Cody is wrong level: 9000+ (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, February 17, 2015, 11:35 (3567 days ago) @ Claude Errera
edited by Cody Miller, Tuesday, February 17, 2015, 11:43

Wrong. As Rag pointed out, the in-room confrontation has four ways (at least) that it can play out, but you're only TOLD to do one. Same for the trip to the basement. Did you save the bird?

When the bird hits the window, the game says 'MAYBE I CAN SAVE THE BIRD'. So you have a binary choice: save the bird or no. A better way would have been for nothing to be said, and the player to think, hmmm I wonder if I can save the bird, instead of being told you can and it's a choice. These types of games need to go beyond HEY, YOU CAN MAKE A CHOICE HERE WINK WINK.

Did you leave evidence of your snooping? Probably not, right? That'd be a mistake... right?

Actually I did leave evidence.

Did you water the plant? Of course. Why wouldn't you? That won't come back to bite you later, right?

That would be stupid. I had no information regarding watering the plant. At least with other choices you can sort of weigh the possible outcomes. But like… it's a plant. I fail to see how watering it or not watering it will have any effect down the line given the info that I have, thus the choice is arbitrary and not meaningful.

Wait, wtf?

I've never played this game you're talking about, so I could be off here... but your first paragraph above says "they TOLD me what the choice was, instead of saying nothing, and letting me DECIDE whether there's a choice - this is bad" and your second paragraph says "they didn't tell me anything, so I had no information to decide whether this was a worthwhile choice or not - this is bad".

Make up your mind, Cody - do you want help, or do you NOT want help?

You are misunderstanding.

I do not want the game to scream THERE IS A CHOICE, CHOOSE NOW. However, the game needs to immerse me enough that when I do do something, such as water a plant, I am doing it because other factors have made me think "gee, I should water the plant", not "Oh, a choice prompt has come up giving me the choice to water the plant or not, should I?".

Maybe someone said something earlier, or maybe the plant is for someone or something. Little clues like that would have the player pick up on them, then decide ON THEIR OWN to water the plant. Not because they stumbled upon it and it was an obviously presented binary choice in a prompt, out of context.

When you tell the player that a choice is important, but I cannot see how or why it'll be important, that is bad. So either have your obvious choices be such that I can reasonably think into the future to weigh them, or do the better thing and give the player a reason to do things in an organic way.

So I do not want the game telling me CHOOSE, THIS CHOICE MATTERS, however I want there to be reasons for me to make an organic choice on my own. Basically, games like this should strive to make everything the player does feel like it was the player's idea, not a set of binary decisions presented to you by the game designers.

There is no contradiction. The issue only arrises because they told me there was a choice, which is what I do not like about the game.