Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Trivial decisions—which color hat will I wear?—should have only trivial conse-
quences. If a trivial decision has a profound consequence, the player will feel
cheated: He didn't know that the decision mattered and had no reason to expect it to
matter. Attaching important consequences to trivial decisions violates the require-
ment that stories be credible and dramatically meaningful.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy
, a text adventure, did this for comedic and ironic purposes, but most
players and critics judged it to be an unreasonably difficult game for exactly this
reason: The player couldn't predict what the consequences of his actions would be.
DESIGN RULE
Be Clear About Consequences
Give players a reasonable amount of information about the possible consequences of their
decisions, especially if the decision's consequences are deferred, so that they can make
informed choices. Don't tie important consequences to what seem to be trivial decisions.
THE BRANCHING STORY STRUCTURE
A diagram of a branching story looks somewhat like a tree, although by convention
the root—the beginning of the story—appears at the top, so that the tree branches
out as it goes down the page and the story goes forward in time.
Figure 7.2
shows a
small part of the structure of a branching story.
FIGURE 7.2
Part of the structure
of a branching story
START
END 1
END 2
