Game Design 101: How to Make Choices that Matter | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you 😃) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: to.pbs.org/Don...
This episode is brought to you by Squarespace: www.squarespace...
The Game/Show team wants to hear your opinions. What kind of gaming videos do you want to see? What topics do you want discussed? ... Click on the link and take our survey so we can get to know you a little better! www.surveymonk...
Subscribe to PBS Game/Show! bit.ly/1BPJ2VE Tweet at us! / pbsgameshow
↓ More info and sources below ↓
Our second installment of Game Design 101 is all about presenting your players with a series of interesting decisions. You may not even realize it, but even the most visibly simplistic games present serious choices that serve to captivate the gamer. Choice give the player more control over the outcome of their gaming experience. They can feel more deserving of a flawless victory, but must also accept responsibility for crushing defeat. When these choices allow for a personalized play-style, a great game can be born. So let us know your favorite video game choices in the comments!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Follow us on Facebook / gameshowpbs
Email us! pbsgameshow [at] gmail [dot] com
Follow us on Reddit / pbsgameshow
--------------------------------------------------------------
ASSET LINKS:
2:08 Sid Meier: The Father of Civilization
kotaku.com/the-...
4:38 Arkane's Harvey Smith on Dishonored and Empowering Players
www.gamesindust...
5:35 Kasparov Chess Challenge
• Kasparov Chess Challenge
5:42 Principles of Corp Deckbuilding: Winning and Defending
• Principles of Corp Dec...
--------------------------------------------------------------
MUSIC:
""Oh Damn!"" by CJVSO
/ cj. .
""Digital Sonar"" by Brink
""Mindphuck"" by Known To Be Lethal
www.youtube.co....
""After Hours""
""Lakes"" by Chooga
www.youtube.co....
""Beautiful Days"" by Extan
/ beaut. .
""Spectrum Subdiffusion Mix"" by Foniqz
/ f. .
""Good Way Song"" by Electronic Rescue
""Alice y Bob"" by Javier Rubio and Parsec
archive.org/de....
""Sleet"" by Kubbi
/ kubbi-sleet
""Toaster"" by Kubbi
/ toaster
""Patriotic Songs of America"" by New York Military Band and the American Quartet
freemusicarchiv....
""Lets Go Back To The Rock"" by Outsider
www.jamendo.co....
""Run"" by Outsider
www.jamendo.co....
""Fame"" by Statue of Diveo
www.jamendo.co....
""Freedom Weekends"" by Statue of Diveo
www.jamendo.co....
--------------------------------------------------------------
Hosted by Jamin Warren (@jaminwar)
See more on games and culture on his site: www.killscreend...
Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbr...)
Mario Kart multiplayer. Do I use that oh-so-satisfying blue shell on my best friend who's begging me not to unleash its terrible swift wrath? Do I risk my entire friendship over that one unfair moment that will bring him the utmost misery, and myself complete and unabashed glee?
...wait a second, what am I talking about -- that's not a choice. The answer is always YES IT IS WORTH IT.
On a more serious note, I used to enjoy the different routes in StarFox 64. I liked that the ending changed based on the difficulty of the routes you chose. I like that the risky missions yield a greater payoff -- cool moments, new characters, alternate endings, etc. In fact, I think that was the first game I played as a kid that offered both of the types of choices you described: choices affecting the game/gameplay, AND choices affecting the story.
It left a big impact on me as a young feller, and I think it's still a pretty solid example of player choice greatly enhancing the overall impact and efficacy of a game.
+MandoPony It's just like stealing a star in Mario Party. Convincing your friend to make an alliance early on by persuading them not to steal coins or stars from you, then throwing it in his face by visiting Boo in the final few turns and stealing his star to claim victory.
Always glorious.
+MandoPony The friend that does not forgive you for blue-shelling them at the end of the third circuit, is no friend at all.
I think a good example of players choice is the estus system in Dark Souls, specifically DS1. By having a fixed number of health items the player is forced to constantly make a decision, whether it's to take a risk and not drink an estus when low on health in order to save it for a potential boss, whether its to keep exploring in the hopes of opening up a short-cut or coming upon another bonfire, or whether to fall back to a previous bonfire knowing that they'll have to make their way through the respawned enemies. The constant risk-vs-reward of the limited health restoration in DS1 is an incredibly simple, yet incredibly interesting dynamic that I'm surprised more games haven't copied.
Granted this might not be exactly what you were looking for, but I thought this might be an interesting non-traditional source of player choice.
+Ygernesfeld DKS I is an excellent example in many ways. I once did a thesis that dealt with the notions of chivalry in medieval literature and current video games, and DKS I follows a fairly clear moral system in its Covenants. Warriors of Sunlight broadly correlate to Dungeons and Dragon's "Lawful Good" moral alignment, as they worship one of the gods, who in the DKS universe are political agents who rule over humans and are the Law, and are clearly morally good, as shown in their aim of helping other players in Solaire's spirit of "Jolly co-operation". The Darkwraiths correspond closely to "chaotic evil", being predatory invaders of worlds who morally are out for themselves only at the expense of all other human life, undead or not. Of course, the ultimate irony in Dark Souls is that the way of the Darkwraiths may be, as Kaathe claims, the true way of humanity. If humanity's essence is that of the Dark Soul, then humans are a part of the darkness from their very origins, and the gods have subjugated and confused humanity to prevent them ascending to their rightful place of mastery in the Age of Dark. If that's true (and both serpents, Kaathe and Frampt clearly manipulate you) then the Warriors of Sunlight are little more than useful idiots, worshipping a god who, although exiled, is still descended from Lord Gwyn and are helping to enforce the status quo of the Age of Fire.
+fhmcateer So yeah, there's moral/narrative and mechanical choices in terms of what multiplayer covenant you use to interact with other players in dark souls I. It's great, although I would have liked to see the game force you into slightly more commitment regarding which path you chose for a single character.
I always felt like the "notgame" known as "Loneliness" had an interesting way of demonstrating choice in games. Whether you continuously pursue others or give up and soldier on alone appears to say something about you. Games that can make your choices invoke introspective evaluation through the gameplay itself are the most intriguing I think. It's the ultimate kind of narrative design where gameplay meets narrative.
+MrEnvisioner 100% agreed.
The main reason I enjoyed Life is Strange (the original) so much. Despite its issues, it's probably the game that drew me in the most in the last decade or so because it does this so well (in addition to them nailing the atmosphere).
Most of your choices in the game don't actually really matter in terms of impacting the story, but nearly every one had me stop and think about *why* I'm making that choice, and what it says about me.
The Megaman games had choice in that you could decide the order of the levels you wanted to play. Whilst it didn't change the game's story, it changed which levels became easier or harder depending on your choices.
+Adam Farnsworth I always felt the hardest choice to make is which level I should try to beat first. Some levels can be really hard on the start when you have none of the additional weapons. After that it kinda become natural you just follow the chain.
I think that is a bit of a problem though, if you have to play a game a certain way for it to become easier really what choice do you have, and is there a way to really know what order to play megaman in, otherwise it's just guessing, trial and error, which can actually become frustrating.
Persona 4 has the choice mechanism built in to everything you do.
There are a finite number of days - you can't do everything.
Do you pursue the core Investigation Team Social Links because you want the rewards that they bestow in battle, or those of some of the fringe characters because you may find their character arcs more compelling and they will raise ancillary stats.
Also, how long do you wait before entering dungeons to rescue those inside the TV? Do you use precious days to grind in between, to ensure you are strong enough, do you spend a day going for the bonus weapons?
Do you have time for fishing, or pursuing the Fox? Do you look in the fridge and risk the contents forcing you to bed and losing an evening that you could otherwise have spent reading a book, building a model or ding a job? Do you buy from Tanaka when you don't really know what he's selling? Do you cook for an evening, and perhaps make inedible food that serves no reward and uses a day?
And so on. Everything is underpinned by the device of times inexorable passage that underpins the game, and forces you to question what you really value and what is important at every juncture.
You're not just making choices, you're making choices about choices, and through that, enriching your experience of the game.
+insomniacfolder I hope Persona 5 has choices about choices about choices ;) -jj
Games with branching paths (E.g. Darius series, Final Fight 3, Star Fox 64, Outrun) this is my favourite type of "choice" to make in a game, it's a clear and obvious choice that directly affects what you'll see throughout the rest of the game, and I LOVE when games do that! This adds a lot of replay value, for you to see everything the game has to offer you have to play through it multiple times, each time taking a different path, and it's even better when devs hide secrets or collectables within those paths so that even after playing through every path you still have stuff to see and do, which adds even more replayability!
I think the main appeal of the 2D sonic games were that you had a choice of what path to follow. Most levels gave you at least two paths, and you had to make choices within those paths. 'Am I going to go for speed, or am I going to kill each enemy?'
I think the games without real goals or path to follow, like Animal Crossing are probably the most choice filled games.
In games like Space Invaders and Doom all your choices pretty much boil down to 'How should I try to kill this enemy?' while games like Animal Crossing/The Sims/World of Warcraft there's almost no limit to your choices. You decide your goals (could be violence, collecting, exploring, socializing or building) and then you decide the best ways to achieve them.
+NiLowther Yeah in Doom/Space Invaders it's gameplay situational choices, and the narrative is somewhat limited or implicit.
The most you could say is, prioritising what you shoot in Space Invaders contributes towards an arbitrary high score, that might have some real world social implications if you're playing with friends on an arcade machine. But also, you don't have to shoot the red spaceship, so perhaps there is something of a narrative choice in that if you kill all of the invaders, you save what is presumed to be "earth" but there's still aliens out there who could invade. If you also kill the red spaceship perhaps humanity is truly safe. This is all inferred narrative, it's not directly in the game, but is rather drawn out via interpretation from the game's premise. In terms of Doom, I guess the choice of what to shoot first affects your survivability, which in turn affects your ability to defeat the forces of hell, so there's a limited narrative motivation implicit in survival, but it's pretty weak overall. So these choices can be construed to have some kind of import beyond deciding what to kill first, but the way the games are set up it's not something you actually think about when you make that choice, at least at first thought.
I like how they have this choice in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Similar to the Shopkeeper in Spelunky, Kecleon appears in some dungeons and sells some stuff, from the every useful oran berries, apples and elixirs to rare items like TMs and Orbs. However, when you steal from him, he goes on a rampage and can teleport to your location and is pretty powerful regardless of your current level and then chases you between floors (only enemy that can do this in these games). He also summons more Kecleon so if you defeat him, you're not necesarily safe. Normally, you choose to pay for his stuff, but to recruit Kecleon, you need to do this and in the 99 Floor dungeons, you have few resources (since you have to empty your bag and wallet before going into it) and might be forced to take something in the higher floors.
Xenoblade Chronicles X does choice extremely well, improving the aspect from the original. Not only do you make choices in the missions determining events and in several cases, who lives, but the exploration and combat is very choice based as you progress. The game always gives you the option to flee outside certain scripted fights and even if you stay and fight, death is only lost time. It allows the player to learn how the game works and that just being on a higher level isn't a guarantee the fight is easy. The way the combat works means the player can reach the opposite corner of the map as soon as the introduction is over assuming he/she can run away without dying. There's even some stuff you can achieve there with some enemies being low enough for a beginner to fight and some treasures you can grab
This is part of the reason I love Tetris so much, especially at the higher levels. Each piece has a multitude of possible purposes based on how the "board" (name?) currently is. And at the higher levels, you really have no time to think but you still have to make choices, not just lay down blocks randomly.
One game that distills that quick choice making down to its pure essence is One Finger Death Punch. Even though, there's only two options at any given time during the game (left or right), the timing along with all the additional enemy types and weapons forces you to make so many choices in a second. Example: There's an mini-boss enemy coming two from the right that takes 3 clicks to defeat, but 5 from the right is a guy who you will get a knife from. So you have to time out who you kill so that you can get to the knife (kill 5 to the right) in time to throw it at the mini-boss (had to have killed 2 on the left). All of this would have had to have happened in like 0.75 seconds. Choice and execution.
Games like this should advertise by how high their Choice Per Second rates are.
Undertale has an interesting was of having enemies use various patterns depending on if they appear with enemies and who they appear with. It also has the obvious story choices of No Mercy, Neutral, or Pacifist, which create different allowances in the game depending on what run you are doing. A No Mercy or Neutral might have to choose what enemy to kill first based on the attack they have, and a Pacifist similarly has to choose who to try to spare first, or if they want to spare everyone at once.
+Mine Legend “Shadow” this is and example of a great karma sistem.And the game based on your decisions changes drastically
+Mine Legend “Shadow” That is right, but I think you miss one of the options Toby makes use of: to turn off the game as part of the narrative. It is always there, and more than once it is asked to us by some characters, but we usually tend to continue to satisfy our curiosity, and to live a little big longer with those characters.
EgaWill oh exactly, that's right.Your decision really matter, and even sometimes you can't tun back,.Like a real life decision
+EgaWill I was only talking about the gameplay and choices in battles, but yes I am aware of the meta "options".
Currently playing The Witness and that puzzle allows you something that most puzzle games don't do, allow you to choice which puzzle to do. By allowing the world to be open and instead of a static menu like most basic puzzle games, it allows players to do puzzles at their own pace and what ever order they do them.
Bit.Trip Void is one of the starkest examples of a simple risk vs. reward choice. The entire game's design is built around this single choice mechanic.
I'll go all the way back to the first level of Contra. Players get the choice to run along the top level or drop down to the water. The water allows you to bypass a number of mobile enemies, but makes it harder or impossible to get some of the weapon powerups. When I'd play with my brother, one of us would usually drop down into the water, because the turrets can only target one of you and other would get to destroy them pretty easily. Contra also gives the choice of weapon powerups. You always take the spread gun, but a choice between the flamethrower or laser might be situational.
Relevant to my current project is a choice common in tower defense games, in which you can call an enemy wave early. If you call the wave early, you risk being overwhelmed, but you get a bit of bonus gold. If you don't call the wave early, you miss out on the bonus but play at a less frantic pace. Also, a more seldom seen mechanic is the "interest on start of wave" mechanic (which combines well with towers that don't build instantly for obvious reasons). The interest just gives you some percentage, say 5%, of your gold amount at the start of a wave, this is a major incentive to not overkill a wave and build "just enough", so you can amass more gold in the long run for the harder end waves. However, if you play too boldly and start letting enemies through you may lose out on bonuses for completing a level perfectly without leaking (relevant if completing perfectly awards you some sort of currency used in the metagame, i.e. buying upgrades in between levels, such as in Kingdom Rush or Gemcraft).
Some choices are only really relevant if another part of the game is designed to support them however; interest at the beginning of a round is less interesting if your towers build in a second, as you can always just make up for lacking defense. There is no risk. If towers take 10-30 seconds to build depending on the pace of your game, the decision becomes rather major. It's fun to play with those variables.
The game that has some of the best Orthogonal Unit Differentiation is Batman Arkham Origins, specifically the combat sequences. You start out with the basic henchmen that you can easily defeat without using any advanced techniques, then you have the armored opponents who must have cape stun beatdowns used on them, then you have martial artists who can parry your attacks unlike other enemies in the game, the knife/baton wielders who have to be attacked from behind or have their weapon disarmed before you engage them unless you dodge or use the weapon break combo power up. There are some others I'm sure I'm forgetting but the point I'm making is that the combat in the game escalates from you having to engage and defeat a few easy opponents to a room full of them all at the same time at the end of the game while bane is also there, a boss level enemy that you need to use advanced combat techniques on in order to be successful at all, and it is such a satisfying encounter that no other combat scenarios in the series come close to. The same can be said for the predator rooms where not all enemies are vulnerable to just sneaking up and knocking them out, on top of having multiple types of enemies with different degrees of weaknesses patrolling an enclosed area. Honorable mention to modern stealth games like Metal Gear Solid V, splinter cell, and Farcry where there are times where you have to decide what threats are worth taking out in what order and do you go in guns blazing or play it steatlhy? MGS and Splinter Cell take it a step further where you can play through the entire game without killing anybody giving you an added challenge and since of accomplishment when you do it.
I'm gonna go with Dark Souls (as it is one of my favorite games of all) on choice. The amount of choice you make in gameplay is incredible, especially in 2 with the sheer variety of weapons and armor, combinations you can make, power stancing, etc. The choice of pressing on to gather more souls at risk of everything you've gathered, risking a mad dash to your souls or a methodical trek back to minimize the chance of losing them forever. Even the risk of trying to parry an attack that you might miss, causing you to get crushed by an enemy combo.
I would like to see you tackle this topic by not just giving one example of each type, but comparing a wide variety of the ways that type of choice has been manifested in games of all types. Because I love to see definitions as a whole bunch of data to see where it intersects and where it delineates.
So like, give a couple dozen varieties of the trade-off in various kinds of genres. And maybe find some genres or specific games where it never happens (I'm thinking of certain puzzle games right now, where you have to do the moves in a specific order to progress, which minimizes the ability to make certain choices in the first place), and discuss how the game might differ if such choices were available, or how they might be added without substantially changing the gameplay.
(For example, letting players show their personality through things outside the actual gameplay works in Rock Band when you make your avatar, and I could see it working in games where you couldn't really show personality through the gameplay but you get to choose the visuals of the game, turning it from pirate-themed to kitty-themed to candy-themed to robot-themed to neon-lights-themed or whatever -- same gameplay, vastly different feel.)
I recently started playing Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. A group of friends and I started playing as adults after growing up in the "D&D is the Devil" age. None of us had played before, and I elected to run the game. I wrote out a ton of stuff, had a huge story, a great first session planned in which I would introduce combat through a festival competition, so it was non-lethal to my players so the learning curve... And then something happened that threw everything off the rails. Something strange was going on and one of my players decides to shoot an NPC in the leg with his bow because he feels threatened. "You do what?" I asked. "I shoot her in the leg." It was at this moment, having been playing for about 30 minutes, when I realized the shortcoming of games like The Walking Dead. Sure, you make decisions. Some of them are even life-and-death situations. But in the end, the story ends up at the same place. Even in something as massive as Skyrim or Witcher 3, you may have a different order of experiences, or bypass some things all together that someone else plays through, but in order to "beat" the game, there are specific things that happen, and everyone ends up at relatively the same place in the end. By no means does this make those games less fun to play! But what I realized in that moment playing D&D for the first time is that when the game creator (me) is in a collaborative story telling experience with the players, a space that exists where they can attempt to do literally anything (as opposed to a fixed set of options in TWD or Skyrim)... I don't know, there is something really special about that.
The fun thing for me, too, I realized, is coming up with real consequences based on my players' actions. And I've found it's the things I never could have planned for that make for the most fun stories.
I remember this game, Front Mission 3. Where the really big choice happens somewhere in the beginning. It all depends on if you will help out your friend with his errand or you will not. Naturally, a lot of us chose the help my friend route and not even realize that there's a completely different story if you chose to stay. (and answer a phone call) I find this interesting because when I reached that part, it did not feel like a choice; "of course, I'll help my friend." Little did I know that the game actually has two different (though closely related) stories.
Fire Emblem 7 ( or just Fire Emblem in the US) was a game full of interesting choices that allowed for huge player autonomy! My favorite moments in each Fire Emblem Is always the beginning. The player is immediately struck with a choice that had far reaching consequences! In the beginning of the game you always start out with maybe 3 or 4 units. One of those units-- usually a paladin, is insanely strong and can slice through enemies better than the main hero. one of the consequences of choosing to use the paladin for every chapter is that you end up learning that his stats plateau around level 10-ish, while the enemies stats keep growing! You learn in that scenario that the weaker characters may hold big changes! On your next playthrough when focusing on a weaker character you end up learning that they can wreck enemies in the late game if you keep focusing on their growth! Such massive changes from one tiny choice. It's why I became a fan of the series!
I've been playing Resident Evil 0 again (thanks to the HD rerelease) and I think it offers the best choice in inventory management of any game in the franchise.
The entire franchise has the obvious "do I carry this or this or just keep some space empty"and "should I carry just one so I can safely throw it away if I need space, or carry one more in case I need it" choices.
RE0 does two things to make this more interesting; no real item boxes (so when you throw an item, it's gone, aside from the odd place a single item can go) and offering two characters to carry items who can use different ones in different ways. This means you have to balance storing items with being able to use them (e.g. it's more efficient to keep pistol ammo in one stack, but both characters need it) and might find some useless without both characters (e.g. because Bill can't combine herbs, they don't heal him very well and use up a lot of inventory space when you're exploring with him on his own) as well as worrying about what you can carry.
Someone's been watching Game Maker's Toolkit
What's that? Sounds rubbish
+Game Maker's Toolkit hi there! -jj
+PBS Game/Show I've been following Game Maker's Toolkit for a while, looks like I'll be following you as well!
+PBS Game/Show Hello Is the indie game starting to become its own genre and also is it the new or better format for games stories? because of the low expectations which allow for an unconventional appeal, like Undertale and Fran Bow as compared to AAA games where it has high expectations that many don't what an unconventional appeal but more of an traditional one.
+Nick Vu yeah I'm curious about that. I'm sure these videos take a while to script and record, so I'm thinking just a coincidence. But could be, Mark's definitely came first...
I saw somewhere online stating that Tetris has some of the best examples of player choice. If you choose to misplace a piece, it affects you all the way until you manage to fix it, even though it gets buried, that hole remains. Also the game speeds up as players complete lines. So in the beginning of a game, players would try to take advantage of the line piece, to gain the most points with the least lines cleared, but as the game speeds, players either keep trying to clear 4 lines in a row or will just go one line at a time before it's game over.
Bungie Had a game back in 2001 called Oni. I don't know if anyone remembers it but it was amazing.
There are two things I'd like to point out relating to choice and this game. Firstly the player has access to an assortment of weapons. It's a Bungie game, no big surprise there. But the player could also use Streetfighter-esque martial arts to dispatch enemies. Choosing to fight hand to hand required a decent amount of skill and would cost you a lot of health if you fought poorly. You could gun down enemies but this used up ammunition which was a limited resource. This pushed the game into an interesting space where the player was constantly switching back and forth between playing a 3rd person shooter or an arcade fighter. I haven't seen a game deliver quite the same experience as Oni did back in the early 2000's. Game designers I hope you are listening.
*Spoiler Allert*
Towards the end of the game the player has an opportunity to execute or spare a key character. To spare the character the player just needs to walk away. This goes against most players instincts to murder everything they see. The first time I played the game I didn't even know the choice existed. It wasn't until my 2nd play through I accidentally triggers the mercy option. This choice has stood out to me probably because it was the first time I'd experience a game with a branching narrative. Now days branching narratives are common among AAA games. However I fee as though a lot of the impact has been lost by players knowing they are in a game with a branching narrative. I can see there being some value in obfuscating choice in a game as a way tricking players into becoming more invested in their character and " roleplaying" as they play.
I'm a sucker for roleplaying my character in any game I play. I think well designed choices make it easier to empathise with and become my avatar during play.
I think Pokemon does a great job with choosing how you want to build teams.
nice chin ya got there mista
Undertale has a lot of interesting choices, but i think the most interesting is the Snowman Piece. You get it from a snowman near the beginning of the game and he tells you that he wants you to take it to the end of the world (clearly meaning to the end of the game). By the time the character meets the snowman, the game has already established itself as an unconventional RPG and they don't know what the consequences of not bringing the snowman piece to the end will be so they carry it with them. However, the snowman piece is a remarkable healing item. So whenever the player gets into a tight spot they're forced to chose whether they want to keep the snowman piece and risk dying and having to go through things again, or use the snowman piece and risk having a consequence at the end of the game. The player is put in that situation every single time they get to low health and every moment they do they have to make a choice.
Of course, at the end of the game, the players reward for not consuming the snowman piece is Sans saying "you made a snowman really happy" and nothing else. In addition to being an amazing demonstration of choice, it also is a great example of the kind of game Undertale is in challenging typical standards of value in games while being entirely tongue in cheek about it
I think grow home has great examples of interesting choices. In particular, the glider vs the fall flower. Or whether you want to keep growing the plant upwards, or spend the time exploring around. (Though there is no mechanical consequence for taking your time, which I personally enjoy)
One major game changer for almost all games is time management. In Dark Souls trading blows can be a positive if you have no problems with managing low health. For example it would take time do dodge every attack and only counter attack as usual in most souls games. But (provided you have enough poise) you can actually save time by just mashing away at the enemy whilst taking 3-5 hits from the boss, and then dodge attacks for the rest of the fight instead of being more skillful and dodging the entire time. Since health items are checkpoint based not recourse based meaning you can heal after, not during, the fight whilst walking to the next checkpoint to save more time, but of course risk dying even more easily and losing more time. and that's just one example of time-risk/reward management that games have to offer. As time wasted playing games can always be used as time not wasted playing games, if you get what I mean.
+BaneDain Really nice point, there's always a tension between wasting time within a game and spending time within a game. It's such a tough line for a dev to draw when they want you to experience their mechanics.
One of the easiest examples of meaningful choices in games would probably be strategy or tactical games (Sid Meyer's Games, Hearthstone, Duelyst, the Fire Emblem series) they favor a choice model very similar to the one you described in Space Invaders with many
MANY
more variables to account for, like character health and attack, special abilities, positioning, consumable resources and the like
The absolute BEST choice I've ever expirienced in a game was in Dark Souls, and it might have been all in my head, so bucle up for a story.
You see, there's an NPC in Dark Souls called the Fair Lady, she's sort of a tragic maiden who got sick after drinking the poison that was aflicting her subjects in an attempt to cure them, or at least share in their agony. The thing with this NPC is that she doesn't talk, not to you at least, if you choose the "talk" option you only get a "..." response, unless you got a special ring, the Old Wtch's Ring, and I'll come back to this in a second.
There is a boss in Dark Souls called Chaos Witch Quelaag, she is a mean-looking, human-devouring woman stuck on the back of a giant fire-breathing, lava-pucking spider, not the kind of person you'd want to mess with, but you have to. There is no way to get through the game without facing her, and specially, there is no way to get to the Fair Lady without beating Quelaag, and she's pretty thought the first time you face her, so when you finally beat her you feel like a million dollars, like you've just made the world a favor by defeating this evil fiend.
The twist though is when you meet the Fair Lady while wearing the aforementioned Old Witch's Ring. At this point you find out that Quelaag and the Fair Lady are sisters, and that she was just protecting her with all her might, while also gathering the souls needed to make her feel better, even thought she's already beyond salvation. You just killed a devoted sister and destroyed what little was left a of a broken familly, and you did so while thinking of righteousness.
You might be thinking what does this have to do with choice, since I mentioned that you CAN'T avoid that fight. Well, the game does a mean thing at this point: The reason why the Fair Lady speaks to you while you are wearign the ring is becuase it tricks her into thinking that YOU are Quelaag, her sister, while at the same time introducing a new covenant, the Servant of Chaos, who's task is to bing souls to the Fair Lady in order to help her fight the poison. Basically, without the game outright telling you that you are making a choice, it gives you a moment to reflect on your action up until that point, on how you quest for right might not be as just as you thought, and it asks of you that you make a concious choice of what you want to do at this point:
You can take responsibility, asume the role of Quelaag and keep bringing her souls. You might think that you are atoning for your sin, but her blood will always be on your hands, and the charade, even if she never finds out, will always be a lie, and YOU'll know it.
You could not take responsibility, walk away, asume it was colateral damage and carry on. That is, if you can sleep at night knowing that you left an sickly person to die alone, waiting for a loved one that would never come.
Or you could take her life, since you are already a murderer at this point, just accept it and harvest her carcass for whatever it's worth, and maybe you'll find some sort of confort in knowing that you put her out of her misery.
There is not right answer to the problem, no absolute paragon desicion, same as there is no way to come a saint out of Dark Souls.
And the best part of all this is how you might never have known of it, becuase you might never find the Old Witch's Ring, and live in ignorance of what you did, after all, ignorance is bliss, right?
Pokemon is all about choices and strategy! Who to have on your team? Do you base it on level? Type? How much you love that Pokemon even if they aren't going to do well against your opponent? All the choices, all the time
One of the choice effecting gameplay, IMO, is the evolution of Dungeons and Dragons from 1st to 3rd Edition. A tabletop (though there were video game adaptations of all versions) game which (theoretically) presents infinite choices but in practice guides the viability of your choices via a rule set, probability and RNG.
1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons presented you with myriads of tables, complex rules regarding memorizing spells (at high level you literally had to take days of game time off to memorize all your spells), nebulous rules regarding magic item creation, and required a lot of probability analysis in order to optimize your play style. If your DM followed the rules meticulously you were virtually at the whim of the dice since items like random encounters, saving throws vs death, treasure generator tables, etc were so capricious.
2nd Edition refined out a lot of the more esoteric choices and the tables, putting more of the choice making in the hands of the DM but still required a lot of math for people who didn't want to rely upon fudging or trust themselves to the whims of fate. In both editions, it was theoretically possible to make all kinds of specialty characters but straying too far from the standard builds meant you quickly fell too far behind to keep up. You took a stoic fighter, a nerdy wizard, an agile thief, or you were a gimick character who couldn't participate in the mechanics.
(As a side note, I enjoy that 2nd Ed was so overly complicated and required so much micromanaging that if you buy the re-release of the Baldur's Gate game they start by basically apologizing to the player for all the over complication)
3rd Edition became immensely popular in part because it simplified a lot of the material, throwing out the tables and replacing them with simplified math that made it easy to tell at a glance what your chances of succeeding at anything were. It also expanded the choice system for character customization as levels advanced - now there were numerous viable builds of the same classes and mix and matching could happen.
In response to the success of this, more and more supplements were released with more and more choices that allowed more and more builds (including some ridiculously OP ones)... until it became impossible for a newcomer to sort all the options meaningfully and groups had to agree to whether they were using high power builds, mid power builds, etc to be able to play together. So we had a brief re-boot (3.5), a competitor using the Open Source rules (Pathfinder) who didn't overload the choices and finally it was scrapped for 4th Edition.
Overall I think the history of the progression is great for looking at all kinds of choices and how they were engaged with or ignored by players. Choices with stats, choices with character creation systems, choices with how much RNG to employ, choices with how much roleplaying vs rollplaying, choices with character personalities etc all were more or less viable in the different editions.
Whenever I start a world in Minecraft I ask myself "Do I want to spend all my time collecting some resources to make my base look pretty?" or "Do I want to spend all my time collecting hoards of diamonds and loot from dungeons." Both options create very different games. the first option is more creative and is about collecting and spending time on only what I need. The second option is all about exploration, acquiring resources and seeing all the sometimes beautiful landscapes of Minecraft.
Currently playing Bravely Default and that game is full of choices. Besides usual rpg equipment, it also allows you to choose different jobs/classes and mix them together. Also your passive abilities and special attacks can be customized as well.
As commented on the video briefly, fighting games are really rewarding and choice-driven. The difference is that you are usually going to fight against friends and real people, so patterns become a lot harder to find and taking the same choice more than once is a big risk.
I'm on my first ever playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas. I love how the story pushes you towards the end while still allowing for so much variation in how you get there. I may be playing to take New Vegas for myself this time, but if I fight as a good soldier for the NCR next time, many of my interactions throughout the game will differ greatly from my current experience.
Here is an example that can't relate to all of Sid Meier's choice types. The binding of Issac's cursed rooms or sacrifice rooms are good examples of a situational choice, where your health situation or item situation can make you take a risk. Also defiantly a trade off as health is traded for a reward, you can even say this relates to persistence as you might not get the opportunity to get the health back until after the boss. But you could even argue that its a personal choice of how risky your are or maybe you're more conservative and don't want to risk it. But most of these choices have a main "risk vs reward" choice which is really what controls your decision.
+gr33ngunner007 I also think that the same choice making that goes into doom can apply to the diverse amount of enemies in the Binding of Issac. That game has so much variety that you make a lot of choices and most you don't really think of, like small quick choices and decisions that could help you or ruin you.
I like the choises most 4x-games offer. you always have to concider the current cost and reward of an action, and sometimes you have to make a disadvantageos trade for a better result at the end.
As you progress through a 4x, you discover the playfield, you can see where your opponents are while you have to work forward to your goal set by your race. Sadly, I haven't seen many 4x maybe apart from Alpha centauri /Beyond earth that offers a wider range of race customization after gamestart.
I think this is what makes 4x and grand strategy games so big. The choises you make aren't directly dictated by the game designer but are based on the mechanic. that way you choose your own game, your own balance between offense and defense, trade and science. I think the many tiny choises done each move have seemingly more impact than e.g. saving Jesse in Minecraft storymode.
In a wider view these mechanic driven choises also makes board games more interesting than interactive storys like teltale games because each step you do influences you AND your opponent while storychoises often have no real change.
+Gemoron I think it's a little unfair to criticise the minecraft: story mode for not having as impactful as a 4x strategy game, as somebody has to write MSM, so the narrative pathways can't branch nearly as much. That being said, the narrative of most telltale games should branch more than they do. Telltale's problem isn't that the story doesn't branch, it's that all the branching paths revert to the same conclusion, which ultimately makes the character feel as though nothing mattered in the end. Telltale's GoT was especially awful in this regard because most of the protagonist's fates were cruel.
Also, in 4x strategy games like Civ there is usually an optimal choice, at which point the player's role is not to decide between several equal paths but rather to recognise the most efficient path to take. Most winners of Civ tend to have the best starting positions, which is no surprise.
In my opinion, the best example of choice would delivered to the player in the form of gameplay, and be reflected in a real, permanent chance to the world state both narratively and gameplay wise. The only time I've ever seen this in a narrative game is the Connor in Dragon Age: Origins.
To bring up your "cheating in video games" episode, whether or not to cheat is always an important choice. Whether or not it is the "right" or "wrong" way to experience a game, cheating can alter that experience in all kinds of different ways. It also creates another decision, or set of decisions (if you do decide to cheat), in that you must decide if said cheating is going to have any boundaries or rules themselves (whether to cheat in some ways but not others, for example). And, perhaps most importantly, very often when you cheat it can become very hard or even impossible to play the game "normally" again.
I have found the choice in Darkest Dungeon to be quite well thought out. The natural instinct is to take a small group and grow them as one would normally in a traditional RPG. But it is far more profitable to throw new recruits into dungeons and play around with the torch mechanic. By keeping the torch well lit the game is easier but the loot is less impressive and less frequent. By turning the torch off you can get a lot of loot but far more terrifying monsters await you and you're party accumulate stress far more dramatically. Then there is the choice of who to bring into your party and what different combinations of individuals will be most effective, also taking into consideration the traits that a party member starts with as unlocking a new trade is far more expensive than leveling up existing ones. Trying to cure negative and character traits and diseases comes with a sizeable cost and inability to use that individual on a mission. This time and cost incentivize dropping characters if they get too sick, even if you put a lot of time into them. It is a stressful but exceptionally rewarding system.
The 1'up mushroom in Mario. The first one aside, but there is always a mental battle between worth vs. risk.
Fighting games are super choice heavy. Everything is a choice. Like "Do I use the meter now to secure the round, or do I save it for the next round to have more options at the start?" "Do I go for the safe, easy combo that deals not-so-much damage, or do I do something harder, which I might drop?" "Do I go for a setup, or just simple damage?". Things like that. Even a characters is a choice, because it changes the way you play.
I feel like Binding of Isaac fits into this really well: what items will you take? Which enemies need to be shut down first? Do you trade health for potential bonus items?
The Fire Emblem games have permadeath in them. Sometimes you make a choice to sacrifice one of them to allow you to win a match/level. The choice made here can be very difficult because some of the characters are unique and offer different strengths to your team
Chrono Trigger - lots of really interesting (and subtle) choices you can make in your behavior throughout the game, combined with choices in your play style, based on what characters you have in your party, combined with the big narrative choice - to resurrect Chrono or not to resurrect Chrono.
Maybe I'm simpleminded, but arguably the best experience with choice and freedom I've had was in PayDay. The big drawback is that with four independent and often randomly-selected players, it can be hard to coordinate and really make a heist work. I've only done it a couple times. But the one time we worked together and planned out our strategy was brilliant. We pulled o a perfect heist, only fired three or four shots between the four of us, and spent probably a half hour cracking safes open... which sounds really boring but was the most rewarding experience I've ever had in a game because I felt like we accomplished it ourselves -- nothing about the game did it for us.
How about the witcher series? I mean, if we talk about choices...you HAVE to talk about the witcher series.
Or how about rogue like games, like The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth(of course also the games before that). You have to constantly make choices. Its all about risk and reward. Do you try to make a room in hope of better loot but risk the damage? Or do you not do a room and go faster...always thinking about Boss rush items or hush items. Or taking devil deals, which cost HP but may increase your power a lot!
+gastarbeiter1 There's also really clear yet implicit moral choices in The Binding of Isaac, as in the Devil/Angel room choice. Of course, sometimes the game makes that choice for you (I'm looking at you, Basement II Krampus), but the crucial one is deciding whether or not to spurn your first devil deal and "lock in" Devil rooms for the rest of the run. If you take that devil deal, you're stuck on a set gameplay and narrative path, broadly speaking. You become more powerful via devilish items and your avatar changes horribly into a dark, black flying thing with horns and blood lasers.
If you become like this, it fits in with Isaac's massive guilt and doubt about whether he is indeed corrupted by sin, as the "God" voice his mother hears from the opening claims. This internal struggle (and every run in Isaac is a manifestation of this child's internal struggle in his mind) feeds into Isaac's decision of whether or not he should kill himself, or whether he's corrupt. When you die in the game, Isaac kills himself in "real life" beyond the confines of his mind that we as players are running around in, as evidenced in the "game over" screen which is a suicide note. The monsters are a part of his messed up psyche, and the damage they do to us represent the damage he's doing to his own soul and body. I guess in that reading our avatar of Isaac represents a vestigial will to survive, an optimism perhaps. However, even if we triumph in a run, many of the endings show Isaac continuing to suffer or locking himself away in his chest, presumably to suffocate and become the blue baby.
In terms of gameplay, there's a clear risk/reward, with Angel rooms generally being considered to be weaker than devil rooms but also having some of the rarest most OP items in the game. The problem with Angel rooms is you're very unlikely to get godhead/sacred heart, while brimstone, the pact, Abaddon etc. show up a lot in devil rooms and are great items. I'd consider this to be deliberate temptation by the devs, in gameplay, narrative and moral terms - do you become truly satanic, as the "God voice" claims you to be, in order to defeat your worst nightmares? Do you become what you once feared and hated? Or do you hold out for great angel rooms and spurn "Satan", risking death within your own mind and your subsequent suicide once your will to live is extinguished? It's always a tough decision I feel, the good angel room items are deliberately hard to get even if you dedicate yourself towards them, and there's a lot of trash in that item pool.
My first answer is Papers, Please because the game is full of trade-off choices. It's really only trade-offs, but what makes it work really well is comparing unlike incentives. Is it better to incur the fine and let the woman see her son, or get the five credits? There are situational elements that are based on how many fines you've incurred that day, meaning the trades you make change.
People have or will mention Spec Ops:The Line, and I think the most interesting part about those choices is that players can choose beyond what is immediately presented. The game directs players toward one or two choices, but players can make choices not presented to the players but still within the game's system. The choices are not outside of the game's systems but feel like they are.
First thing the came to mind was Fire Emblem with choices of which units to use, what classes to make them, what weapons to utilize, play defensively or offensively and so on.
I like how they have done in Halo where you can choose to kill all the enemies or just "screw it, I'm outta here" and run to the next level. A good game design is when you have flow in your gameplay.
In SpaceChem the player besides solving each puzzle can choose to optimize the solution for performance building a reactor that makes the necessary number of molecules in less time than most people, or optimize for instructions building a solution with the smallest set of nodes. In fact you can play the game twice simply by changing your goals. In each level the game presents you with distribution graphs to show you how good you are in comparison with everybody else. It's an amazing game and you get to learn a little chemistry and programming besides the fun.
I forgot for a second that I wasn't watching Extra Credits !^^
I find it amusing that your refer to TellTale Walking dead as being held up as a great example of choice in game. Yet more often than not I see it used as an example of how you don't actually have any choice and are railroaded on a set story, especially since no matter who you pick everything ends the same it's just replacing who dies when.
+PyroMancer2k Actually effect on the game isn't the only thing that makes a choice effective. In a narrative driven game like that, it can be okay for choice to be more of a personally effecting thing. It doesn't always have to be something that drastically changes things to be meaningful.
ZaXo00
That's actually one of the main points of the argument that choice is an illusion and thus lacking in most games. What I mean by that is that those who praise games for choice when there isn't really any are simply buying into the illusion and letting themselves be deceived even though there is no real choice.
It is also sort of the point of this video in how choice though mechanics are often more meaningful as real choices than the illusionary ones given through narration.
PyroMancer2k
It's entirely true that often times, choices are illusory. But the reason for that is mostly because true choice is usually extraordinarily complex and difficult to implement in games without sacrificing something else in the process. And it's not like lack of choice is inherently a bad thing of course. Sometimes it can be great to challenge yourself (mechanically or through narrative) with an experience that's hand crafted by someone else. That's exactly what most puzzle games are, is a series of linear challenges that can only be solved one way. You have no real choice.
I see things like The Walking Dead more as a modern analog to 90's point-and-click adventure games, where you realistically had no choice. You had to do exactly what the designers wanted you to do, and nothing played out until you did. From that perspective, TellTale games are actually a few steps ahead. They still tell the refined, solidified narrative that older adventure games did, but they allow you to change small things to tailor the experience to you. Lack of choices usually allows for tighter and more detailed design. The addition of choices usually leads to diluted, broader strokes in design. Neither approach is a bad thing; they're just different.
I will say that generally, mechanical choice is usually simpler to pull off than true narrative choice. And it simultaneously can yield better results. After all, games are an interactive medium. But illusion of choice isn't a bad thing. Regardless of whether one goes with real choices, fake choices, no choices, mechanical choices, narrative choices... it's all about how the game itself is designed around them that matters.
For example, most RPGs give you tons of choices for how to approach each battle. But in reality the shear amount of valid options often dilutes the whole, since the combat encounters usually have to be dumbed down in order to accommodate all of these options. If the game is linear, the designer can't rely on a player needing something like Haste, or Protect, or Armor Break, if the player can potentially skip learning (or skip learning how to effectively use) these skills. So, suddenly all of these options have less meaningful use, because the designers need to balance for the lowest skill/power that a player will likely have at that point in the game.
They can't balance for you having all of these skills, unless they give them all to you outright. But giving them to you eliminates your choice in how you build your character(s). So generally they balance for you not having any of these skills, which ends up meaning you don't actually need any of them... thus making the choice itself mean little.
In the end, I think people get overly caught up in the idea of having truly deep choices. But if you don't know the choices are illusions while you're playing through the first time, or if the game doesn't even pretend to offer meaningful choices, it's not really fair to criticize it for those decisions. They're simply trying to make a different type of experience. But I'm rambling, lol.
ZaXo00 I didn't say the lack of choice was a bad thing. I was more trying to state how the poorly done illusion of choice is a bad thing. Acting as if your game has a huge amount of choice and then peopling finding out that it doesn't breaks emergence and undermines player agency.
As for your RPG mechanics example, focusing a player into using a specific skill to win a battle makes it meaningless not the other way around. And developers do try to balance their games to account for possible differences in character skills.
The ability to solve a problem in multiple ways is freedom of choice. This is often the very point of strategy games. Take chess for example, there is no one piece that must be used to counter another or your can't win. But instead any piece can potentially take out any other piece. Each move helps shape the board which eventually leads to either your victory or defeat. While there is only a Win/Lose/Draw outcome there are thousands of paths to reach those few outcomes.
However most games have a bunch of meaningless choices along the way. This can be seen in RPGs how the dialogue replies are often written in such a way that the reply fits whatever the player said. This is actually a new thing due in part to the shift to making everything voice acted. In older RPGs when it was text it was easier to write larger branching narratives. And along with the lack of variety in their replies often also comes a lack of verity in their effect.
The win or lose condition is the most obvious end points, and any choice that doesn't lead you closer to one of those is ultimately meaningless.In a story narrative choices that help determine the overall outcome of the story are meaningful.
An example of what I mean is compare Walking Dead with Mass Effect 2. Walking Dead people point out as lacking choice because no matter what you do everyone dies except the kid at the end. The only thing your choices change is when and how they die. Where as in Mass Effect 2 your choices effect who is in your party at the end and while if any of them survive the final mission. Now I know some don't like the story of ME2 but your choices impact how the story plays out in a real meaningful way.
"Dillon's Rolling Western" give u a choice with: Do u want to set up and let the turrets kill certain grocks or do u just want to fight them all?
While a combination of the two is the best choice, the fact that the options exist for different guns and the fact u can't readjust its aim means that depending on the map, grock movement and ur cash flow will affect how u win the level.
Tetris. Trying to get that full 4 clear in vain while perilously building a tower on the side... then again, previously in one of your videos we've seen that we will never win that game either. * *sad Keanu* *
Tetris! A game with such a simple premise of lining up blocks to earn points creates situations where choice does matter! Do I use a T-Block in this position? Should I stack all my line blocks on one side rather than another? There are dozens of different situations that a player can put themselves in and adjust the choices they make. Simple? Yes. But very effective in creating situations where choice does matter.
Dark Souls is full of interesting player choices. It starts with character creation which lets you pick a class and starting equipment. Then when you start playing all you''re doing is weighing off your options. Do you press forward to the next bonfire or retreat to level up your character. Do you spend your souls on upgrading your character or your equipment.
With the wide variety of enemies and play styles, the Doom example comes into it too. All of your decisions feel
especially important because of the permanent nature of Dark Souls. Anyway great episode, I hope to see more like it.
This is not a very unique example because of the hype over this game, but Undertale is very interesting when it comes to player's choice. Not only can you choose between killing or showing mercy (which affects the general mood of the game, the character's dialogues, the ending), but overall, the possibilities of player's choice are so well thought out. What happens if you choose to fight a monster but intentionally miss every time? What happens if you buy hot dogs even though your inventory is full? What happens if you basically do the exact opposite of what the game wants you to do? There is a unique dialogue or easter egg for everything, which is cool! Of course, the simple RPG style makes player's choice much more accessible, allowing more creative thinking on both the developer's and the player's part, whilst not requiring much time nor effort.
Great episode. I"m now glad you did this survey thing :D
I think when we're talking about choice in the sense of Space Invaders, and we're talking about choice in the sense of The Walking Dead, we're talking about two VERY different kinds of choice. The thing is that for the most part, the types of choices or decisions that Meyer is talking about are all common to the "game" aspect of video games. They are all about eliciting strategy, approaches to situations, and ways to learn and improve. They're ways of making games flexible and ways of making games respond to skill and strategy.
The reason people always talk about games like The Walking Dead when it comes to choice is that the decisions made are not made in service to a game (though they at times can be). It comes down to the way the win condition is viewed and approached by the player. If I presume that my win condition in The Walking Dead is to survive the zombie apocalypse, then it doesn't make much sense when I sacrifice my own life to save a loved one. These choices aren't about making and experimenting with decisions to reach a desired outcome, but instead about determining what that desired outcome might be. This is why so many devs and presenters use the term "experience" to such a ridiculous degree: because the term "game" isn't necessarily liberal enough to capture what exactly is going on.
So yes, I think its fair to talk about "meaningful choice" in terms of game design in this sense if we're sticking to the game aspect itself, taking into consideration win and lose conditions, risk vs. reward and these types of things. However, these choices aren't necessarily more "meaningful" than something like The Walking Dead, in the sense that they don't affect and reflect our view of the virtual world that we inhabit.
I guess in short, I just don't think this is necessarily a fair comparison, and perhaps we can start to be more specific with talk of "choice" in video games. I certainly think choices can be meaningful even if they don't have a drastic effect on the game state itself.
+Armitaco Yeah, I guess you'd categorise one type of choice as having a mechanical impact in terms of game-state. For the sake of argument I'll include a game's plot as a "mechanic" that can be influenced by decisions, along with playstyle, character strengths, tactical decisions etc. The other choice could be more ephemeral but still meaningful to the player... maybe like choosing not to explore a hidden area that would give you more loot, but isn't essential to complete the game or something.
Are you guys going to have an episode dedicated to The Witness? I know that's the new hotness right now, but it is so intriguing. It's very hard to talk about in vague terms, so it might not be beneficial to dedicate an entire show to the game, maybe you can talk about different people forge different paths, even though we all start with the same tools in the beginning. Also, you could discuss the uniqueness of having the entire game "unlocked", as in, you can go anywhere in the game the moment you start, and yet have the world still be shrouded in mystery.
I just...I just really like the Witness.
+ProtectBravo well, well. The Witness. hmmmmmm... -jj
+PBS Game/Show :D
I think great choice making games are in RPG's. In Dark Souls you have to make the choice of where you spent your souls, if you should use the boss soul for extra souls or to make a fancy weapon. Players also have their own personal choices based on what types of armors or weapons they prefer to use. You also have to approach groups of enemies in a way similar to DOOM: you must decide which enemy to kill first. Also look at the older turned based Final Fantasy games. You must decide to continue or grind, and when in battle you have to decide which enemy should be attacked or killed first, which party member should attack that enemy, and even which attack you should use because each attack is meaningful. If you have the wrong party member attack the wrong enemy, or use the wrong attack, it could get you killed. Some attacks even have a lower percentage rate of hitting, like 60-80% for instance, instead of a standard attack which is probably like 90-100%. The stronger attacks generally hit less often, so you have to choose the risk of using the strong attack for a less likely chance of hitting versus an attack that will most definitely hit, but it won't do as much damage.
One of my favorite strategic choices in games has got to be in the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy for the SNES. In those games you could tag-team between two characters, each of which had his/her own advantages or disadvantages. The player controlled the lead character to utilize his/her strengths, but if that character was hit, the character in back would be controlled.
Often, players would prefer one character over another; such as the far-floating Dixie Kong over Diddy Kong in DKC 2. This led to a dilemma; should they put Dixie in front, in case they'd need her for a tricky jump up ahead? Or put Diddy Kong in front, in case there were enemies about, and keep Dixie in reserve for later? This forced players to think about both long-term and short-term strategy.
In something like Space Invaders going for the high score isn't really a choice at high level play. Getting the high score hit is just what you do, thus it's not a choice anymore but a measure of ability.
I think the perma-death tactical games are great for choice. risking one of your strongest characters up front where he can do the most but also puts them in the greatest danger
Binding of Issac sacrificing health for power ups or any game that uses hit points as a spendable resource. You can make the game harder later for an immediate advantage.
Undertale has an excellent aspect of choice. In addition to the obvious aspect of choosing whether to be violent or passive,, I did something different. I ended up killing Toriel at the beginning of the game before I realized how to defeat her without fighting her. Then I reset the game, and some of the dialogue changed to acknowledge that I had played those sections before. Then I was chastised by Flowey after I left the Ruins. Flowey says that he knows what I did, ("You murdered her.") and then accuses me of abusing my ability to "save" in order to change the fate, while Flowie (as an NPC) did not have that option. It adds an extra element in choice and consequences because of both my agency in how I play and in the game having a memory of how I played it.
Papers, Please. Really liked the way that the moral choices confronted with are, in part, driven by the game situation. Haven't processed enough people properly to earn enough money to take care of your family? Do you take the financial hit yourself for the sake of helping a person fleeing a horrible situation in their country? Do you apprehend someone who is clearly not really a criminal just to get some of that bribe money from the guards? Can you spare the citation you gain for helping some of those people offering money to you themselves, or promise of improving the political situation of your country?
I'd have to give this to Monster Hunter, there is just so many choices you have to make before going and starting an actual hunt. How many potions, bombs and accessories determine the amount of inventory space you have to loot the monster and surroundings. Then there's the weapon choices, 14 weapons in total that offer very different playstyles. Your armor also plays a huge part, most pick them for the skills they need to increase their hunting prowess, but I have seen some fantastic fashion sets and the odd naked runners here and there.
Then when the actual hunt starts it branches out into even more choices. Weapons have different recovery frames, power and animation length. While the fast sword and shield can pull off 5 quick slashes before backing off, a level 3 Greatsword charge takes a little bit more time. All these incorporate tradeoffs that players have to balance. Not gonna lie there are some elements that really take choices away from the player like a monster insta charging with no tell, or a stunlock into a wall but these are few and far in between (unless you hunt Kut Kus for fun).
If Sid Meier thinks video games are a bunch of interesting decisions, Monster Hunter is definitely just that and more.
Fallout 3. First game where I really got the concept of weapon range and switched weapons based on the environment.
Something interesting that I've noticed about games that are praised for meaningful choice is how, when you boil it down, every meaningful choice in a game is a binary one. This War of Mine comes to mind. People often talk about the part of that game where you find the elderly couple in a house, and you have to option to steal from them or not. When I say it like that, it doesn't seem that different from other games that have been criticized for bad choices, but it feels meaningful because of the context and weight of your situation. There are noble reasons to steal from them and selfish reasons to stay away.
Also gotta briefly mention Undertale. That game has some of the best recognition of player choice in any game I've ever played, and every meaningful choice in that game is binary. Even the dialogue options follow that rule. But, again, it does this in a way that makes you focus on the emotional side of your actions. Yes, mechanically it does seem weak, but it doesn't feel that way to the player.
My personal pick for best player choice in games is the 2012 XCOM. It's a game about crisis management, and, again, usually only ever asks you things that have two answers. Hell, it pretty much just asks one question the entire game: constantly forcing the player to put a monetary value on human life. It's a choice that has stuck with me, even though I made different degrees of the same one multiple times. Or maybe I'm just too excited for XCOM 2.
Seems like the Stanley Parable is a pretty quintessential, self-aware example of player choice.
The Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X offer interesting choice.
For example one of the character (Kimari) start in the middle of the grid.
The obvious, easy, boring choice is to work your way to the beginning of another character path and follow it.
But you can also just accumulate lot of levels until you can teleport halfway through Auron's path and start from there,
putting stat up nodes as you go on to buff both Auron and Kimari,
laughing like crazy as you now have two badass characters in the team. :P
Mad, mad kudos for referencing "The World Without Us" in your final thoughts; it is a great book. In a similar vein to Lorien's question, there has been some analysis done as well on the scientific and sociological level as to why the social interest in zombies has surged in recent years as well, which is obviously been incorporated in games in the past decade or so thanks to other mediums like tv and movies. Zombies are a big thing right now, and the sociological reasons are quite interesting.
Infamous like many games have a morality rating, but it has a twist: what side you choose deside which powers you can get and upgrade. And with neon powers in infamous: second son, you can "snipe" weakpoints, and either hit several parts of an enemy or take the easy (and evil) choice to shot them in the head and kill them instantly. this shows how the side of evil is motivated: greed. you want the best powers and the easiest choices.
Final fantasy 8, the junction and draw magic mechanics. every piece the player controls can draw, every piece the player controls can junction magic to make abilities stronger. Drawing magic takes one round in combat, and there are few places outside of combat to draw from. Take the hit to be better later, or fight the enemy now.
I'm impressed you managed to avoid mentioning Undertale, since it's probably the best example of narrative and gameplay choice being presented individually and woven together to create an experience that allows the player more autonomy than some Sandbox games, despite being a very linear game. But, you know, everyone's talking about that, so maybe it's best to steer clear of it.
A conflict that often comes up when discussing RPG's is whether to plow the straight through the story, or to take the grind and level up before progressing. slow and steady, or burn through?
The choice of leaving the game unfinished, you actually change the story written to one where the hero dies. This actually always exists, but it's only really visible in the big Zelda universe.
Minecraft is the perfect example. We are not allowed to mention Minecraft when talking about game design, due to it being the arc of game design. Agreed?
I feel like Animal crossing gives very interesting choices, despite not really having an "end goal." Should I sell that super rare fish/bug for a ton of bells or donate it to the museum? Do I want to pay off my home loan so I can get a bigger house or would I rather buy better furniture with those hard-earned bells? Which furniture series do I want to focus on collecting? All seem so arbitrary, but I have found myself going deep down the rabbit hole with Animal Crossing because of the possibilities.
Last of Us - the difficulty influences choices you make.
There are points in the game that you can avoid combat (LoU isn't the only game that does this). If you're playing on a low difficulty, you might run up and attack or miss that you could even avoid the combat. But in harder difficulties (I'm looking at you Survivalist/Grounded) it's a more prudent choice to hide behind a car while the patrol passes, or sneak attack. It turns what could be a decent third-person shootout into a nerve-wracking stealthy survival scenario.
I think The binding of Isaac is the definitive epitome of this concept.
Competitive multiplayer team games probably have the most to offer in regards to the pure coice you're talking about (Like Splatoon and League of Legends) largely because you're facing other people who, while can be predicable, will never be as predictable as things actively coded into a game. In games with various choices and branching paths, the game reacts the same way every time to the same thing, but human beings, both on your team and the opponents, probably won't. So you have to adapt and make far more choices in games like that than you could for any other genre.
I'd consider choices where you have to make a moral decision like in many rpgs a completely different kind of choice rather than less of one, since it plays more on how you feel about the world and characters rather than a risk vs reward thing. Neither is inherently better than the other, but they are different types of choices.
Galaga not only has the cheat in wich you can have two ships at the same time but also the game gives you more points if you shoot to the ugs when are in movement and if you kill the bugs from the last line before killig the ones on the front. Another thing I noticed in the game is that every bug charges at you differently and whn the game starts getting difficult, instead of one bug, two bugs attack you directly forcing you to find the best spot in which you can't get hit.
i think it's important to make a distinction between gameplay and narrative
in the video you talk about autonomous gameplay but in your question you mention bioware and telltale
when people talk about meaningful choice in game they usually talk about branching story-lines
while choice in gameplay is often called strategy or the meta
i guess my example would be "this war of mine" which mixes narrative and gameplay really well.
(each action has multiple effects: killing someone before talking might get you resources and eliminates a possible threat but it will affect your survivors emotionally plus you miss out of a potential ally, walking up to someone on the other hand can be risky if they're hostile and if they are friendly can you afford to support another survivor.)
your choices tell the story and they determine if you win or lose
tharsis is a more recent similar example though i haven't finished it so i don't know how much impact your choice(s) have on the over aching story
As a bit of a different type of example, the first big choice that really struck me in a game was... !!!MYST SPOILER ALERT!!!
the one real choice you have in Myst. You've collected the blue and red pages, but in exploring, you've seen the horrors that Sirrus and Achenar have done. Do you really want to free them?
I think fighting games specifically smash bros melee offers an expansive system of choices as there is a wide variety of techniques a player may or may not know how to use, there's also stage choice as some stages benefit some charchters more than others. Then the game itself has the option to be played completely casual in a party setting with multiple people or 1vs 1 in a tournament like environment.
X-Com! Do I move in close and potentially reveal my soldier to enemy fire for a good shot? Or do I stay in better cover but take a lower percentage shot? Great choices abound in both the battles and the base management parts of the game.
Games like Pokemon TCG and Hearthstone are a great example of choices. You have to sometimes use strategy with the mana cost of cards In Hearthstone. In hearthstone,Say you want to play a card that costs 5 mana and you have 9 and you also want to play another card that costs 7 mana then you have to choose what card,and if your opponent chooses a card that is more powerful then your card then your screwed. And By "Card" I mean minions,not magic cards or "pick up" cards.
Here's an interesting thought: Which enemy would you consider more fair vs unfair? Doom's Shotgun Guy who NEVER misses or an archer in Dark Souls who can one shot you but can still miss even when you stand still?
Dark Souls and the choice of killing NPCs for unique items but then losing access to those characters for trading etc.
I'd have to say that Dwarf Fortress is the king of of choice in games.
Wow. No Undertale in this video? Surprising. I loved making decisions in Infamous because cmon, Red lightning? SIGN ME UP!
Civilization, Starcraft and Melee come to mind
Both RTS and MOBA give the player so much choice (in cases more than the gamer can handle) not are all 4 of the choice groups in them, but it has to be done with split second timing. Add items, upgrades, talents, skins etc they are nothing but choice from start to finish.
I think every (semi) competitive game offers that kind of choice. Do I throw a grenade in CS:GP or do I take the safe camper route but maybe get flashbanged myself and therefore die?
Age Of Empires. Do I put my first money into armed forces or do booster my defensive and try to reach the next age faster?
How about in every MMORPG ever, when it comes to creating your build you always spend hours examining data to best suit your playstyle. Do I want to hit hard or hit a lot, do I want to help out my teammates or be a one man army, do I want to out-maneuver my opponent or stay stock still and take hits. Each way of playing has it's up and downs depending on the game and it's mechanics.
I've always thought of The Sims series as a game of choices, each choice based on a player's motivations, beliefs, etc. Idk, always stuck to me as a choose-your-own-adventure game