Storytelling in Theory - The Game Maker's Companion: Game Development - page 196

Did I Miss Out?
When the players are asked to make a choice, they will often start to worry whether they made the
right choice and whether they missed something fantastic by taking the right-hand path. If they
start feeling worried, then the spell is broken and they are not as immersed in the game as they
could be, because now they are wondering what happens in the other version instead of paying
attention to the story they do have.
Some game designers think this is fine because it entices people to play the game again to see
what they missed, but we don't think that is a good excuse to break the player's immersion in the
game. A way to deal with this is to make it clear to the player what they missed. Show them that if
they stay in the inn, the pirate ship will take off without them or that because they didn't sleep at
the inn, they didn't get caught in the fire.
Interesting Choices
In some cases, however, most often seen in role-playing games (RPGs), this missing out is a main
feature of the game. If you chose to play a dwarf, for instance, you might not get the choice of
becoming a mage, but would gain extra stamina that would be great for a warrior.
In this case, the challenge is to balance the choices so there is no right or wrong, only
preference. The choices should be real dilemmas and not have an obvious right version. If you
make a choice that loses you a weapon, then some advantage should be gained. It is hard to get
right and often the game designer can't help but hint at the choice they think is the best.
Wasted Content
There is a third quite serious problem, and the greatest reason why most games never branch out
or save it for the very end. If you look again at Figure 8-4, you can see why. Imagine all the
bubbles are levels. The game consists of 18 different levels, but the player only sees 12 of them on
a playthrough. That is a whole third of the game that the creators have to make but the player
never sees. And they still have to pay for it. When you go through the effort of making a great
level, you want the player to see it, right? That means we usually like to make sure that the player
has to go through all the levels, and make every bit (and byte) in the game count toward the
player experience.
Modifying Non-Player Character Behavior
Instead of branching out the story, there are other ways we can make it feel different depending
on how the player plays the game. We can tailor the conversation so that the non-player
characters (NPCs) react differently according to the player's actions. This also means a bit of
wasted content, but it is easier to keep at a minimum.
We could, for instance, give Flynn the choice of helping or threatening an old pirate to get
information. Depending on the strategy the player chooses, the NPCs will reflect it in their
speech. The information the player gets is the same, but how he gets it will be different.
If Flynn continually uses threats to get his way, the NPCs will get increasingly hostile, but the
pirates will get friendlier. If he helps people a lot, they will tend to help him more, too.
The game Fable does this well, making a player's reputation a vital part of the game play.
Changing Character Appearance
We can also change the appearance of Flynn to reflect the player's choices. The following offers
an example: