is Secretly Into every romantic trope they write, or would want anything like that in real life, or that they necessarily prefer one character over another based on what's in the game.
So I am sending you hope that you grow in confidence in sharing ideas with your IF playing pals.
Jumping off your query about customising looks, there is a fairly established practice of including gender-selectable characters in IF, with varying levels of variation between them; looks-selectable is less common. I think if you are dealing with shapeshifting creatures or gods, it seems fairly organic to handle in-game. The creature says "would you enjoy me having four arms right now so I can give you an even bigger hug" and the PC can say "yes, delightful" or "no, two arms is enough".
If everyone involved is human, and you're choosing "I want Aaron to have red hair" or "I'd prefer Aaron to have black hair" this feels like it makes less sense to me... perhaps because we are usually dealing with words rather than the mobile games where you can pick which sprite you find most attractive? Perhaps it's simply that I'm more used to the entirety of gender-selection rather than going for a more granular appearance-selection.
Something else I would add - again this isn't something you're doing, but I've seen it around the place so I believe it's worth considering: if you have one shapeshifting creature who's genderfluid among the rest of the cast being cis men or women (human or otherwise), please do consider including a nonbinary or genderfluid romantic interest who is not a shapeshifter as well. Shapeshifters engaging with gender is delightful, but it can be rather tiring when there are no non-shapeshifters also doing it.
Thank you for your questions! I ended up using them to go off on a few meandering tangents, but sometimes a swim in the sea goes that way.
Best wishes for your writing!