To Be or Not to Be: Ingredients for Meaningful Choice in Games

Valkyria Chronicles is a game that embodies well designed choice.

Choice is often necessary for the deeper emotions of life.  Choice are how people express themselves, design their lives, and make mistakes.  It is through choices that we build our pasts and shape our present.  Choices make life feel alive and real.

Choices can also appear in games, but for some reason, when many developers attempt to create meaningful choice in their games, they miss key components.  Oftentimes poorly executed choices in games tend to feel empty, unimportant, or as though there really was no choice at all.

Luckily, when trying to design something like meaningful choice, we are not groping in the dark (as with some other design challenges).  Meaningful choice is something that you and I experience every day in our real lives.  What can life teach us about game design in this area?

What is meant by meaningful?

Let’s start be defining exactly what our goal here is.  I am defining a “meaningful choice” as a choice that the player makes that they actually care about.  They deeply considered the choice.  They felt the weight of the choice.  And after the choice was over, they remember it and feel either satisfaction or regret.

A choice is a reflection of the player.  Interactivity is one of the most important aspects of games that sets them apart from all other media.  By giving the player a choice, you give them a chance to express themselves and differentiate their gameplay.  You give them the chance not just to tell a story, but to show them the meaning of the consequences of their own actions, not just a set of actions that was predetermined.  This lifts games above all other forms of storytelling.

According to the Game Design Canvas, meaningful choice is build using the bricks of the game’s Punishment and Reward Systems.  There are three essential components.  Neglect any one of them and the choice is rendered meaningless.  The three ingredients are awareness, consequence, and permanence.

First Ingredient of Choice: Awareness

This may seem obvious, but you would be surprised how many early developers (including myself in my first games) make this mistake.  For a choice to be meaningful, the player must first be aware that they are even being presented with a choice.  Failing to recognize a choice is not the fault of the player, it is the fault of the game and the developer. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »