Comments on: Three Rules of Choice In Game Design

By: Matthew Fister

Matthew Fister — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:49:55 +0000

Thanks for the comment! What led me to formulate it this way is the critical choice in Bioshock: you can save Little Sisters or harvest them. Writing post was partly inspired from this article: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2007/08/little-sisters-save-or-harvest-we-break-down-the-best-approach-for-adam.ars

In this case I think the outcomes seem obvious (I want to be a powerful evil villain or a hero or resists committing evil acts for power) but the choice is rendered meaningless because the rewards work out more or less the same. Imagine alternate universe Bioshock where you couldn’t gain more power without killing Little Sisters. This would provide way more temptation to be evil.

The distinction also allows for four sectors of choice:

The choice is meaningful and the outcome is obvious.
The choice is meaningful but the result is opaque.
The choice is meaningless but the outcome is obvious.
The choice is meaningless and the outcome is opaque.

I think examples could be constructed or found of all of these.

In any case, I like your formulation and I think we’re on the same track, but I want to avoid having players needing to learn the effects of individual choices in games. It probably depends on the gameplay you want to create though. And I do support the concept of learning by doing when approaching systems of choices. Anyway, I’ll be posting more on this later.

By: Pelle Klit Christensen

Pelle Klit Christensen — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:26:00 +0000

I think rule # 2 is redundant. If you have an obvious outcome, it’s already defined by the meaningfulness from rule #1. Id suggest something else like :”the outcome must me understandable when connected to the choice”. such a formulation will allow for “learning by doing” principles in the game design. Do something and learn from the effect..

I am looking forward to yout explanation of rule # 3. How do you define wrong options ?

By: Matthew Fister

Matthew Fister — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:02:29 +0000

Well, I could be wrong too. I’ve been wrong before.

By: Ryan Mario

Ryan Mario — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:59:14 +0000

Aah, interesting. I think a lot of game violate this, but that doesn’t make it right.

By: Matthew Fister

Matthew Fister — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:48:58 +0000

Here’s a choice: I’m exploring a level in Diablo. The path splits left and right. I can guess that one path probably goes to a down stair-case and the other probably leads to a random treasure. If the designer’s intention is to have me to choose taking an easy way out and going down or taking a risk (fighting monsters) and getting treasure, the designer has failed since they haven’t communicated to me what those paths are. I don’t know which one has the stairs and which has the monsters and treasure.
Now this is kind of a flawed example because part of Diablo is not knowing which way to go, but we can imagine other games or situations where this is more applicable.

By: Ryan Mario

Ryan Mario — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:44:01 +0000

I’m not really sure what you mean by #2. As in, it must be clear that you have made a choice?