This isn’t a question I get asked very often, but I think it’s one more people should be asking. I’ve alluded to or briefly explained it at other times in other places, but I’d like to take a moment here to talk, definitively, about the purpose of MVOL. It is my intention that every decision I make about the design of MVOL stems from this purpose.
So what is the purpose of MVOL? To help you get to know Lith. Lith is my original character, and he existed long before MVOL. If you’d like to learn more about his creation and development, you can check out my post on the origin of both Lith and MVOL.
Lith is, to a fair extent, a living, breathing person. He has personal conflicts, fears, desires, prejudices, hopes, flaws, virtues, highs and lows, and an honest personality. I can’t say that he is absolutely sentient, but I’ve put a lot of work into making him feel like a real person. And I believe that it is a worthy goal for a game to just try to get to know Lith, and to explore who he is.
Of course, while that is the first goal, the second goal is to make the game an enjoyable, emotional, stimulating, and memorable experience. I will certainly try to design the game to be these things, so long as they support the first goal. But I do not intend to add anything to the game that does not support the primary goal of the game. Anything that failed to do so would be clutter, and it would not be worth the time it took to write and code it, maybe not even worth the time it took for you, the player, to read it.
So what does it mean to get to know Lith? A few things. First, you need to be able to talk to him. Get an idea of how he thinks, and what his priorities are. You need to know how he acts, from instincts on up. What he wants, and what he’s afraid of. But I’m talking about his identity on the most primal level. The little details can be nice– what he watches, what he plays, his favorite foods, the car he drives, and so on. A little of that can add fidelity, but it’s not really who he is. If you plucked him out of the world he lived in and put him in a different one, some things would become meaningless, and some things would persist. How does he act when there is nothing to get in the way or distract– when it’s just him… and you?
So, my reasoning behind the basic premise of MVOL as it’s presented may be growing a little clearer now. The “first half” of the game –the content up to and including the collars– is an exploration of Lith’s basic personality and how he interacts with different people. Choose the person you want to be through how you act, and you can see how Lith reacts to that kind of person. Each of us have different faces we present for different people, and it is through appreciating these different facets of the mind that we can hope to understand a person more deeply.
But MVOL takes it a step further in the “second half” of the game. After you’ve gotten a collar for Lith and established the nature of your relationship, you start to more actively explore and interact with some of the fundaments of his personality. This will become clearer with time, but these deeper facets are better drawn out with external stimulus. They’re hard to really tackle with just conversation (and sex) alone.
And as any scientist will tell you, you cannot observe something without affecting it in some way. In interacting with Lith, you are manipulating him, encouraging certain traits. Lith has several conflicts within himself, though one lies most grievous at his very core. There are many ways that he could resolve these issues, and many of them have festered for much too long. With your help, over the course of this game, you will resolve these issues, one way or another. Each of these resolutions is an ending.
That’s right. The game ends when you find Lith some kind of resolution for his internal conflicts. Some resolutions are certainly better than others, but many will simply be another possibility, another “good answer,” depending on your point of view. This game is not about direct good and bad, and it is my hope that by the time you’ve explored the options available to Lith to find stability and happiness, you will learn something about your own internal conflicts.
My Very Own Lith is a game about exploring a soul, and in the process, bringing it to redemption. Get to know him, and help him. Have fun, feel things, and grow. This is what I ask of you, the player, and it is what I align every word I write on this project toward accomplishing.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for playing.
Lithier 
The Resolution for the internal conflicts is at once what I feel I want from this game, and also what I feel to be missing from it. We can get Lith to show us different sides of himself, and do with them what we like, but you don’t actually have any lasting impact most of the time. You don’t feel like what you’ve done changed the way Lith thinks about himself, or his issues. You still feel he’s the same when you collar him as when you started.
And you actually acknowledging that with the “first half” and “second half” stuff is actually heartening. It gives me the impression that you are aware of what I want from the game, and moreover, want the same thing. The final conclusion of the game, by actually making a change (or more) to Lith. It’s just not written yet. Right?
Naw, I’ve actually got the whole rest of the game written out and sitting in a big ol’ text file, I’m just milking this out for as long as I can :p
But yes x3 I’d originally concepted MVOL as just this “first half” of the game, but at some point along the way I decided to expand it into something more, and to finally give Lith (and all of us that are invested in him) some resolution for all his stupid problems. The difference, I suppose, is that one was something of a “simulator” or almost “sandbox” experience, but what I’m aiming for now is to actually give the game a story, and a conclusion. I think my overall method for giving the game “endings” may prove a little unusual, and uniquely suited to video games. I’m interested to see how much people hate me for it :3
You mention wanting to get to know the “real” Lith outside the distractions of a given environment/time period/etc. but couldn’t one argue that those things shape us to be the people we are today in part? If I grew up somewhere else and had different friends that would shape me at least a little. Granted that is a small nitpick and one could easily just say, “Imagine Lith as he is now was plucked up and dropped off with the player” but it seemed to be worth mentioning considering the importance placed on getting to know the “true” Lith but also having that Lith away from many of the things that make him, him.
I realize that all my comments must seem rather negative since they take a small part of what you say and laser focus on that. I just wanted to say that I think you do great work and think the majority of what you’re saying is fairly spot on. :3
Wait wait, I can beat that tiny nitpick with an even smaller one! The idea of not being able to observe something in science without changing it most strictly applies more on a quantum level where you can’t know the velocity and location of a particle at the same time since measuring one changes the other. I mean, theoretically you could observe some birds in nature without changing them if they didn’t know you were there. >.>
NO
YOU HAVE STOLEN THE LIGHT FROM THOSE BIRDS, IT WOULD HAVE SHONE ON A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER BEHIND YOU
YOU MONSTER
i mean i woulda compared, say, observing the stars, which in some cases means you’re observing something that literally doesn’t exist anymore
pretty sure birds always know we’re there, they’re just like “oh geez this shmuck again just ignore him”
And yet you kitties insist on trying to sneak up on them anyways to nom them.
[…] So! Today’s subject is the answer to the question: “Can I help write My Very Own Lith?” The short answer is, “no, but thank you very much.” The long answer delves into what MVOL is and why it is that way, which I’ll explain briefly here, but if you’d like to learn more, check out my earlier post, What is MVOL supposed to be? […]
[…] is an exploration of Lith, my original character, in every aspect. For the long version, check out “What is MVOL supposed to be?” This goal is what drives my choices in designing the game, and it’s important to me that […]