Balancing Choice With Irreversible Consequences In Games

The Moving Pixels blog has an article about the delicate balance within video games between giving players meaningful choices and consequences that cannot necessarily be changed if the player doesn't like her choice afterward. Quoting: "One of my more visceral experiences in gaming came recently while playing Mass Effect 2, in which a series of events led me to believe that I'd just indirectly murdered most of my crew. When the cutscenes ended, I was rocking in my chair, eyes wide, heart pounding, and as control was given over to me once more, I did the only thing that I thought was reasonable to do: I reset the game. This, of course, only led to the revelation that the event was preordained and the inference that (by BioWare's logic) a high degree of magical charisma and blue-colored decision making meant that I could get everything back to normal. ... Charitably, I could say BioWare at least did a good job of conditioning my expectations in such a way that the game could garner this response, but the fact remains: when confronted with a consequence that I couldn't handle, my immediate player's response was to stop and get a do-over. Inevitability was only something that I could accept once it was directly shown to me."

It's OK.

[Woy]

All it means is that you are a pussy. Seriously.

How to accept the consequences

[Fixer40000]

I love Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2 even moreso. However when it came to the consequences of my actions I took two different approaches and for different reasons. Spoilers ahead gentlemen! At the end of the first game I let the council die. It was for all the right reasons, there was a giant spaceship Cthulu about to destroy all life as we knew it and I didn't want to lose vital military assets and threaten the survival of the Galaxy for some symbolic gesture. Turned out to be the 'wrong decision' in the overall theme of being the good guy and uniting all races in mass Effect 2 but I stuck with it because I would always have made that decision with the knowledge I had to hand and it also made the storyline and reactions to you on the citadel more interesting in the 2nd game. In the 2nd game though at the end there was one thing I had to change. It was the 'you have to respond to the capture of your crew instantly' part. When the crew was captured my first reaction was to finish the one mission I was in the middle of anyway because due to standard RPG meta-gaming I figured that the rescue would wait for me. When I turned up a little too late and half the crew was turned into mulch because of it I felt cheated because there wasn't any clue given that this would be the result of my actions. Even the 'crew kidnapping' event was kicked off by completing another mission meaning that you could only finish all the side-quests by leaving the important 'must do' thing until the end. With that I had to go back and correct my choice. It's easier to sit with the consequence of an action if there a good indication before-hand what that consequence is. In the case of Dragon Age there was no problem though. Want salt on your fries? SALT GOLEMS ATTACK THE CITY IN REVENGE! No salt? NOTHING CAN STOP THE GIANT SLUG DEMONS! Yes, the consequence of every decision you make will be bad regardless :)

Re:If I wanted consequences

[TheCRAIGGERS]

Well life doesn't feature unicorn, for one thing...

But it does feature kitchen sinks and trolls...

Two out of three ain't bad.

Re:Unforgivable games

[curare19]

The worst adventure game I've ever played like this is "Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender". Now, this was a fun game (as you can probably tell by the title). The dialog and concept was clever. You start the game by crashing into the ocean in your spaceship. In true adventure-game style, you search the ship for items. In a small, almost invisible drawer on the ship is a tube of superglue. After you leave the ship and swim to shore, you can never return to it.

In the final moments of the game, you have to borrow a broken-down spaceship to leave the planet. The spaceship has a crack in the windshield, repairable only by...get ready for it....SUPERGLUE! Without the superglue, the ship has no integrity and your head explodes when you take off. There is no alternative item to the superglue, and it is never otherwise mentioned in the game.

You should have seen the look on my face when I realized, after dozens of hours of gameplay, I forgot to grab the superglue from the ship in the first scene. I was ready to hunt down the game developers, one by one, Rambo-style.

Re:If I wanted consequences

[AmiMoJo]

This is the plot of 90% of action movies and games, isn't it? Everyone dies so the hero can take on an entire army by himself... In fact he might as well put them out of their misery himself so we don't have to hear about their stupid family and how they only have one day left in the Core and then the inevitable "tell Sarah and the kids I love them..." crap as they bleed to death.

The only difference here is that this bit of the plot has moved from the cheezy FMV sequence to be part of the actual game. We have Call of Duty/Medal of Honour to thank for that where you hit the beech at Dunkirk, everyone on your side gets mown down and then you fight your way to Berlin single handedly only to find that the last boss (Hitler) realised the futility of resisting your one-man assault (even if he can shoot lasers out of his eyes) and shot himself. Either that or he was hoping one of his guys would go on a similar solo orgy of violence and destruction if all his team mates were wiped out leaving him as the last/only hope for victory.

Re:Eh, it could be worse

[Jesus_666]

I call that kind of charater the Bioware woman. Bastila is a great example, as is Aribeth of Neverwinter Nights. In both cases they are staunchly good to the point of annoyance only to immediately succumb to absolute evil near the end of the game, deciding that the big bad's plan of destroying the world is A-okay.

Bioware usually writes damn good characters but they love this kind of character so much that it's becoming a) formulaic and b) hard to take seriously anymore.


Aribeth: "I have joined the bad guys because my lover was wrongfully executed! Oh the sorrow..."
Player: "Well, of course you did."
Aribeth: "...the pain, the-- what?"
Player: "Yeah, you're female, you used to be lawful good and we're in a Bioware game. Of course you'd turn chaotic evil and join the bad guys. I saw this coming since chapter one."
Aribeth: "I will not have you mock my hardship! Die, you--"
Player: "Yeah, whatever. We both know you're just a tiny speed bump between my party of epic-level demigods and the final battle. Your new name is Mid-Boss."
Mid-Boss: "I should've signed up with Nippon Ichi..."


Of course in a Nippon Ichi game she'd face a party of level 9999 demigods.

Trent or Tiffany ?

[DontScotty]

"Joe's Bar, Upper Sandusky, Ohio, Earth

You begin the game in this, er, fine establishment. The urge you feel is the urge to urinate. Pick one of the bathrooms (women northeast, men northwest); this will determine your character's sex for the game"

Now THERE's REAL CHOICE!!!

Plus, you can use the scratch and sniff card to smell pizza!

"For Your Amusement:
Don't go to the bathroom.
Buy a beer before relieving yourself.
Play as a man if you are a woman, or vice versa.
After selecting one bathroom, try entering the other.
Urinate somewhere other than in the toilet (e.g., the sink).
Flush the toilet.
Eat the pizza. Then vomit. "