| The choices only get harder afterwards. |
Many games come out with selling points that they will have difficult decisions for the player to make; Mass Effect 3, the Fallout series, Infamous, etc. (I could be completely wrong on this, but stick with me). However, making an honest to God difficult choice in a game can be, well, difficult. The choice can sometimes end up being too black and white, or such a useless choice that it doesn't even matter at all. What are some ways to make your choices difficult and still compelling? I'm going to use The Walking Dead series by Telltale Games as an example of difficult decisions done right. In an effort to keep my blog down from a novel, I'll be keeping this brief.
A key to difficult decisions is that said decision helps define your character. Another is that both choices come with good and bad consequences, along with the fact that the story can continue with either choice. Nothing screams "bad choice" than one that sends you to a dialog tree saying, "try again". One example from the Walking Dead is a dilemma between two factions in the survivors camp; one faction wants to leave the camp to go to a better area. Another faction wants to stay in the camp, as it has been proven to be safe and is the best way to survive. The game has set up that both people representing the ideas have their good points and bad points; neither one of them is the clear winner, or at least in my case, I didn't see a clear winner. Whichever choice you decide defines the character you're playing, Lee, both to himself and to the others. The choice is making a statement. That choice is then carried on, and people remember what you did, giving your choices more weight. Characters in the game bring it up later when other decisions are being made, making you realize your choices have an impact on the story.
| Small talk or cursing someone out. You decide. |
This is another big point with difficult decisions. If they're not going to impact your story at all, then they're not difficult; they're weightless. Of course, the player may have difficulty making the decision at that point, but when they realize that nothing has changed because of that decision... well, then the rest of their decisions in the game won't be taken seriously. The Walking Dead has a story that has to progress from environment piece to environment piece, so your choices don't necessarily change the story dramatically, but it changes how the characters in the story react to you. The game, being a very character driven story, feels hugely different when you know a character is reacting to you based off of the choices you made. Your choices feel important, and your future choices force you to pause and think, is this really what I want to be known for?
To wrap things up with this, either choice should lead to an equally interesting result. They don't have to be the exact same event, but the player shouldn't feel cheated that they made a specific choice. I can't remember the game I played, but I remember I made a certain choice that ended a mission. I found out if I had made the other choice, I would have gone on to another ten extra minutes in the mission to see a cool scene; needless to say, I felt like I had made the "wrong" choice because I didn't get to see anything cool. This can be a difficult thing to back as a developer, but it'll be rewarding to your players when they discover that both choices lead to something interesting.
This theory, much like my previous two theories, is far from complete; that's why it's a theory and not a law. It could very well be that I look back on this in a few years, months, weeks, or days and see that something I said was incomplete or outright wrong. But that's the beauty of learning - you're always going forward and trying to understand more. I love designing choices in games for players, and it's something I hope I can continue to do and to refine; it's never going to be perfect, but that's what makes things interesting - it can always get better! I hope people reading this impromptu trilogy enjoyed it and got something out of it. If not, I promise I'll do better in my next trilogy, which will help expand on the backstories of several major and minor characters in this series. I will also go back and edit these past series of posts to be done in the way I had originally envisioned it but could not deliver due to budget restraints.
| Lucas'ed. |
I think it's challenging as you said, to do branching content based on player decisions. Not only is half or more of the content effectively never likely to be seen by players (which seems a massive luxury of time and resources, especially in an MMO), but even when given an A,B,C choice to affect storyline, players will feel constrained that they can't do option d, or e.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that occurred to me as a (relatively) simple solution is to focus these choices on side-mission or optional content.
Make the player based choices relevant not to the storyline so much as the character themselves. I think this goes hand in hand with the making-player-feel-heroic/villainous by presenting them with a way to flesh out their actions.
Do you just save the hostages or do you go back in and try and defuse the bombs to save the building itself? It can be represented in game as a "Mission complete" but with optional after-mission goals. Ideally they'd trigger an extra thanks from your contact or dole out a little clue or piece of otherwise inaccessible lore.
Bigger choices are harder to implement of course, but I think even small choices reward the players by placing a little more in-game character definition into their hands.