Fernández-Vara, C. (2018) Types of Narrative Choices [Online]. Available from: https://clarafv.itch.io/taxonomy-of-narrative-choices [Accessed 01 May 2019].

​

Although I have already decided on the type of narrative that our game/story will make use of, this being a linear nodal narrative, there are still types of choices that can be presented to the options.

​

To begin with, I just assumed that as I decided not to go with a branching narrative type, there wouldn't be choices available in the game, but this isn't the case. While reading through a website (well, playing through the game) on narrative choice (Fernández, 2018), I was able to understand some of the different types of player option, some of which is able to be used in non-branching narratives.

​

Unfair Choice

"Although the choices are not random, the player does not have any way to know what the right choice is. It creates uncertainty and can also feel unfair."

​

This type of choice is presented to a player in such a way that they won't know the outcome will be. This type of choice can have a number of ranging possible outcomes where some could be good and others could be bad. Effectively, because the player doesn't know what the result of their option will be, this type of choice is 'unfair'.

​

Fake Choice

"This is the kind of choice that just takes the player to the same place, but the design just gives the player the *illusion* that they're making a choice."

​

"Fake choices are useful to avoid having to create a lot of different content."

​

Fake choice is a type of choice which is used to give the player the impression that their choices and interactions are having an impact on the game. However, the options provided to the player will often lead to the same outcome, or eventually, require you to answer a certain option. In addition to creating the feeling that the player's options are impacting the game, this is also beneficial to the writer, as it means that there isn't an extortionate amount of content needed.

​

Invisible Choice
"Invisible choices are choices that the player is making but they don't know it's actually a choice."

Invisible choices are choices that players don't know they're making. However, the choices that they've made can be made apparent later on, and have varying impacts depending on what they 'chose' or did earlier on when 'making' the decision.

​

Weak Narrative Choice
"This is also the kind of choice at the end of a game, which may determine what ending you get, but that doesn't take into account what the player has done before."

​

Weak narrative choice is a type of choice that is often presented to a player to determine the outcome of the game/story. However, these options don't take into account what the player has done previously in the game or the other options they have previously picked.

​

Expressive Choice

"This kind of choice doesn't really have consequences in the system, but it makes the players feel like they're in control and they can be themselves."

​

"Choosing an outfit, gender and sexual orientation, can be meaningful to players even if these choices don't have consequences in the narrative."

​

Many games actually make use of Expressive choice, as the type of choice is different from the other choices which impact the narrative. Expressive choice allows the player to make choices so their characters (that they're playing as) can feel more like themselves. This mainly consists of character customization where the player can pick their characters gender and clothing/equipment to what they want. Although as stated, these choices do not impact the narrative.

​

Additionally, expressive choice can also be shown in a game/story by providing the player with actual choices. However, these answers effectively all result in the same conclusion, but are just different choices that the player can pick to further allow their characters to express themselves how they want.

​

Moral Choices

"This type of choice has very clear consequences - we are good or bad (or maybe neutral)..."

​

"This type of narrative choice design, however, can oversimplify the possible solutions to a problem, since the game invites players to make the "right" choices."

​

Moral Choices are a type of choice the player can make in a game/story which determines the type of person their character is. These choices are effectively morally right or wrong, good or bad.

​

Dilemmas

"Dilemmas are the kind of difficult choices that games should use more often. It's what "moral choices" pretend to be, but they're hard and they often make people feel bad."

​

Dilemmas are one of the more difficult types of choices to make. They can be similar to moral choices, but end up being more difficult to make as the dilemma often provides a morally wrong answer which comes along with some sort of self-benefit, and then a morally right choice with no self-benefit.

​

Choices That Could Work In Our Game

After looking at the different types of choices, I have been able to see a number that could work in our game and a number that wouldn't work.

The choices that wouldn't work so well would be choices such as unfair choices, invisible choices, weak narrative choices, moral choices, and dilemmas. Although fake choices and expressive choices could work rather well.

​

I believe that fake choices could work in my story as fake choice is a type of choice that gives the impression that the player is having an impact on the narrative when in reality they aren't, which would be fitting for our game as the narrative is linear and non-branching and so there would still be one set storyline, but with sections where the player can make these fake choices.

​

Another type of choice that could work and be interesting in our game is expressive choice. This would only work partially though, as the gender of the character needs to be male, as for this project we don't have to time to create character creation or a male and female protagonist for the game, but also as there are multiple sections in my script that show that the player character is male (however this would be a simple change of changing the dialogue depending on the character gender).

But expressive choice isn't just about character creation, as character customization is also a form of expressive choice. This is something my group and I have talked about in for concepts, but have decided that it would be too much of a task to create for the exhibition, and so we will not be doing this. However, if we were to create the game fully, character and sidekick clothing customization would be a feature we would have liked to have in the game, which would also be a form of expressive choice.

​

As I have already created the script for the game, and am running out of time for the project, It will be unlikely that I will be able to make significant edits to my scripts by adding in options/choices (such as fake choices). When first creating the script, and picking the game's narrative, I decided to include as few choices and branching narratives as possible (hence the narrative isn't branching) as I knew that the more choices and branches to the narrative, there would be more concent needed to be written, and the more confusing it would all become. I also decided this due to the fact that I'm the only writer of my group, meaning all of the writing tasks need to be carried out by me, and so time isn't really something I have a lot of spare. 

 

Although if I do find the time, however, I would like to add in some fake choices, as currently there are very few player options, with the only options being more gameplay based, such as 'would you like to leave the island? YES or NO', and the use of fake choices could improve the game/story.