The Choices! They Do Nothing!

While strolling through the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Chris Remo, of the late Idling Thumbs recently pointed out that the reference made in the title of this post is actually a widespread Simpson's misquote like "play it again Sam," or "Luke, I am your father;" two culturally pervasive quotations that were, in fact, never said. Mr. Remo was right.

Regardless, I think the line plays better as two sentences and I'm sure if Dan Castellaneta and company had to do over, they would agree.


But this actually a post about video games. And not some cop-out "ooh, I'm playing Torchlight" (I'm not really but I zipped through the demo: it's Diablo, but genetically engineered by bad men to ween out any act or down time that could come between you and it's ability to transform players into addicts) or "hey, my game is coming out, please buy it" (It is out and you should buy it) but an ACTUAL "here are my thoughts about a certain aspect of game design that sticks in my craw" blog post. The existence of this entry is a evidence of an uptick of free time and/or fervent procrastination.

We talk a lot about choice. In the office, as an industry, hell, as a society. From San Francisco to Austin to Cologne, designers stand at lecterns hailing the profundity of "player choice" in an interactive world. "How do you play?" "Will you be benevolent or wicked?" "The choice is yours!"

Bullshit.

Well, I shouldn't say that. Not bullshit. Still poop, but not particularly bullshit. We get so hung up on this idea of choice that somewhere along the way we forget that choices have to matter. And for choices to truly matter -- not just within the robot drawing the game on the screen, but, you know, in our minds a choice needs to be compelling, natural, and unlimited. I'll work backwards from that list to make some sort of argument.

By unlimited I mean without limit. Any sort of "choice" needs to be presented in such a fashion that your attention is not drawn to other options that you cannot choose. Often times, all presenting options does is elucidate the ones that AREN'T there. Interactive fiction (think choose your own adventure if you're not from Squaresville and haven't played Masq) is a perfect example of this.

As you exit the shower, you are stopped dead in your cold, wet tracks. There, in the door, piercing the heavy steam of the bathroom with his primal stare, is a chimpanzee in a yellow rain slicker.

If you kick the smelly chimp in the face, turn to page 37.

If you shriek like Janet Leigh, dropping your towel and exposing yourself to the beast, turn to page 71.

See? Those are some pretty limiting choices. What if you just want to give the little bastard a high five and go make an omelet? Granted, this example is ridiculous (and by ridiculous I mean going into my design notebook under Game Idea: Chimp Creep) but it begs the question, "how do we provide a suite of abilities from which the player can make choices in an interactive space?" Do you just press the "expose yourself to a primate" button? Is there a list of options on screen? Perhaps there's a drop down menu? Anyway you slice this cucumber, you're left in the land of the limiting -- simply because we give you any choice. You're left feeling pushed and pulled in one direction or another, and I argue, feeling less like a real person in an alive world and more like a distant reader picking a curious fate in order to see what happens. More on this a minute.

Natural choices are a little easier for us to get to, as designers. I think using my above chimpanzee story in an attempt to talk about natural choices is probably a bad idea, but we can all think of the sorts of things that one would do, naturally, in a situation. But for, me, that's not compelling either. Sure, I might open the window. I might flush the toilet. I might kick that chimp. What I do is what defines me: it is what makes me a unique person, it is what creates character, it is what creates story. And if we give you choices, you create the story.

Aside: (Which, in a boardroom, seems like a sentence that would drop the proverbial panties: "Our player creates their own story! [Seven men in Brooks Brothers blazers look right, look left, agree, and simultaneously produce erections.] That's dandy if you're playing The Sims - a game where you are building little inferential narratives in your head as you play. If you've sat down with my game, I imagine it's because you want to be part of a story I'm telling. And selling something on that merit, in a boardroom, is a fuckofalot harder.)

And on top of being natural, a choice, to matter, has to be compelling. When presented with the chimp in the bathroom (who I'm starting to imagine as a probable flasher) "brushing your hair" shouldn't be an option. That's not compelling. It's curious, but it's not a compelling action. Who decides what's compelling? The author. As a person sitting down to play a game or watch a movie, you trust that the author has made and presented some compelling choices. If he or she hasn't, we generally walk away from these games or movies thinking that they are not good.

I argue that the ideas of natural and compelling are in direct opposition. I think it's hard enough, in any medium, to tell one good story. When we start giving players choice over what they're going to do in a world -- and those choices start to define the story (ie: choices that take future choices off the table) we are writing many many many stories. And some would argue that ALL of those stories can be compelling. "But did you kill the corrupt cop? What happens if you didn't? Go back and play it again and find out!" I, in general, disagree. Diverging paths doesn't make something more interesting. It just makes it, well, more.

If you're going to force me to make choices in a game, what I find interesting in games is when I can be given a binary choice that DOESN'T effect the world (ie: state) of the game, but some how colors my interpretation of future events. I don't want limitless options. If I'm given options, I want to be between a rock and a hard place: given a binary choice with limited information and ambiguous moral consequence, think for a minute about what to do, do it, and move on. I don't want this choice to open up a branching path. But I want it to tint the lens through which I see the rest of the world and experience the rest of the game. Bioshock's Harvest vs Save child-murder-toss-up is a great example of this.

I don't want to make a choice in a game world to see what happens. I want to experience a game world the way I experience the real world: I do things that put me in a favorable position, are fun, interesting or ultimately fulfilling. I don't kick chimps in the face to see what happens. I do it because I'm afraid of them and I tend to jump to violence far too quickly. A world where I'm pulling levers (making choices) to just see what happens is chaotic. It's a toy, a device, a big question mark machine. Games like that can be fun. But I don't like to make (ie: I'm not good at making) those types of games.

Any game can present a system where the choices I make have consequences. But it's rare that a game can ask me to make those choices and give a shit. GTA IV has those moments, but again, I don't feel like I'm taking a branching path. I still go do the same missions, but the effect of my "choice" lingers with ME, the player, which is far more important than my XBOX's hard drive (although I do concede that one character is available on my celly and another is not - again, not a huge earth-shattering choice but an elegant reminder of whose brain caught a bullet).

And for a choice to linger with me, the story and the world has to be well constructed. And I think the more "choices" we give a player, choices that are generally not tied tightly to a central theme, the harder it is to craft that narrative. I've done a lot of talk about binary choices: life/death being the heaviest, primitive example. Because, from a story telling perspective, to me, binary choices are the ones that I'm able to manage elegantly. Did you or didn't you. Yes or no. Alive or dead. From there I can really make the theme of a story do its work. Bioshock asks you: are you a cold man of logic or are you a sympathetic man of fate. And then it asks you again. And again. And again. All the while throwing more and more danger your way. Are you still a sympathetic man of faith? It isn't that I chose to save or harvest a little girl. It's that I continue to. Everything that happens outside of that choice is tinted by it. In my opinion, if we're going to have choice in games AND have taught cinematic narratives, this is the way choices should be presented.

And then there are the Uncharted 2's of the world: lauded romps of unbelievable adventure. There are no choices other than continue to move forward or pause the game and catch your breath. I see nothing wrong with that. In fact, it seems like a perfect proving ground for the industry to hone our storytelling skills, mature, experiment with new and different themes, and revolutionize our industry from a perspective that everyone (gamers and nongamers) understands: that of audience member. I don't need to be presented the foreign idea of branching narratives: I need a goddam good story. I need a character I care about. I need a character I can put myself in the shoes of. There are exceptions to this, but shut up, I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about how in every Coen Brothers movie, no matter how flawed or fucked up their protagonist is, I truly care about them (this is one of the most impressive story-telling feats of our time). Let's start there. Let's build systems that allow us to stop worrying about them so much and focus on the things that we, as humans respond to.

Lets, as writers, designers and authors make our own choices. Because, at the end of the day, that is what our audience will respond to the most.