Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
traditionally give the player a number of lives and chances to earn more along the
way. Until recently, console action games have tended to follow the same scheme.
Richer games, such as role-playing or adventure games, usually give the player only
one life but allow him to reload a saved game if his avatar dies or he realizes that he
cannot possibly win the current game.
■
Encouraging the player to explore alternate strategies.
In turn-based strategic
games, saving the game allows the player to learn the game by trying alternative
approaches. If one approach doesn't seem to work, he can go back to the point at
which he committed himself and try another approach.
Consequences for Immersion and Storytelling
Saving a game is not always beneficial to the player's experience. The act of saving
a game takes place outside the game world and, as a consequence, saving harms the
player's immersion. If a game tries to create the illusion that the player inhabits a
fantasy world, the act of saving destroys the illusion. One of the most significant
characteristics of real life is that you cannot return to the past to correct your
errors; the moment you allow a player to repeat the past, you acknowledge the
unreality of the game world.
The essence of a story is dramatic tension, and dramatic tension requires that some-
thing be at stake. Reloading a game with a branching storyline affects the player's
experience of the story because if he can alter the future by returning to the past
and making a different decision, nothing really hangs in the balance. Real-world
decisions bring permanent consequences; you can modify some in the future, but
the original decision cannot be unmade. But when a player follows first one branch
of a branching storyline and then goes back in time and follows another branch, he
experiences the story in an unnatural way. The consequences of his actions lose
their meaning, and his sense of dramatic tension is either reduced or destroyed
completely. What is a benefit to strategic games—the chance to try alternate strate-
gies—presents problems for storytelling.
Nevertheless, the arguments for saving outweigh these disadvantages. If the player
destroys his immersion by repeatedly reloading the game, that is his choice and not
the fault of the game designer or the story. As Chapter 7, “Storytelling and Narrative,”
pointed out, a weakness of branching storylines is that they require the player to
play the game again if he wants to see plot lines that he missed on his first play-
through. Allowing the player to save and reload makes that easier for him. He may
always choose not to reload if he doesn't want to.
Ways of Saving a Game
Over the years, designers have devised a variety of different ways to save a game,
each with its own pros and cons for immersion and gameplay.
