We had an interesting discussion on Twitter about making choices in games, and how games let you know about the consequences of your actions. A few patterns emerged:
1. No indication
Some players prefer to figure the consequences of your choices out
entirely by yourself. There is no in-game marker that tells you that
your choices have resulted in a certain outcome.
This is the approach that games like Undertale take, which can have a strong impact if you do manage to immerse yourself in the game’s story. It results in greater engagement because you have to think deeply to figure out the links between your choices and the consequences.
On the downside, you might not even be aware that you made a choice, or you might feel less of a sense of agency (aka the illusion of being railroaded).
2. Instant, explicit indication
In Dream Daddy, if you choose an option that your love interest likes, their sprite will immediately explode with hearts and eggplants and all sorts of other colourful shapes. Very obvious, instant indicator, which is very user-friendly since you can immediately reload and choose the “right answer” if you didn’t manage it the first try.
Games like Ladykiller in a Bind skip the reloading step by having the consequences of the choice displayed directly with the choice. According anecdotal evidence by the developer, Christine Love, this resulted in players making bold choices that they wouldn’t normally make, and having more fun simply roleplaying their character, because they weren’t worried about the outcome in terms of mechanics.
3. Ambiguous indication
In Cinders by @moacube, whenever you reach a scene or a piece of dialogue that was influenced by your previous choices, there is a little branching icon in the corner of the screen to indicate that - but there is nothing telling you exactly what choices you made that led to this particular outcome. However, the simple fact that a scene was influenced by a previous choice is in itself a clue. It helps you explore all the various branching paths, come up with theories about the consequences of your choices, and makes it feel like your choices do have weight.
We tried something similar with Strayed, our dark interactive story about a lonely drive through the woods, where we underlined parts of the story that were changed due to previous choices. Even though some players liked it, the feature didn’t play well with our text-based format, and so we might be revising the feature or making it optional in future updates to the game.
Which of the above choice structures do you prefer, and why? Are there any other ways that games deal with revealing the consequences of your choices?
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