Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Each spoke is a self-contained nugget of content independent from the
others. The
Mega Man
games are built around a hub and spokes model.
Sometimes game designers attempt to emulate real-life choices by
modeling the outcomes of every possible decision. In its naïve form,
though, this structure has a fatal drawback:
The problem with branching events is that the number of possible
timelines rapidly explodes. Any given player experiencing the story misses
most content. The only situation in which this is feasible is if almost all
of the content is generated emergently. If events are predefined to any
significant degree, we must do something to tamp down the number of
branches.
We can retain some of the choice of story branching while holding
down the number of possibilities by using devices like
side quests
and
story convergence
. Side quests put a piece of content on the side of the road,
which can be consumed or not, but affects little on the main path. Story
convergence offers choices that branch the main storyline, but later con-
verge back to a single line.
