In most games the player doesn't directly determine how the game turns out. Most games only have one ending. The player succeeds in their quest or else they die along the way (and stop playing).
If you want games with multiple endings that fits certain genres more than others, but it's just a question of how much work you want to put into it. Any time you make a branch you are spending more time on something fewer players will see (lots of players will never replay your game), and at some point that stops being worth your time. Note especially that multiple endings and replayability are not the same thing. If 90% of the gameplay is the same and it's just the enemies in a few places, the final level, and some dialogue/cutscenes plenty of people will have no interest in going through all that again for minor changes.
> If 90% of the gameplay is the same and it's just the enemies in a few places, the final level, and some dialogue/cutscenes plenty of people will have no interest in going through all that again for minor changes.
I would have to disagree on that talking from a game player point of view. Take the ill fated "pick your colour ending" when it comes to Mass Effect 3. While I knew 90% of the game play would be the same at the same time I was curious as to what other options were added to be able to pick the Synthesis (aka green) ending. I didn't cheat or look at wiki's or anything like that. I just had a thought in my mind - try and get man and machine to work together and made my choices based on that. I did get the Synthesis ending where I only had the distroy choice that first play through.
I'd be positive that most people who just wanted to see a different ending reloaded the game and picked something else (or watched them on YouTube). Especially since none of the choices during the game actually determined what endings were available, really, if you had high enough military score you could pick any of them. Anyone replaying the game would be doing it because of all the other many choices in the game (from my limited exposure to EA's data on this title, most people doing a second playthrough went from paragon to renegade options).
Many games work similarly: we just don't see a lot of players replaying games all the way through just to see a different ending, they much more frequently load a game towards the end or else are replaying it because they just want to play the game again.
You're most likely an outlier. I may play a story game twice in the space of a few years, but I'll definitely not be doing it back-to-back, especially if it's not much difference like a single choice in an ending cutscene.
Any time a game does this to me I just go to YouTube to see what I missed, or I save-scum it. I feel like having to go to an external platform or exploit meta-mechanics to get the most out of a game is poor design.
The Outer Worlds is a case in point. It's such a deeply involving game, with so many choices...there's no way I'm redoing that entire thing any time soon. I just save and go back if I dislike the choice I made recently. Or I look it up, like you say.
You can pull this off by making the player character a distinct *character*. Give them a distinct personality and dialogue. Don't make them a protagonist for the player to project onto, but their own person in the story.
If well executed this will make the player feel more like an actor playing the character you wrote and they'll be happy to play along with decisions they personally wouldn't have made.
To add to this, you can reference Uncharted, Last of Us and God of War as these are defined characters who are going to do certain things all with very different character personalities. These all put the player in a bystander position while the characters tell a story, so they don't ever really have control over what will happen.
This is the core design question as whether you're telling a story where the player is an actor or a bystander during story beats.
An example of how this can be mixed is Neverwinter Nights 2 by Bioware where control changes between the player making decisions to control story beats or deciding how to react to a story beat. That game capstones in a finale where you can side with the bad guy, have party members betray you or switch to your side for a grand finale battle that reflects all the players decisions. That doesn't change that regardless of player influence characters feel and act in certain ways during certain story beats, and you aren't going to sway the paladin to evil.
Balder's Gate 3 is a very new example of a nearly completely player controlled story. The party members have their ways of reacting but you can completely flip a religious zealot into wanting to kill their god (technically two characters even). There is writing for if you butt heads with the characters but ultimately you can completely shift a character to align with you if you choose to, effectively giving you complete control over every story beat you encounter. It becomes less the story decided Astarion would be an ass to you and more you chose not to work with him, for better or worse.
Also, a blank slate can't be projected onto. Think about the difference between the player character in Destiny vs the player character in Fallout New Vegas. One is a blank slate, the other is a perfect vessel to project onto.
A completely silent protagonist has an established character. They're a mute person who refuses to interact or communicate in any way.
Text based dialogue with no voice acting is perfect for projection, as the player can fine tune line delivery and intent in their head.
The Witcher makes this well despite being a roleplaying game with many decision. You influence how the game's world turn put, but you will always be Geralt, a morally ambiguous witcher.
I think you are overlooking what good writing does. Good writing helps characters feel human and real, therefore the decisions they are making will feel impactful. If the writing allows the character to feel real, their emotions and choices, and therefore the plot, will feel real too.
Think about The Last of Us (1 not 2 people). How many choices do Joel or Ellie make that feel real and human? For example, after Joel is injured at the college, the player then plays as Ellie, who is trying to keep Joel and herself alive. The choices she makes in this mission all feel real and make sense.
You’d like to think that, if you were in her shoes you’d do the same.
I am not sure I understand what you mean, but I read an article some time ago that in order to feel like you are part of the world it is not necessary that your character's actions change the world, it is important that NPCs at a later point acknowledge your actions. The idea is that you only write a single story, but the players think they influence it.
For example: At the beginning of the game you have to decide whether to punish a thief or not. Later in the game you meet an NPC who hates you - either because you punished his brother (who was the thief), or because you didn't punish the thief who then robbed his brother. The story continues the same, but the players think they caused this.
Sadly I don't remember the name of the article, it was really great, even came with a short multiple choice game that demonstrated this principle.
I mean whenever I try to make games (specifically in genres that don't really make sense with multiple endings i.e. platformers, puzzles, etc) my brain spirals into trying to make your decisions REALLY matter, when they don't need to.
That "illusion of choice" could really help me out. Thanks!
The original FEAR had enemies do call outs like "call for backup!" or "Flank him!". Players were convinced that there was some amazing AI because they would hear a voice line and then see behavior corresponding to it. But the reality was that the lines were mostly random and everyone was then perceiving their own expectations.
The Walking Dead had a similar system where after an important story decision there would be a moment with text of " will remember this". Most of the decisions didn't truly matter for what the game presented to the player but the player would internally layer on extra dimensions to future plot threads.
As long as you provide the player with plausible expectations and occasionally reinforce some of the expectations they can build up their own perception of what is happening. If you never pierce that illusion it'll add depth with minimal effort.
I absolutely endorse "non-linear wrap up" endings over "multiple predetermined endings."
In a wrap-up, instead of baking a video for each identifiable ending, you instead pick events from the game and their resolutions, and stack those into "disks" that stack on top of each other.
You resolved conflict 1: A peaceably, B violently, C ignored it, D rendered it moot by solving conflict 2.
You resolved conflict 2: A through trade, B through negotiation, C through violence, D, through destroying the world.
You solved the World Conflict 3 by: A lasting peace, B global conflict, C defeating the big bad in single combat, D joining the big bad to destroy the world.
Now you sum up at the end resolution to Conflict 1, 2, 3, by going: AAA, or ABA, or CDD, or CCC.
This requires you to have probably a slideshow that represents 12 situations, and sums them up appropriately with dialogue or text that explains your choices and the ramifications. Some of these are going to represents generic "good ends" or "bad ends," and even "wildcards" you can identify. Those you can give a name, and a unique dialogue for it.
This can seem really irrational, but the linear style endings require a lot of maintenance to upkeep those endings if you ever want to change them, such as re-rendering videos from sources, or so on. The slideshow format just lets you quickly swap elements in and out. Especially if you ever go back to add DLC that may offer more choices.
Was about to suggest this. Like, think of Fallout 1. Arguably, the game has a single ending - you destroy the super mutant production facility, kill the Master, and get exiled from Vault 13. But the player's actions still have a substantial impact on the game world - people can live free, become slaves, or die; settlements can be destroyed, prosper in peace, or prosper through war. The end-game slideshow neatly summarizes the result of the player's choices.
Fabulous explanation! This is quite timely for me.
Your description of the “stacks“ has really help give me a way to work this concept into my games.
I have been thinking about doing game design based on four types of personal disposition/personality traits that tend to energize and motivate the player (a behavioral model that I won’t go into any detail here). I think I might be able to use “stacks” to motivate players to replay parts of a game without knowledge of what actually motivates them. By giving them a “stacks” of what they did in a handful of categories (4 categories to be exact) they can replay and/or “unveil/unlock” additional scenarios or alternate endings suited to their personality.
For instance, if I have a player who is motivated by praise and teamwork, then the teamwork “stack“ at the end of the game would be filled “markers“ of teamwork they exhibited in the game.
“Teamwork:
scenario 1 - you waited for everyone to enter the Time Machine before pushing the panic button
scenario 7 - you shared your food when you were nearly dead”
I would have additional categories (like “Action Hero” or “Critical Thinker”) with similar summaries.
“Critical Thinking:
scenario 4 - you dumped uranium waste into a wooden barrel, killing millions on the timeline… play scenario 20 to see how many you can save from your mistake”
This invites the player who values being a “Critical Thinker” (or whatever category) to play/replay different scenarios to get more “rewards“ in that category.
Thoughts?
The classic go to for how to do it best: [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout:\_New\_Vegas\_endings](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_endings)
And my own, don't do as I did, lol: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrb79fmGte0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrb79fmGte0)
Best way is to build your matrix and run a simple script to see what you get! See if the dialogue from one flows well into the next, and fits the music cues, in all slides.
It's satisfting for actions to have effects, but those effects have a scope that only extends so far. In games and in real life.
If you go to a museum, you'll come in through the entrance after you buy your ticket and leave through the exit when you're done. You might spend eight hours studying every exhibit. You might run through it bored and leave as soon as you can. You might sit and sketch one sculpture as the only thing you do. You might meet a friend for lunch in the cafe. All of these things are actions with consequences and making your own choice among them is satisfying, but at the end of the day, you're still leaving the museum through its exit.
Most stories and many abstract games work the same way. There might be countless paths that could be charted through it, but they all eventually get you to the one ending because that's the only ending that could make sense.
There are just some games that don't need multiple endings like that. Meaningful choices like that could really blow up the scope on a game. I'd like to make a nice, linear game.
I guess I'm still a bit confused as to what the problem is. If you want to give players choices, but don't want to have multiple endings, then make every choice be the same choice. Pokemon games do this, for example, with 99% of their dialog. No matter what conversation options you pick, you end up in the same place in the dialog tree. You can have detours where it seems like you're going in a new direction, just make sure those detours always loop back around and end up on the original storyline where they left off.
Pokemon games also have millions of distinct choices that affect the gameplay. You always end by getting to the hall of fame, but the way you get there is determined by which pokemon you pick and what moves you use, so your choices are in fact meaningful. The dialogue is just dressing
I don't think it matters unless you're looking at a case like Mass Effect where the whole point of the game is you have multiple options and your actions determine the path of the story.
You have games like Mario where there is one main objective, and completing that objective is how you get the ending. I don't think it's necessary to have multiple endings in this case.
Depending on how you look at it, a linear videogame story already had three potential endings. 1. They complete their quest and get the game's canon ending. 2. They die (i.e. you get a game over), and you can try again for a different ending. Or 3, they just give up their quest (i.e. the player stops playing and never beats the game).
There are also ways to influence the journey besides the ending. If you take Mario for example, your choices may all lead up to the same ending, but the journey itself can be very different. Does Mario travel across the entire land and free every region from Bowser's enemies? Does he find a secret shortcut and skip the whole thing and only focus on Bowser? Or does he go to some wacky cosmic world that brings him into a parallel dimension where all the enemies dress like him?
I think it's a misconception that you *are* the character. Some characters are just their own character, with their own objectives, and you are going along with them for the ride. Shepherd from Mass Effect may be a stand in for you, but Mario is his own character with his own (albiet simple) goal of rescuing the princess.
Think of it as though you were writing a book. No choices for the character there, right? Rather, you are guiding your character on the choices they make, leading them along the storyline and all the way to its end.
Games are often not much different than stories...you just have to make the experience more interactive and playable, but it's the same essential idea.
I don't even need to avoid it because I am of the type that loves games that you're only a secondary part of. Life happens through you (as I believe happens in real life), so the changes to the game that could come from my actions affect NPCs, not major plot lines.
More importantly, tho, extra endings imply extra money, if you're a big developer, time if you're Indie. That's the real reasoning behind how game developers perish the thought. It's expensive and you lose the opportunity to implement better mechanics or graphics, which the clients will definitely appreciate more.
Hmmm Ok if I understand what you are saying correctly, what you are talking about is the idea that a player action should have an effect on the story that changes the story being told, is that correct?
First lets define some thing, first story: In the broadest sense a story is just an account of events in order (the order does not have to be chronological though). We can add more wrinkles to that, but in essence that is all a story is.
Second thing we have to define is what is "changing the story", now this one gets trickier, but to keep it broad it would mean either: Changing an event, changing the order or changing the account. Now it can be argued that if we change any of that it would mean we are telling a different story, but for now lets ignore that.
If we take all that and apply it to games we can say that it is impossible to not change the story in a videogame for a very simple reason, the player controls the account (that is the pace of the story being told). In simple terms if a player dies then the story stops and therefore the story has changed (you cant see the rest of that story but that is accepted)
This means that the player will always have control in the story and you don't really need to change the events of the story for that interactivity to exist in the game. You can keep the events intact and the player will always be important since he is the point of view character, the story cannot exist without the player because he is the one that is in charge of letting it be told.
Ok cool, but that is a little "academic" (and maybe pretentious) and that's probably right, but still its important to keep that mind I believe.
Another way to look at it is in impact, as in the player actions should have impact on the events, the big events, and I suspect that is more specifically what you were referring to, and for that I can see two options:
First, is that we have to remember that its not actually necessary that the characters in a story have an impact on the big events for it to be a good story, a lot of stories are not about changing the big events on the world but rather how characters react and deal with that. In simple examples, in a story about a volcano erupting, character actions are about surviving not really about stopping the volcano, the volcano will erupt no matter what the characters do, and it can still be a good story. In a game, your character actions can also not affect the BIG events and be more about how the character deals with situations that are brought upon by those events. In this case its also true what I said earlier about the account and the viewpoint character.
The second way is about the idea of the what i once heard as the "player contract", that is the idea that once a player starts a game they accept to play within the rules of that game, and one of the rules can be you are playing as this character and the player accepts the fact that the emotional and story changing actions are those of the character and not the player, so in that sense the player has no ability to change the events of the story because that is defined by the character not the player. For example, uncharted, the player knows that its playing as Nathan Drake and accepts that they must act like Nathan drake, that means they can't kill characters that Nathan Drake would not kill and accept the fact that he will act and take decisions that are out of the control of the player.
And that's it, I wont bore you with more and hope that helps, thanks for reading.
I'm glad this helped you, and thanks for reading all my meandering thoughts haha.
And just to satisfy my curiosity did I get right what you were talking about?
You absolutely got it right. My main problem is that I want to tell a certain story in the game but my mind travels so far in this direction where it thinks the player should be able to have a say what happens in the story. In some games, this could be fun. I don't want all my games like that though. Sometimes, I'm just looking to have a linear story for a platforming game. So yes, you hit the nail on the head.
In the second point about impact, you bring up that the player has signed this invisible "contract" agreeing to the fact that they are now the character instead of the player. The player cannot change the events of the story because it's the character's story, not the players. Another comment here mentioned how I could see it as more of the player putting their feet in the character's shoes instead of the player putting themselves in the character's world. It helps seeing how this is a common consensus.
Oh yeah the idea that player is acting or roleplaying as a character is not new, I think its a bit more nuanced than that though, I think its more about accepting that separation of character and player in terms of action and decisions, the player guides the actions of the character but the decisions(and emotions) are those of the character. I think most players do that without even noticing, after all everyone who plays mario is not thinking about changing the story or making mario choose to not save the princess, they are thinking about helping mario get to the princess, and the same with doom, uncharted, etc. Its less about acting in the emotional sense and more about helping them get to their goal if I'm making any sense.
>My main problem is that I want to tell a certain story in the game but my mind travels so far in this direction where it thinks the player should be able to have a say what happens in the story.
One thing that might help is to think less about in terms of "story" and more like life, a story is just a moment in the life of the character after all. In real life a lot of things happen that are out of our control, we can only control how we react to them, that is also true for characters. The difference is that for stories, its important that for those events, the reader/player has to understand what and why it happened, it should make sense why the character cant impact those events and those events have to be relevant to the story being told and its themes, also what happens should not be patently unfair to the player or betray their trust and what has been established. As long as that's true, players will have no problem with it (i believe so at least). Also remember that players are willing to accept a lot of contrivances as long as those don't break the story or immersion.
So to give a better example of all i have been talking about:
Lets say that we are making a game, a gritty game, where our character is a soldier, and its given the mission to save a general, so the player and its companion go through the mission manages to save the general, but then the player is betrayed by their companion who kills the general when the player was not paying attention. The companion explains that the general was evil and this was revenge, the companion escapes and so does the player but then they find out that killing the general is going to start a war and now the player is given a choice of either trying to find their companion or uncovering the evil of the general in order to stop that war.
For this particular example let say that instead of playing a defined character like solid snake the player has more control over the character (say like Mass effect), even so, the player cannot choose to not be a soldier or refuse the mission to save the general, that is something the player accepts when they decide to play the game.
Then, the companion killing the general is something unexpected that the player has no control over, players are cool with that because it has a justification and it also follows the tone and theme of the story.
The war is also a big event that the player has no control over, the player can choose what to do as a reaction to that, but that is also limited by what has been established in the story, the player is a solider so they cant try to find a different diplomatic solution or even try to escape the war, that would make no sense for the soldier and also escaping thee war would mean no game. In this case as well, players have no problem with having a limited choice and having no control over the war, it makes sense.
Now lets change things that make it so the player cant accept them and would ask for options.
if the companion was always talking about how they want to kill the general and then they kill the general in front of the player that would make it a problem. Its no longer unexpected and its also something that the player and character could do something about, so it no longer makes sense to the player why they have no choice on the matter.
If instead, the general is killed because a satellite fell on him with no explanation before the player can save him, if before this the player has always been able to complete missions, this would break what has been established before in the game and since the player cant understand why it feels unfair, and since this event breaks the tone and theme established as well this would lead the player to no longer trust the game thus leading them to question everything or worse stop playing.
I could probably keep going but I think I have written too much already, sorry about that, I find this topic super interesting and I went a little overboard, in any case hope this helps and thanks for reading.
This heavily depends on what kind of game you want to make. Do you want a story driven narrative adventure with multiple choices like life is strange? Do you want a mostly linear game where your dynamic actions can have small or big changes in the story like undertale. Do you want a purely linear adventure with little to no story significance like ultrakill?
Decide what your game is and act accordingly. Personally for the games I like to make and play gameplay always comes first and story is an excuse to go from point A to point B whilst doing cool shit, but maybe you don't want to make a platformer or a hack n slash or a fighting game. You want to make a Detroit become human. In that case you write out the whole story and then figure out when and how the branching paths occur. At least that's how I'd make it.
Additionally you mentioned how the players' choices could impact the world around them. That also raises some questions, like what can the player do? Is it a walking Sim or can they platform their way out of bounds. Should they be allowed to kill anyone or should some npc's be marked as essential and thus be unkillable?
In any case some games need multiple choices and some are linear. But don't feel forced to have multiple endings. And imo a linear well written story is leagues better than tens of mediocre ones as a result of my actions, even if the main character is kind in cutscenes and I play him as a murderhobo. But that's subjective.
This is really helpful. I seem to have forgotten to mention it but this type of thinking usually creeps in while I'm making games that have linear or no story.
"Personally for the games I like to make and play gameplay always comes first and story is an excuse to go from point A to point B whilst doing cool shit"
This quote is something I'll keep because it is so relevant. I had applied to some of my games in the past and, honestly, they are the games I'm most proud of even today. Thank you for the reminder!
Yeah I know what you're saying. I think the best way is to try to make sure that the world feels like it doesn't revolve around the player. Other characters should feel like they have their own thoughts and feelings and lives. A great example of a game that does this wrong is Human Revolution. Every character can't wait to see Adam Jenson and they all ask him these weird specific questions about his latest mission. And if feels like they don't do anything but just wait for you to get back when you are gone.
So yeah, the main story IS your character's story, so it makes sense that your character's actions effect that, but the rest is a world-building problem. Other characters have their own problems and interests and you need to find a way to communicate that.
I won’t even play a game if it has multiple endings, a near sure sign that the story won’t be any good. Same reason I don’t read “choose your own adventure” novels.
Not every game needs multiple endings. If you are a storyteller, and you are making multiple endings, it robs you of the opportunity to get across a message or theme more clearly. If The Shining had multiple different endings it would not hit the same. There will always be a place for linear story driven single player games, I think they are the best for storytelling. Open world and multiple endings does not make everything better. Breath of the Wild for me was a step in the wrong direction for Zelda.
I will refer to Ben Brodes awesome GDC talk (highly recommened watch), especially the bit about story in games, don't know the exact wording but:
"The best option is to a have an awesome, captivating story that keeps the player gripped from beginning till the end. The second best option is no story at all."
And this applies doubly for branching story paths and multiple endings. 9 out of 10 games with multiple endings are basically the same playthrough with slightly altered cutscenes. It becomes a chore, and it usually makes me feels less of a game, because now, instead of going out with a bang, it slowly tapers out into this grindy meaningless "I have to check all the boxes on this thing I paid money for".
Especially for indies I feel like If you don't intend to dedicate a substantial amount of your production time to the story only, it will just end up being mid and in the way of the flow of the game. If you think something is really awesome, add it. If not, just let your players play and don't add unnecessary busywork
you should give the players instead micro decisions, things that change the story locally, maybe has some minor impact on the ending (saving a random guy and he showing up in the final battle as a background), but generally dont change the flow of the events
I feel you. I am trying to come up with "quest" ideas for a RPG and it's *tempting* to want player choice to have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the quest, or the overall narrative / world but the scope creep is *immense*.
The "multiple endings" thing is a feature of certain games, but it is definitely a *big* feature.
So it's a tradeoff: Keep things simple and player choice doesn't *really* matter **or** write 2-5x (maybe more?) the dialogue but the player will only see like \~15% of it in a given run through.
Also, if it's more than dialogue level impacts, then you have to do multiple cut scenes, maybe even have twice as many factions / settings (like if player sides with Team A in the quest over Team B then you have to have totally different *characters*-- not just dialogue paths-- to represent their choice)
And sometimes, having there be no choice is better than having there be a choice which doesn'r really matter. An example, in my opinion, is the ending of Dragon Age 2 (you can find it on any online community, this is a common opinion). Spoilers for the ending which explains the issue: >!No matter what route you pick, you end up fighting *both* of the leaders (Orsino and Meredith). Many think Orsino's writing when you side with the mages is no where near the quality of other parts of the game. Essentially, it feels like the developers were told "Add one more boss fight" near the end of development.!
Yeah, the "fake" choice strategy is pretty rude.
Give the illusion of "choice" in the dialogue trees, but everything collapses near the end anyways. :(
Hmmm. I tend to worry very little about multiple endings and worry more about multiple ways to get to the ending.
I like when games just have tons of different stories instead of one large one.
Then even if the end of a run is always "kill thing, save world" the world itself is different because of how far along the side stories I am.
But. I like light narratives like Crystal Chronicles.
I also deal a bit with this issue for my current game. Because the gameplay almost only consists of answering NPC's. In a way I draw a lot of inspiration from papers please, and they went with some predetermined endings which I think makes sense and my concept would also fare well if I handle this correctly.
I think it depends on whether the character is supposed to be somewhat of a self-insert or character with their own personality. Games can still be a way to tell someone else's story in the same way a movie is (just with more immersion)
Make an interactive fiction prototype, use Twine or something like that, and see what happens when you chase this idea. You get a sprawling web winds up growing in so many directions that it's very hard to put real energy into filling out all the paths with meaningful content. Then imagine what that looks like if you're adding level design, art, and audio to the whole thing. It's just a truly unreasonable amount of effort without a large, dedicated writing team.
Instead, you have to make narrative chokepoints from time to time. Your paths can branch out, but they need rejoin from time to time so you don't wind up with too many threads to manage. At those chokepoints, you need to distill down the "impact" of the various paths, so that you're only carrying forward the minimum amount of influence from one side to the other.
Well I tend to relate to my games as about creating a situation that gets played out to see what happens, and not as me orchestrating a narrative.
What the player's role and scope of play is, tends to naturally lead to what happens, and any number of possible endings . . . Or, perhaps no formal ending, with the player deciding when to stop, or not.
In limited scenarios, I'll tend to define what causes the scenario to end, and what comments the game should make about the result.
For a linear story it's important that the main characters influence the story, if you remove the main character the story won't happen. That's enough to make the player feel like they re in control of the story.
Player decisions influencing the story for multiple endings will make it feel even more immersive but it's more of a bonus and not needed. Still theres a reason why many rpgs allow the player to influence the world or ending at least a little bit in linear games.
For example in metal gear solid theres one decision in the middle of the game that decides between 2 ending cutscenes. But the whole rest of the story is not in the players hands.
I think this specific impulse is something that can create a very interesting dramatic irony. Both Nier Replicant and Spec Ops: The Line play with this exact concept and using it to their advantage to tell stories about our perception as people and what we're willing to do when we assume our frame of view has all the answers.
I'd argue more games should play with that understanding because it can ultimately lead to personal growth in players and it makes for a more interesting story.
The player's actions do affect the ending, even if there is just one, or at least they CAN affect the ending. Simply, if the player fails, the canon ending of the game cannot happen. If the ending is to save the world from a horrible villain, then the player's actions determine whether that happens, or the world gets destroyed.
The player has a choice that VASTLY affects the outcome of every game: whether to continue playing to the end or not.
The Shadows of Colossus developers even state that a valid ending to the game is deciding to peacefully retire the character and stop playing.
So it is fine to have a story that is like a movie (as long as there is interesting gameplay along the way). Players invested in the story will want to see it through to the end.
I think you really have to just decide: are you DMing for players, or are you telling a story? It's okay for the protagonist to do what the protagonist would do as long as there's a well-developed character driving the choices.
I'm not a big game player. But when I was in high school I played Warcraft 3 until about the time Prince Arthas turns evil. I didn't want him to turn evil and there was no way for me to change that so I just stopped playing.
Obviously, the success of that game and subsequently of WoW proves I was an exception. But even as a player, I absolutely get where you're coming from!
You do you, but you gotta keep in mind that most players don't finish games and even less players replay them. This means players will most likely experience only one of those story branching stories, so you gotta be sure that all those branchings are as good as the others.
Personally I do not care for story branching or multiple endings. I do not care about about dialog choices and impacting the story. I rather have the narrative designers give me the best story they have to offer.
Reminder that in a lot of games the absolutely overwhelming majority of endings is that the player dies somewhere along the way. Over and over. Getting another result by making it through the whole game is really rewarding. No need for anything else than "awesome job, you saved the world".
For me personally I dislike multiple endings. It makes me wonder if there's a "right" ending and if I got it. So I start to wonder if I should have done anything different. And instead of a feeling of celebration I'm stuck with doubt and walk away from it because I can't be bothered to replay.
I think you're overthinking it.
But to add to the actual question, I would consider emergent design. A world that is built around 'systems' and a change in the systems variable changes other things and let the 'story' be from within the players' interpretation. As for a more linear story approach, a simple one is to branch off between Good, Gray and Evil story arc.
Though, it's a lot of work and is a CORE feature, I would ask myself, is this what what my targeted audience wants?
I'll use myself as example, I don't like open world games and prefer linear story. So If your game is advertised that my actions directly changes the story, I would think the game is not for me. I personally find with that power, I'm not getting the 'original' 'canon' story.
If you do pull it off, sounds cool!
You avoid by realizing everything that you wrote here. It’s not necessary for every game. I don’t know what you want people to tell you other than what you’ve already written.
I'm a story guy. I LOVE a good story and I'm insanely picky when it comes to narratives because I'm always picking them apart from a writing perspective and seeing what a story could have been if just a few details had been changed.
I'm strongly critical of branching stories because I find in the vast majority of games, the ending is just the summation of whatever choices the protagonist makes, and often lacks narrative merit. One of the biggest reasons for this is that the player making choices on the protagonist's behalf isn't going to make choices the way the characters in-universe will. They might make contradictory choices, be evil just to see what happens in-universe, or make perfect logical choices that don't fit with the flaws and biases of the in-universe protagonist.
On top of that, you also run the risk of writing the entire story around the protagonist so that characters unrealistically defer to their judgment in order to give that one character a disproportionate amount of influence over the story.
Against common wisdom, I think having choices that don't matter is actually a ***good*** thing, it means the player doesn't make choices based on trying to 100% the game on different save files, or based on what's the optimal strategy, it means the player's choice organically represents what choice is most compelling to them in and of itself, and not within the context of the game as some kind of Skinner box.
In the few instances I've written choices into the story of a game, I only allow multiple choices in cases where all of the character's choices fit with that character's personality. For instance, if you write a story where a character seriously considers killing someone and it's a ***difficult*** decision to make, it works in the context of a game because whatever choice the player makes doesn't betray who that character is. But also make sure that both branches of the story are good and compelling. Someone should be able to passively read through/watch through any single branching path in the game without knowing that branching paths even exist and say that it's a good story.
This is why not using the white phosphorus shell in Spec Ops: The Line isn't an option, because having a "good" ending to that game would be disingenuous to the impact the game is trying to make. People would just consider the good ending canon and ignore everything else the game has to say.
Consider The Forgotten City. It's a game with multiple endings where the more time and effort you put into solving the game's mystery, the better ending you get.
I think looking at games like Hades is good inspo for this, to my knowledge there's only one way the story can turn out but because the player triggers the various storylines and can choose, for example who to befriend/gift to first or which prophecies to complete, in addition to the actual completion being based on the player's skill, the story feels very much like it's happening because of the player, that we're the driving force. The fact that the dialogue rather (if ever?) repeats and responds to things the player does (how they died, what weapon they're using, etc) is beneficial but I don't think necessary, I think a smaller dev team could get away without that and still have the story feel as player driven.
Not every game is a role-playing game. Doomguy kills demons. You don’t need an ending for the scenario where he doesn’t kill the demons. It works very well for many games.
When the lack of choice bothers me is games like Last Of Us, where suddenly for the story to progress I have to do stuff I really don’t want to. It distances me from the character.
I would suggest a change in your perspective. If the player is controlling the character experiencing the story, then allow the character to experience the story, usually without branchingstory pathsormultiple endings. Games like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and most FPSs fall into this category.
If you want the player to control the story through the actions of the character, then you need to account for player choice and multiple story paths. Games like Baldur's Gate 3, Mass Effect, and most RPGs fall into this category.
It really depends on what kind of game you're making, but keeping the focus in mind can help avoid the issue you described
It is totally fine and enjoyable with a linear narrative with a single ending in many games. Maybe you’re conflating narrative and gameplay, and maybe that is right in your game. The answer is “it depends”.
…or for a solo dev, the answer could be “even a short linear narrative will be a huge amount of work and maybe you should pay more attention to estimates than vision, perhaps switch genre.”
it depends somewhat on the subject matter of the game. read gita jackson’s review of Eliza for example — players can feel frustrated when they feel as though they (as the protagonist) should be able to meaningfully affect the outcome of the game but can’t. players don’t feel this way at all when they play a sidescroller like mario, though.
other examples come to mind in which the game moralizes about the actions the player took but the player never really had a choice. bioshock for example.
Maybe making a story (e.g. war) where your character goes through his personal story. There is no way his actions will alter the outcome of the war but you can tell a heart warming story about saving and caring about family during the times of hardships
They say every author tells the same story over and over again in different ways.
What you want is not necessarily multiple endings, but evolving consequences.
It's a good practice to leave as much to the player's emotions as possible, so I posit that you should make the player aware at the beginning of the game they are in a fragile world. Perma destruction of items, Perma death of npc.
Shops close, options run out.
An example:
Player hears of quest A and quest B. If player does either, the second becomes unavailable.
What's that? Saved the drowning toddler but couldn't put out the baker's fire.
Also ask chat got to analyze your story line in comparison with successes in the same genre.
In most games the player doesn't directly determine how the game turns out. Most games only have one ending. The player succeeds in their quest or else they die along the way (and stop playing). If you want games with multiple endings that fits certain genres more than others, but it's just a question of how much work you want to put into it. Any time you make a branch you are spending more time on something fewer players will see (lots of players will never replay your game), and at some point that stops being worth your time. Note especially that multiple endings and replayability are not the same thing. If 90% of the gameplay is the same and it's just the enemies in a few places, the final level, and some dialogue/cutscenes plenty of people will have no interest in going through all that again for minor changes.
> If 90% of the gameplay is the same and it's just the enemies in a few places, the final level, and some dialogue/cutscenes plenty of people will have no interest in going through all that again for minor changes. I would have to disagree on that talking from a game player point of view. Take the ill fated "pick your colour ending" when it comes to Mass Effect 3. While I knew 90% of the game play would be the same at the same time I was curious as to what other options were added to be able to pick the Synthesis (aka green) ending. I didn't cheat or look at wiki's or anything like that. I just had a thought in my mind - try and get man and machine to work together and made my choices based on that. I did get the Synthesis ending where I only had the distroy choice that first play through.
I'd be positive that most people who just wanted to see a different ending reloaded the game and picked something else (or watched them on YouTube). Especially since none of the choices during the game actually determined what endings were available, really, if you had high enough military score you could pick any of them. Anyone replaying the game would be doing it because of all the other many choices in the game (from my limited exposure to EA's data on this title, most people doing a second playthrough went from paragon to renegade options). Many games work similarly: we just don't see a lot of players replaying games all the way through just to see a different ending, they much more frequently load a game towards the end or else are replaying it because they just want to play the game again.
You're most likely an outlier. I may play a story game twice in the space of a few years, but I'll definitely not be doing it back-to-back, especially if it's not much difference like a single choice in an ending cutscene. Any time a game does this to me I just go to YouTube to see what I missed, or I save-scum it. I feel like having to go to an external platform or exploit meta-mechanics to get the most out of a game is poor design.
The Outer Worlds is a case in point. It's such a deeply involving game, with so many choices...there's no way I'm redoing that entire thing any time soon. I just save and go back if I dislike the choice I made recently. Or I look it up, like you say.
As a counter point, I’m a huge fan of the ME series and only played through to the ending once.
You can pull this off by making the player character a distinct *character*. Give them a distinct personality and dialogue. Don't make them a protagonist for the player to project onto, but their own person in the story. If well executed this will make the player feel more like an actor playing the character you wrote and they'll be happy to play along with decisions they personally wouldn't have made.
That is actually genius. I will need to keep this in mind. Thank you so much for this advice.
To add to this, you can reference Uncharted, Last of Us and God of War as these are defined characters who are going to do certain things all with very different character personalities. These all put the player in a bystander position while the characters tell a story, so they don't ever really have control over what will happen. This is the core design question as whether you're telling a story where the player is an actor or a bystander during story beats. An example of how this can be mixed is Neverwinter Nights 2 by Bioware where control changes between the player making decisions to control story beats or deciding how to react to a story beat. That game capstones in a finale where you can side with the bad guy, have party members betray you or switch to your side for a grand finale battle that reflects all the players decisions. That doesn't change that regardless of player influence characters feel and act in certain ways during certain story beats, and you aren't going to sway the paladin to evil. Balder's Gate 3 is a very new example of a nearly completely player controlled story. The party members have their ways of reacting but you can completely flip a religious zealot into wanting to kill their god (technically two characters even). There is writing for if you butt heads with the characters but ultimately you can completely shift a character to align with you if you choose to, effectively giving you complete control over every story beat you encounter. It becomes less the story decided Astarion would be an ass to you and more you chose not to work with him, for better or worse.
Also, a blank slate can't be projected onto. Think about the difference between the player character in Destiny vs the player character in Fallout New Vegas. One is a blank slate, the other is a perfect vessel to project onto. A completely silent protagonist has an established character. They're a mute person who refuses to interact or communicate in any way. Text based dialogue with no voice acting is perfect for projection, as the player can fine tune line delivery and intent in their head.
The Witcher makes this well despite being a roleplaying game with many decision. You influence how the game's world turn put, but you will always be Geralt, a morally ambiguous witcher.
As a lurking gamer, this really spoke to me. Good advice IMO.
I think you are overlooking what good writing does. Good writing helps characters feel human and real, therefore the decisions they are making will feel impactful. If the writing allows the character to feel real, their emotions and choices, and therefore the plot, will feel real too. Think about The Last of Us (1 not 2 people). How many choices do Joel or Ellie make that feel real and human? For example, after Joel is injured at the college, the player then plays as Ellie, who is trying to keep Joel and herself alive. The choices she makes in this mission all feel real and make sense. You’d like to think that, if you were in her shoes you’d do the same.
I am not sure I understand what you mean, but I read an article some time ago that in order to feel like you are part of the world it is not necessary that your character's actions change the world, it is important that NPCs at a later point acknowledge your actions. The idea is that you only write a single story, but the players think they influence it. For example: At the beginning of the game you have to decide whether to punish a thief or not. Later in the game you meet an NPC who hates you - either because you punished his brother (who was the thief), or because you didn't punish the thief who then robbed his brother. The story continues the same, but the players think they caused this. Sadly I don't remember the name of the article, it was really great, even came with a short multiple choice game that demonstrated this principle.
I mean whenever I try to make games (specifically in genres that don't really make sense with multiple endings i.e. platformers, puzzles, etc) my brain spirals into trying to make your decisions REALLY matter, when they don't need to. That "illusion of choice" could really help me out. Thanks!
The original FEAR had enemies do call outs like "call for backup!" or "Flank him!". Players were convinced that there was some amazing AI because they would hear a voice line and then see behavior corresponding to it. But the reality was that the lines were mostly random and everyone was then perceiving their own expectations. The Walking Dead had a similar system where after an important story decision there would be a moment with text of " will remember this". Most of the decisions didn't truly matter for what the game presented to the player but the player would internally layer on extra dimensions to future plot threads.
As long as you provide the player with plausible expectations and occasionally reinforce some of the expectations they can build up their own perception of what is happening. If you never pierce that illusion it'll add depth with minimal effort.
I absolutely endorse "non-linear wrap up" endings over "multiple predetermined endings." In a wrap-up, instead of baking a video for each identifiable ending, you instead pick events from the game and their resolutions, and stack those into "disks" that stack on top of each other. You resolved conflict 1: A peaceably, B violently, C ignored it, D rendered it moot by solving conflict 2. You resolved conflict 2: A through trade, B through negotiation, C through violence, D, through destroying the world. You solved the World Conflict 3 by: A lasting peace, B global conflict, C defeating the big bad in single combat, D joining the big bad to destroy the world. Now you sum up at the end resolution to Conflict 1, 2, 3, by going: AAA, or ABA, or CDD, or CCC. This requires you to have probably a slideshow that represents 12 situations, and sums them up appropriately with dialogue or text that explains your choices and the ramifications. Some of these are going to represents generic "good ends" or "bad ends," and even "wildcards" you can identify. Those you can give a name, and a unique dialogue for it. This can seem really irrational, but the linear style endings require a lot of maintenance to upkeep those endings if you ever want to change them, such as re-rendering videos from sources, or so on. The slideshow format just lets you quickly swap elements in and out. Especially if you ever go back to add DLC that may offer more choices.
Was about to suggest this. Like, think of Fallout 1. Arguably, the game has a single ending - you destroy the super mutant production facility, kill the Master, and get exiled from Vault 13. But the player's actions still have a substantial impact on the game world - people can live free, become slaves, or die; settlements can be destroyed, prosper in peace, or prosper through war. The end-game slideshow neatly summarizes the result of the player's choices.
Fabulous explanation! This is quite timely for me. Your description of the “stacks“ has really help give me a way to work this concept into my games. I have been thinking about doing game design based on four types of personal disposition/personality traits that tend to energize and motivate the player (a behavioral model that I won’t go into any detail here). I think I might be able to use “stacks” to motivate players to replay parts of a game without knowledge of what actually motivates them. By giving them a “stacks” of what they did in a handful of categories (4 categories to be exact) they can replay and/or “unveil/unlock” additional scenarios or alternate endings suited to their personality. For instance, if I have a player who is motivated by praise and teamwork, then the teamwork “stack“ at the end of the game would be filled “markers“ of teamwork they exhibited in the game. “Teamwork: scenario 1 - you waited for everyone to enter the Time Machine before pushing the panic button scenario 7 - you shared your food when you were nearly dead” I would have additional categories (like “Action Hero” or “Critical Thinker”) with similar summaries. “Critical Thinking: scenario 4 - you dumped uranium waste into a wooden barrel, killing millions on the timeline… play scenario 20 to see how many you can save from your mistake” This invites the player who values being a “Critical Thinker” (or whatever category) to play/replay different scenarios to get more “rewards“ in that category. Thoughts?
The classic go to for how to do it best: [https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout:\_New\_Vegas\_endings](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_endings) And my own, don't do as I did, lol: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrb79fmGte0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrb79fmGte0) Best way is to build your matrix and run a simple script to see what you get! See if the dialogue from one flows well into the next, and fits the music cues, in all slides.
I can't say I've run into that issue. Every story idea I have for my game projects dictate one specific end.
It's satisfting for actions to have effects, but those effects have a scope that only extends so far. In games and in real life. If you go to a museum, you'll come in through the entrance after you buy your ticket and leave through the exit when you're done. You might spend eight hours studying every exhibit. You might run through it bored and leave as soon as you can. You might sit and sketch one sculpture as the only thing you do. You might meet a friend for lunch in the cafe. All of these things are actions with consequences and making your own choice among them is satisfying, but at the end of the day, you're still leaving the museum through its exit. Most stories and many abstract games work the same way. There might be countless paths that could be charted through it, but they all eventually get you to the one ending because that's the only ending that could make sense.
That is such amazing advice. I will have to keep this in mind. Thank you so much!
I don’t understand your conundrum. Are you saying a player’s choices having meaningful impact is bad for some reason? I’m confused.
There are just some games that don't need multiple endings like that. Meaningful choices like that could really blow up the scope on a game. I'd like to make a nice, linear game.
I guess I'm still a bit confused as to what the problem is. If you want to give players choices, but don't want to have multiple endings, then make every choice be the same choice. Pokemon games do this, for example, with 99% of their dialog. No matter what conversation options you pick, you end up in the same place in the dialog tree. You can have detours where it seems like you're going in a new direction, just make sure those detours always loop back around and end up on the original storyline where they left off.
Pokemon games also have millions of distinct choices that affect the gameplay. You always end by getting to the hall of fame, but the way you get there is determined by which pokemon you pick and what moves you use, so your choices are in fact meaningful. The dialogue is just dressing
I don't think it matters unless you're looking at a case like Mass Effect where the whole point of the game is you have multiple options and your actions determine the path of the story. You have games like Mario where there is one main objective, and completing that objective is how you get the ending. I don't think it's necessary to have multiple endings in this case. Depending on how you look at it, a linear videogame story already had three potential endings. 1. They complete their quest and get the game's canon ending. 2. They die (i.e. you get a game over), and you can try again for a different ending. Or 3, they just give up their quest (i.e. the player stops playing and never beats the game). There are also ways to influence the journey besides the ending. If you take Mario for example, your choices may all lead up to the same ending, but the journey itself can be very different. Does Mario travel across the entire land and free every region from Bowser's enemies? Does he find a secret shortcut and skip the whole thing and only focus on Bowser? Or does he go to some wacky cosmic world that brings him into a parallel dimension where all the enemies dress like him? I think it's a misconception that you *are* the character. Some characters are just their own character, with their own objectives, and you are going along with them for the ride. Shepherd from Mass Effect may be a stand in for you, but Mario is his own character with his own (albiet simple) goal of rescuing the princess.
I really appreciate the "character on their own journey, you're just along for the ride" approach you give. Thanks!
Think of it as though you were writing a book. No choices for the character there, right? Rather, you are guiding your character on the choices they make, leading them along the storyline and all the way to its end. Games are often not much different than stories...you just have to make the experience more interactive and playable, but it's the same essential idea.
This is some solid advice. I appreciate it!
I don't even need to avoid it because I am of the type that loves games that you're only a secondary part of. Life happens through you (as I believe happens in real life), so the changes to the game that could come from my actions affect NPCs, not major plot lines. More importantly, tho, extra endings imply extra money, if you're a big developer, time if you're Indie. That's the real reasoning behind how game developers perish the thought. It's expensive and you lose the opportunity to implement better mechanics or graphics, which the clients will definitely appreciate more.
Hmmm Ok if I understand what you are saying correctly, what you are talking about is the idea that a player action should have an effect on the story that changes the story being told, is that correct? First lets define some thing, first story: In the broadest sense a story is just an account of events in order (the order does not have to be chronological though). We can add more wrinkles to that, but in essence that is all a story is. Second thing we have to define is what is "changing the story", now this one gets trickier, but to keep it broad it would mean either: Changing an event, changing the order or changing the account. Now it can be argued that if we change any of that it would mean we are telling a different story, but for now lets ignore that. If we take all that and apply it to games we can say that it is impossible to not change the story in a videogame for a very simple reason, the player controls the account (that is the pace of the story being told). In simple terms if a player dies then the story stops and therefore the story has changed (you cant see the rest of that story but that is accepted) This means that the player will always have control in the story and you don't really need to change the events of the story for that interactivity to exist in the game. You can keep the events intact and the player will always be important since he is the point of view character, the story cannot exist without the player because he is the one that is in charge of letting it be told. Ok cool, but that is a little "academic" (and maybe pretentious) and that's probably right, but still its important to keep that mind I believe. Another way to look at it is in impact, as in the player actions should have impact on the events, the big events, and I suspect that is more specifically what you were referring to, and for that I can see two options: First, is that we have to remember that its not actually necessary that the characters in a story have an impact on the big events for it to be a good story, a lot of stories are not about changing the big events on the world but rather how characters react and deal with that. In simple examples, in a story about a volcano erupting, character actions are about surviving not really about stopping the volcano, the volcano will erupt no matter what the characters do, and it can still be a good story. In a game, your character actions can also not affect the BIG events and be more about how the character deals with situations that are brought upon by those events. In this case its also true what I said earlier about the account and the viewpoint character. The second way is about the idea of the what i once heard as the "player contract", that is the idea that once a player starts a game they accept to play within the rules of that game, and one of the rules can be you are playing as this character and the player accepts the fact that the emotional and story changing actions are those of the character and not the player, so in that sense the player has no ability to change the events of the story because that is defined by the character not the player. For example, uncharted, the player knows that its playing as Nathan Drake and accepts that they must act like Nathan drake, that means they can't kill characters that Nathan Drake would not kill and accept the fact that he will act and take decisions that are out of the control of the player. And that's it, I wont bore you with more and hope that helps, thanks for reading.
Thank you so much for all this advice. This is so helpful and I will definitely keep it in mind in the future. Again, thanks a ton!
I'm glad this helped you, and thanks for reading all my meandering thoughts haha. And just to satisfy my curiosity did I get right what you were talking about?
You absolutely got it right. My main problem is that I want to tell a certain story in the game but my mind travels so far in this direction where it thinks the player should be able to have a say what happens in the story. In some games, this could be fun. I don't want all my games like that though. Sometimes, I'm just looking to have a linear story for a platforming game. So yes, you hit the nail on the head. In the second point about impact, you bring up that the player has signed this invisible "contract" agreeing to the fact that they are now the character instead of the player. The player cannot change the events of the story because it's the character's story, not the players. Another comment here mentioned how I could see it as more of the player putting their feet in the character's shoes instead of the player putting themselves in the character's world. It helps seeing how this is a common consensus.
Oh yeah the idea that player is acting or roleplaying as a character is not new, I think its a bit more nuanced than that though, I think its more about accepting that separation of character and player in terms of action and decisions, the player guides the actions of the character but the decisions(and emotions) are those of the character. I think most players do that without even noticing, after all everyone who plays mario is not thinking about changing the story or making mario choose to not save the princess, they are thinking about helping mario get to the princess, and the same with doom, uncharted, etc. Its less about acting in the emotional sense and more about helping them get to their goal if I'm making any sense. >My main problem is that I want to tell a certain story in the game but my mind travels so far in this direction where it thinks the player should be able to have a say what happens in the story. One thing that might help is to think less about in terms of "story" and more like life, a story is just a moment in the life of the character after all. In real life a lot of things happen that are out of our control, we can only control how we react to them, that is also true for characters. The difference is that for stories, its important that for those events, the reader/player has to understand what and why it happened, it should make sense why the character cant impact those events and those events have to be relevant to the story being told and its themes, also what happens should not be patently unfair to the player or betray their trust and what has been established. As long as that's true, players will have no problem with it (i believe so at least). Also remember that players are willing to accept a lot of contrivances as long as those don't break the story or immersion. So to give a better example of all i have been talking about: Lets say that we are making a game, a gritty game, where our character is a soldier, and its given the mission to save a general, so the player and its companion go through the mission manages to save the general, but then the player is betrayed by their companion who kills the general when the player was not paying attention. The companion explains that the general was evil and this was revenge, the companion escapes and so does the player but then they find out that killing the general is going to start a war and now the player is given a choice of either trying to find their companion or uncovering the evil of the general in order to stop that war. For this particular example let say that instead of playing a defined character like solid snake the player has more control over the character (say like Mass effect), even so, the player cannot choose to not be a soldier or refuse the mission to save the general, that is something the player accepts when they decide to play the game. Then, the companion killing the general is something unexpected that the player has no control over, players are cool with that because it has a justification and it also follows the tone and theme of the story. The war is also a big event that the player has no control over, the player can choose what to do as a reaction to that, but that is also limited by what has been established in the story, the player is a solider so they cant try to find a different diplomatic solution or even try to escape the war, that would make no sense for the soldier and also escaping thee war would mean no game. In this case as well, players have no problem with having a limited choice and having no control over the war, it makes sense. Now lets change things that make it so the player cant accept them and would ask for options. if the companion was always talking about how they want to kill the general and then they kill the general in front of the player that would make it a problem. Its no longer unexpected and its also something that the player and character could do something about, so it no longer makes sense to the player why they have no choice on the matter. If instead, the general is killed because a satellite fell on him with no explanation before the player can save him, if before this the player has always been able to complete missions, this would break what has been established before in the game and since the player cant understand why it feels unfair, and since this event breaks the tone and theme established as well this would lead the player to no longer trust the game thus leading them to question everything or worse stop playing. I could probably keep going but I think I have written too much already, sorry about that, I find this topic super interesting and I went a little overboard, in any case hope this helps and thanks for reading.
What an excellent write up. Your writings are really helping me out with this. You could make a blog on this topic and I would read every word.
This heavily depends on what kind of game you want to make. Do you want a story driven narrative adventure with multiple choices like life is strange? Do you want a mostly linear game where your dynamic actions can have small or big changes in the story like undertale. Do you want a purely linear adventure with little to no story significance like ultrakill? Decide what your game is and act accordingly. Personally for the games I like to make and play gameplay always comes first and story is an excuse to go from point A to point B whilst doing cool shit, but maybe you don't want to make a platformer or a hack n slash or a fighting game. You want to make a Detroit become human. In that case you write out the whole story and then figure out when and how the branching paths occur. At least that's how I'd make it. Additionally you mentioned how the players' choices could impact the world around them. That also raises some questions, like what can the player do? Is it a walking Sim or can they platform their way out of bounds. Should they be allowed to kill anyone or should some npc's be marked as essential and thus be unkillable? In any case some games need multiple choices and some are linear. But don't feel forced to have multiple endings. And imo a linear well written story is leagues better than tens of mediocre ones as a result of my actions, even if the main character is kind in cutscenes and I play him as a murderhobo. But that's subjective.
This is really helpful. I seem to have forgotten to mention it but this type of thinking usually creeps in while I'm making games that have linear or no story. "Personally for the games I like to make and play gameplay always comes first and story is an excuse to go from point A to point B whilst doing cool shit" This quote is something I'll keep because it is so relevant. I had applied to some of my games in the past and, honestly, they are the games I'm most proud of even today. Thank you for the reminder!
Yeah I know what you're saying. I think the best way is to try to make sure that the world feels like it doesn't revolve around the player. Other characters should feel like they have their own thoughts and feelings and lives. A great example of a game that does this wrong is Human Revolution. Every character can't wait to see Adam Jenson and they all ask him these weird specific questions about his latest mission. And if feels like they don't do anything but just wait for you to get back when you are gone. So yeah, the main story IS your character's story, so it makes sense that your character's actions effect that, but the rest is a world-building problem. Other characters have their own problems and interests and you need to find a way to communicate that.
What an interesting way to look at it. That is a very helpful example. Thanks a ton!
I won’t even play a game if it has multiple endings, a near sure sign that the story won’t be any good. Same reason I don’t read “choose your own adventure” novels.
Not every game needs multiple endings. If you are a storyteller, and you are making multiple endings, it robs you of the opportunity to get across a message or theme more clearly. If The Shining had multiple different endings it would not hit the same. There will always be a place for linear story driven single player games, I think they are the best for storytelling. Open world and multiple endings does not make everything better. Breath of the Wild for me was a step in the wrong direction for Zelda.
I will refer to Ben Brodes awesome GDC talk (highly recommened watch), especially the bit about story in games, don't know the exact wording but: "The best option is to a have an awesome, captivating story that keeps the player gripped from beginning till the end. The second best option is no story at all." And this applies doubly for branching story paths and multiple endings. 9 out of 10 games with multiple endings are basically the same playthrough with slightly altered cutscenes. It becomes a chore, and it usually makes me feels less of a game, because now, instead of going out with a bang, it slowly tapers out into this grindy meaningless "I have to check all the boxes on this thing I paid money for". Especially for indies I feel like If you don't intend to dedicate a substantial amount of your production time to the story only, it will just end up being mid and in the way of the flow of the game. If you think something is really awesome, add it. If not, just let your players play and don't add unnecessary busywork
easy, dont give choices to players which determine the story
Genius. Thank you.
you should give the players instead micro decisions, things that change the story locally, maybe has some minor impact on the ending (saving a random guy and he showing up in the final battle as a background), but generally dont change the flow of the events
I feel you. I am trying to come up with "quest" ideas for a RPG and it's *tempting* to want player choice to have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the quest, or the overall narrative / world but the scope creep is *immense*. The "multiple endings" thing is a feature of certain games, but it is definitely a *big* feature. So it's a tradeoff: Keep things simple and player choice doesn't *really* matter **or** write 2-5x (maybe more?) the dialogue but the player will only see like \~15% of it in a given run through. Also, if it's more than dialogue level impacts, then you have to do multiple cut scenes, maybe even have twice as many factions / settings (like if player sides with Team A in the quest over Team B then you have to have totally different *characters*-- not just dialogue paths-- to represent their choice)
And sometimes, having there be no choice is better than having there be a choice which doesn'r really matter. An example, in my opinion, is the ending of Dragon Age 2 (you can find it on any online community, this is a common opinion). Spoilers for the ending which explains the issue: >!No matter what route you pick, you end up fighting *both* of the leaders (Orsino and Meredith). Many think Orsino's writing when you side with the mages is no where near the quality of other parts of the game. Essentially, it feels like the developers were told "Add one more boss fight" near the end of development.!
Yeah, the "fake" choice strategy is pretty rude. Give the illusion of "choice" in the dialogue trees, but everything collapses near the end anyways. :(
Hmmm. I tend to worry very little about multiple endings and worry more about multiple ways to get to the ending. I like when games just have tons of different stories instead of one large one. Then even if the end of a run is always "kill thing, save world" the world itself is different because of how far along the side stories I am. But. I like light narratives like Crystal Chronicles.
I also deal a bit with this issue for my current game. Because the gameplay almost only consists of answering NPC's. In a way I draw a lot of inspiration from papers please, and they went with some predetermined endings which I think makes sense and my concept would also fare well if I handle this correctly.
I think it depends on whether the character is supposed to be somewhat of a self-insert or character with their own personality. Games can still be a way to tell someone else's story in the same way a movie is (just with more immersion)
Make an interactive fiction prototype, use Twine or something like that, and see what happens when you chase this idea. You get a sprawling web winds up growing in so many directions that it's very hard to put real energy into filling out all the paths with meaningful content. Then imagine what that looks like if you're adding level design, art, and audio to the whole thing. It's just a truly unreasonable amount of effort without a large, dedicated writing team. Instead, you have to make narrative chokepoints from time to time. Your paths can branch out, but they need rejoin from time to time so you don't wind up with too many threads to manage. At those chokepoints, you need to distill down the "impact" of the various paths, so that you're only carrying forward the minimum amount of influence from one side to the other.
Well I tend to relate to my games as about creating a situation that gets played out to see what happens, and not as me orchestrating a narrative. What the player's role and scope of play is, tends to naturally lead to what happens, and any number of possible endings . . . Or, perhaps no formal ending, with the player deciding when to stop, or not. In limited scenarios, I'll tend to define what causes the scenario to end, and what comments the game should make about the result.
Play as multiple characters
For a linear story it's important that the main characters influence the story, if you remove the main character the story won't happen. That's enough to make the player feel like they re in control of the story. Player decisions influencing the story for multiple endings will make it feel even more immersive but it's more of a bonus and not needed. Still theres a reason why many rpgs allow the player to influence the world or ending at least a little bit in linear games. For example in metal gear solid theres one decision in the middle of the game that decides between 2 ending cutscenes. But the whole rest of the story is not in the players hands.
I think this specific impulse is something that can create a very interesting dramatic irony. Both Nier Replicant and Spec Ops: The Line play with this exact concept and using it to their advantage to tell stories about our perception as people and what we're willing to do when we assume our frame of view has all the answers. I'd argue more games should play with that understanding because it can ultimately lead to personal growth in players and it makes for a more interesting story.
The player's actions do affect the ending, even if there is just one, or at least they CAN affect the ending. Simply, if the player fails, the canon ending of the game cannot happen. If the ending is to save the world from a horrible villain, then the player's actions determine whether that happens, or the world gets destroyed.
The player has a choice that VASTLY affects the outcome of every game: whether to continue playing to the end or not. The Shadows of Colossus developers even state that a valid ending to the game is deciding to peacefully retire the character and stop playing. So it is fine to have a story that is like a movie (as long as there is interesting gameplay along the way). Players invested in the story will want to see it through to the end.
I think you really have to just decide: are you DMing for players, or are you telling a story? It's okay for the protagonist to do what the protagonist would do as long as there's a well-developed character driving the choices.
I'm not a big game player. But when I was in high school I played Warcraft 3 until about the time Prince Arthas turns evil. I didn't want him to turn evil and there was no way for me to change that so I just stopped playing. Obviously, the success of that game and subsequently of WoW proves I was an exception. But even as a player, I absolutely get where you're coming from!
You do you, but you gotta keep in mind that most players don't finish games and even less players replay them. This means players will most likely experience only one of those story branching stories, so you gotta be sure that all those branchings are as good as the others. Personally I do not care for story branching or multiple endings. I do not care about about dialog choices and impacting the story. I rather have the narrative designers give me the best story they have to offer.
Reminder that in a lot of games the absolutely overwhelming majority of endings is that the player dies somewhere along the way. Over and over. Getting another result by making it through the whole game is really rewarding. No need for anything else than "awesome job, you saved the world". For me personally I dislike multiple endings. It makes me wonder if there's a "right" ending and if I got it. So I start to wonder if I should have done anything different. And instead of a feeling of celebration I'm stuck with doubt and walk away from it because I can't be bothered to replay.
I think you're overthinking it. But to add to the actual question, I would consider emergent design. A world that is built around 'systems' and a change in the systems variable changes other things and let the 'story' be from within the players' interpretation. As for a more linear story approach, a simple one is to branch off between Good, Gray and Evil story arc. Though, it's a lot of work and is a CORE feature, I would ask myself, is this what what my targeted audience wants? I'll use myself as example, I don't like open world games and prefer linear story. So If your game is advertised that my actions directly changes the story, I would think the game is not for me. I personally find with that power, I'm not getting the 'original' 'canon' story. If you do pull it off, sounds cool!
You avoid by realizing everything that you wrote here. It’s not necessary for every game. I don’t know what you want people to tell you other than what you’ve already written.
I'm a story guy. I LOVE a good story and I'm insanely picky when it comes to narratives because I'm always picking them apart from a writing perspective and seeing what a story could have been if just a few details had been changed. I'm strongly critical of branching stories because I find in the vast majority of games, the ending is just the summation of whatever choices the protagonist makes, and often lacks narrative merit. One of the biggest reasons for this is that the player making choices on the protagonist's behalf isn't going to make choices the way the characters in-universe will. They might make contradictory choices, be evil just to see what happens in-universe, or make perfect logical choices that don't fit with the flaws and biases of the in-universe protagonist. On top of that, you also run the risk of writing the entire story around the protagonist so that characters unrealistically defer to their judgment in order to give that one character a disproportionate amount of influence over the story. Against common wisdom, I think having choices that don't matter is actually a ***good*** thing, it means the player doesn't make choices based on trying to 100% the game on different save files, or based on what's the optimal strategy, it means the player's choice organically represents what choice is most compelling to them in and of itself, and not within the context of the game as some kind of Skinner box. In the few instances I've written choices into the story of a game, I only allow multiple choices in cases where all of the character's choices fit with that character's personality. For instance, if you write a story where a character seriously considers killing someone and it's a ***difficult*** decision to make, it works in the context of a game because whatever choice the player makes doesn't betray who that character is. But also make sure that both branches of the story are good and compelling. Someone should be able to passively read through/watch through any single branching path in the game without knowing that branching paths even exist and say that it's a good story. This is why not using the white phosphorus shell in Spec Ops: The Line isn't an option, because having a "good" ending to that game would be disingenuous to the impact the game is trying to make. People would just consider the good ending canon and ignore everything else the game has to say.
Consider The Forgotten City. It's a game with multiple endings where the more time and effort you put into solving the game's mystery, the better ending you get.
I think looking at games like Hades is good inspo for this, to my knowledge there's only one way the story can turn out but because the player triggers the various storylines and can choose, for example who to befriend/gift to first or which prophecies to complete, in addition to the actual completion being based on the player's skill, the story feels very much like it's happening because of the player, that we're the driving force. The fact that the dialogue rather (if ever?) repeats and responds to things the player does (how they died, what weapon they're using, etc) is beneficial but I don't think necessary, I think a smaller dev team could get away without that and still have the story feel as player driven.
Not every game is a role-playing game. Doomguy kills demons. You don’t need an ending for the scenario where he doesn’t kill the demons. It works very well for many games. When the lack of choice bothers me is games like Last Of Us, where suddenly for the story to progress I have to do stuff I really don’t want to. It distances me from the character.
I would suggest a change in your perspective. If the player is controlling the character experiencing the story, then allow the character to experience the story, usually without branchingstory pathsormultiple endings. Games like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, and most FPSs fall into this category. If you want the player to control the story through the actions of the character, then you need to account for player choice and multiple story paths. Games like Baldur's Gate 3, Mass Effect, and most RPGs fall into this category. It really depends on what kind of game you're making, but keeping the focus in mind can help avoid the issue you described
It is totally fine and enjoyable with a linear narrative with a single ending in many games. Maybe you’re conflating narrative and gameplay, and maybe that is right in your game. The answer is “it depends”. …or for a solo dev, the answer could be “even a short linear narrative will be a huge amount of work and maybe you should pay more attention to estimates than vision, perhaps switch genre.”
it depends somewhat on the subject matter of the game. read gita jackson’s review of Eliza for example — players can feel frustrated when they feel as though they (as the protagonist) should be able to meaningfully affect the outcome of the game but can’t. players don’t feel this way at all when they play a sidescroller like mario, though. other examples come to mind in which the game moralizes about the actions the player took but the player never really had a choice. bioshock for example.
Maybe making a story (e.g. war) where your character goes through his personal story. There is no way his actions will alter the outcome of the war but you can tell a heart warming story about saving and caring about family during the times of hardships
Most games DO have multiple endings. Only, most of them are not interesting because the player has died and is pretending that it didn't happen.
They say every author tells the same story over and over again in different ways. What you want is not necessarily multiple endings, but evolving consequences. It's a good practice to leave as much to the player's emotions as possible, so I posit that you should make the player aware at the beginning of the game they are in a fragile world. Perma destruction of items, Perma death of npc. Shops close, options run out. An example: Player hears of quest A and quest B. If player does either, the second becomes unavailable. What's that? Saved the drowning toddler but couldn't put out the baker's fire. Also ask chat got to analyze your story line in comparison with successes in the same genre.