Making Decisions In-Game: A Checklist

Whether a curated experience with limited player choice or an expansive, open world with free agency, a compelling game will entice players to internalise and reflect on their respective paths. Decision-making is a prime element of its composition, encouraging character development, plot direction, a deeper understanding of the player world and an inventive setting for positing a concept/theory/philosophical discussion.

For these decisions to be meaningful, developers must envision the perspective of both game and player-character at large - a bird's eye view and an intimate POV.

Choices and consequences haunt Alex Chen from Life is Strange: True Colors

Photo credit: FetchQuester

Key Questions:

• What is likely to ensure the best outcome (consequence driven), motivated by altruistic, evil, self-serving, or empathetic purposes etc.? (Note the "right" decision can sometimes lead to the worst consequences).

• How is the dilemma staged? Does it occur in a place of "purgatory" or everyday life?

• Is this a good, evil, or grey area? Is the distinction clear?

• Which decision is most/least aligned with your own personal values and interests?

• How does it match up with your protagonist’s ethos/nature? How will this affect/transform them? Could it represent a change in their character arc? Is it impulsive or does it build up to it? How much does the "proximity of consequence" factor into it?

• How will this impact personal relationships? Will it lock in/out of them?

• Does the decision represent/benefit/work against the faction you are associated with?

• Is it representative of the society/community/world you want to build and attainable/sustainable within the current context?

• How will that decision drive the story forward?

• Time sensitivity: Does it demand an immediate response (gut-reaction) by gameplay/roleplay mechanics, or is some soul-searching/research required?

• Are you approaching this from a hardened or compassionate point of view? Will you "get the job done" at any cost?

• What are the in-game results/rewards? (Unlocking new quests, regions, items, etc.)

• What are the writers trying to do? How would this likely play out in a fictional world? (This should be a last resort - avoid!)

In many choices-and-consequences games, the crux is less about "right vs. wrong" but stability vs. freedom, truth vs. peace, and individual principles vs. the greater good, etc. If constructed with care, working through these decisions is a unique way to challenge your own viewpoints and assess how we can contextualize specific circumstances, enabling us to move forward collectively.

- Lucy A.

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Sources: 

Various story-driven games; Cambridge University's Digital Platforms in Performance via edX; my fellow gamer friends