all right this week we'll be talking
about the illusion of choice and games
if you missed last week's episode on
choice as a designer it's important to
think of choice not only in the context
of narrative but also in the context of
play so here we'll be talking about the
illusion of choice in both so what do we
mean by the illusion of choice well we
simply mean any moment in the game where
you as a player feel as though you're
making a choice when in reality there's
either no alternative option actually
being presented where the consequences
of that choice are negligible now it's
really easy to hear something like that
and say what a terrible thing I hate it
when they do that to me in games but
bear with me for a second because the
truth is what you hate is when you
notice that they're doing that to you in
a game I'd submit that 80% of the time
you aren't even aware of it when this
happens
and honestly using the illusion of
choice is actually often a smart design
decision because come on no game can
truly give you limitless freedom and the
more actual freedom a game gives you the
more content the developer has to create
the bigger the scope of the game gets
the more it'll cost to develop even the
huge studios with the biggest budgets
like Bioware can't give you all of the
freedom you might like so designers have
to embrace the illusion of choice in
order to provide that feeling of agency
and that opportunity to make choices
that's so compelling because games
aren't about what really is they're
about what you perceive if what mattered
in games was what was really happening
we'd be talking about electrical
impulses and math not experiences and
the truth is choice in games is about
the act of choosing in a game as a
player where you have agency is not in
the consequence of an action but in
deciding what to do
whether it's a dialogue choice about the
fate of the world or a split-second
decision to dodge left instead of right
it's a lot like life actually you have
control over the choices you make you
use those to influence the consequences
that result but you don't actually have
control over those consequences
otherwise we'd all just make the right
thing happen all the time as a designer
the decisions you set up should be
compelling the player should feel
engaged by the moment of choice itself
the consequence of the result of that
choice is just the payoff of course
without that payoff a decision can feel
incomplete and flat but the entire point
of that payoff is to make the player
feel like they have agency if the choice
itself doesn't feel consequential and
isn't engaging to the player than the
payoff won't matter
so overall the illusion of choice not a
bad thing so how is it best implemented
well let's talk about narrative first
the most common implementation is the
tactic of creating short branch
off the central narrative that
eventually reconverge on that central
narrative later there are lots of names
for this technique but I usually hear
beads on a string because that's sort of
how it looks when you diagram the
choices out so how do these beads on a
string work well basically your player
will reach a choice in the narrative
let's say deciding who decide within an
argument depending on who the player
sides with the content they experience
changes a bit for the next small
interval of play but then something
happens say the party is attacked and
everybody has to band together
the designers slip in one last piece of
differing content where the arguing
characters decide to make nice and bang
your back on the central storyline and
if the designers are really tricky
they'll put a knot or two down the road
to that original decision you made just
a differing line or two four hours later
something to acknowledge that the choice
happened and you'll feel like you made a
decision
you'll feel like you wait a moral choice
wrestled with which party member you
liked more or ask yourself who was right
and in doing so you did something
meaningful in the grand dark of the game
it functionally changed almost nothing
at all but to you it felt like it did
and these divergence convergence points
come in all sorts of sizes some are
ultra small for you Mass Effect fans if
you've played through any of those games
more than once you know that a lot of
the dialogue options get the same result
no matter what choice you pick and some
divergence convergence points are ultra
large those of you who have played The
Witcher 2 know what I'm talking about
there's a choice you make pretty near
the beginning that causes a massive
divergence and then it converges pretty
much never it's basically two completely
different stories from that point on the
longer the divergence the more real
choice you could say there is but the
more expensive it becomes to create as
well perhaps the best example of
maintaining the illusion of choice is
found in Mass Effect where to save on
voice-acting costs NPC characters will
often give you the same response no
matter what you pick in the dialogue
tree but because all your available
dialogue choices are so cleverly written
that single response they recorded makes
sense no matter which line they're
responding to so often as a player you
felt like you made a decision and that
they were responding to what you said or
did even though your choice really
changed nothing because in the moment
you won't realize that all the other
branches are the same it's wonderfully
done this maintenance of the illusion of
a living responding world was a key part
of the Mass Effect experience and the
only way they could possibly deliver
that experience to the scale I wanted
was to find all the places where by
clever design they can offer that choice
experience in a way that costs them
little to create
now the same idea of illusory choice is
often used in play itself and say you're
running around in a shooter game you
turn down one city street but then you
see soldiers ahead rolling out razor
wire across the road and you think I
better go the other way
illusion of choice right there you made
a choice to go down a street that didn't
fit the game flow or wasn't in the
budget to fully create and the designers
could have made that road just a dead
end or thrown up an obnoxious invisible
wall but instead they put something
there that would subconsciously direct
you away something you would choose to
avoid now instead of thinking about the
fact that you're being pushed down a
linear path you feel like you just made
two consecutive decisions now an even
subtler example of this is visual
highlighting when navigating a game
environment will often head straight for
whatever door is illuminated or the
incongruously textured part of the room
or whatever thing looks most like a road
and will do it without even thinking
these are subconscious triggers that
draw us in and because of that will
usually not realize how limited the
space we're exploring in actually is
often in games that use this sort of
visual highlighting the rest of the
environment is actually pretty bare and
uninteresting but so many players will
make a beeline for that lighted area or
that interesting texture then very few
people will ever notice how featureless
the rest of the world is in the moment
it feels like you're playing in a
vibrant environment and what's more it
feels like you're making a decision
about where to go another example of
this would be breadcrumbs coins or
rewards that leads you down a certain
route as is placement of explosive
barrels and shooters we could probably
do a whole episode about the techniques
for leading a player through a physical
space in a way that makes them think
they're choosing where to go but you get
the idea
the feeling of making a choice or having
agency in a game can often be
substituted for the actual ability to
make a choice and feel just as
satisfying this isn't saying that
there's not a lot we might do especially
in the narrative field to make choices
feel more consequential but it's got to
happen in the context of limited or
elusive choices not by actually
shouldering the cost of making a game
that responds to whatever the player
wants to do development costs are way
too high as it is the key is to create
smarter not just to create more so next
week we'll be asking the question how
much agency do we need to feel like we
have agency and we'll try to unravel one
of the continuous sticking points in the
dialogue on meaningful choice I hope to
see you then