I love to have options that change the text in a game, eg after they’ve selected their name, another character immediately uses it.
I also know that ChoiceScript games are encouraged to have only 200-400 words (maximum) between choices. I typically write the big choices in the first draft and then go back and add more wherever I see either an opportunity or a wall of text. Those are either ‘flavour’ text (as simple as saying “Hello” or “Greetings, Supreme Being” to an NPC) or minor stat bumps, or both.
But with my latest game (“Fine Felines”, and yes it’s in the comp this year) I had so many individual/specialised text bits that the actual choices are much farther apart than usual. In the first chapter the player chooses two cats (out of 11 possible combinations) to buy. Then the text outlines how those two cats get on (or not), which is a medium-length scene based entirely on that one choice. And that one choice of cats impacts the text in a LOT of other ways, many of which are full scenes.
So it actually has LESS choices because it branches more.
Which is why statistics are such a life-saver (although I find them tricky to implement in Twine—for that reason, I reckon Twine is best suited to short stories rather than long ones).
I think most judges will ‘get’ that without needing any help, and your reviewer just didn’t ‘get’ your game (although it sounds like they didn’t hate it either). Which is bad luck, but should be evened out by other judges.
It’s clear other people (even in this thread) understood what you were doing. In your position, I’d take the suggestion of labelling endings (“ending four of seven” or whatever) after the comp ends.
I also wrote a whole ‘Cheat Sheet’ section outlining stuff like how many kittens are possible, the different endings, etc. Although it’s right at the beginning and I suppose I should have added a link back to it at the end (when people actually want to know that stuff). Oh well.
Regarding the original question, some things I’ve seen are:
Achievements, “Ending X/Y”, or other ways of just straight up telling the player are pretty hard to miss. Very common.
Making a big deal of a choice in the narrative. Like, if the servants want your help to go break into a mansion and your friend wants to go on a caper to fake-steal a diamond, have your character argue with your friend for a little bit about your pre-existing commitments before you give the option to pick.
If it fits your game, mention your previous choices later in the narrative in a way that reminds the player that they made a choice that’s changing what’s happening now. Like, you give your wrench to the mechanic you just met, and then later you’re trying to break a window and you instinctively reach for your wrench. Oh no! Now you have to [do other, possibly complex thing]. Of course this has varying degrees of subtlety.
Some games use, basically, genre knowledge. A common example of this might be some of the CoG games where sometimes you meet somebody and there’s, like, a flirt option and you go “ok this person has a romance route” and then you meet another character who has a flirt option and you’re like “ok they’re probably mutually exclusive” - kind of wacky but it works.
Labelling endings seems like a good idea. I think another important thing is to make choices feel consequential in the moment.
If the story just seems to keep happening at or around my character, and I’m just choosing an emotional response as things happen, then maybe some choices don’t even register. Like, saying something angry versus saying something meek, but the other party doesn’t react very differently. Maybe I’m not very invested in that sort of choice because the characters aren’t very defined yet. Or maybe another choice is just an equivalent of “go left/go right”, and I haven’t been told why I might choose one over the other.
Or instead… maybe I found out I’ve been betrayed by someone, and we’re arguing and I have a gun in my hand and they suddenly try to bolt and I have to choose whether to shoot them or not. That seems more consequential. (A thing I would hate would be if I chose to shoot them, and oh oops someone else knocks the gun out of my hand and they escape, because then I think that that’s just the author converging branches immediately again.)
I remember the Walking Dead game was actually very obvious in demonstrating consequence to the player. Important conversations would show “Clementine will remember this” at the bottom of the screen, people would complain or praise specific things you’d done before, very early on there’s a set-up where after meeting two characters and getting scenes with each of them you have to choose to save one and the other immediately dies, and the last episode has someone hold you at gunpoint and ask you to justify some of the various choices you make earlier in your journey (hey, it’s kind of like the De Baron!).
Basically, I’d say referencing choices the player had made before could be one suggestion, and putting important-seeming choices at the pivotal point plots of the story might be another.
I use Ren’Py rather than Twine for my current game (Budacanta, demo was in Spring Thing), but there are a few things I do to make it obvious there are multiple paths through my interactive fiction:
The choices are on a different screen format than the main text. On Twine, there is a strong history of “flavour text” (where players can decide how they experience something but not what that experience is). Programming a difference between links leading to pure flavour text and choices leading to major variations is possible in Twine (and more elegantly than Ren’Py’s default) - The Devil and The Mayor is an example where small flavour text choices are done by clicking on a piece of text until it cycles to the choice you want, rather than the full-page change of significant choices.
The way I write about choices. I have very few flavour text choices, but some choices are more important than others. Having the character who will act on your choice consider the consequences of each choice can help convey that this particular decision is more important than others (which you don’t do this for). When doing this, be careful not to “cheat” by making multiple choices lead to the same result against the thought process of the character (unless you have strong plot or character reasons for doing so, of course).
I exposed what changed by revealing certain variables. Spoons, money and time in my case. With money and time in particular, players assume that something will happen if you use too much even if you make no effort to explain what will change. In the Budacanta demo, there are times when you have choices on how to spend the time before transport arrives, and it is necessary for the player to do what they wish to do before it turns up. (You are, however, setting up an expectation that something important to your game will change based on any variables you choose to reveal, so some caution is advised with this approach).
There are a few places where doing or not doing a specific thing will obviously change what happens. The trick is making sure it’s clear to the player what the consequences are. (Tickets are like that in Budacanta).
Some things I don’t do, but I’ve seen other choice-based interactive fiction games do (and I haven’t seen mentioned yet by other contributors):
Cinders has a branch icon show in the top-right corner whenever anything happens that changes the ending. It does not stop to explain what changed, but it did explain at the beginning that the icon means something in the ending did change (Cinders measures several different things, although replayers can generally guess which of them changed from the context). This has the bonus of preserving some spoilers for anyone who wishes to replay.
Long Live The Queen has an option that allows all variable changes to be shown as and when they happen. While this sometimes happens with compulsory events, it also happens with choices and can convey that there were other choices that would perhaps lead to other state changes.
Many interactive fictions have the possibility of multiple endings as an inherent part of their premise. 4x4 Archipelago has the options of succeeding or failing in the mission. Most dating games offer success or failure in the date (and those with multiple people to date offer success or failure with any of them). The Libonotus Cup offers winning the race or getting the most amount of loot possible (or neither). There’s lots of premises that offer this, but if you are upfront on the most broad-brush possibilities, it can then be up to the player to find out the finer details of possible results, or indeed to find other endings that you didn’t even hint at in the initial set-up.
Choice of Games often greys out or strikethroughs options your choices have made impossible. As does The Devil and the Mayor.
Of the options others have given: I particularly like ending labelling (with or without numbering, though Twine definitely leans towards numbering for reasons previous posters have explained), as it reinforces that my understanding of the ending tallies (or doesn’t tally) with the author’s interpretation and helps inform any further playthroughs. It’s also simple to implement in Twine (just add a line of text to each distinct ending), which is important when the game is fundamentally sound.
I had a “10 screens or less between options” rule, although I think I broke that once (infodumping is a bad habit of the character and author alike). I haven’t counted how many words that is, but it is a different approach to some visual novels (which may have a few choices per hour, but balance that by making every single choice vital… …unless they’re completely linear visual novels. Both types have an audience but not necessarily of the same people as each other, let alone the sort of IF that IFComp attracts).
Many great pieces of advice here. I love watching the talks at GDC (Game Design Conference). I remember, though not in which talks, they mention tricks for precisely that.
I think these ones have been mentioned above, but these are the ones I remember from the top of my head:
Grey out impossible choices (as opposed to hiding them) so that players know there are more paths and that previous choices have made a consequence.
Choices should have at least one immediate effect, and preferably one long term effect. Make sure players know that something is happening in consequence of previous choices.
It ok to have some flavour choices that neither alter stats nor change the story branch. It is generally preferred to having long intervals between choices.
Each choice moment should preferably have no more no less than 5 options. I know people will dispute this. I think the key word is preferably. And the guy who gave this advice is from Inkle (if I recall correctly). So I think there’s some weight to this.
Heh, my recollection of his advice was either three or four (I forget which). Five sounds too high. I remember he didn’t like two because he thought it made it feel like one choice was right and one was wrong.
Actually I’m going to bet on three until someone who remembers exactly, or who’s motivated enough to go dig it out of inklecast or wherever it came from, confirms it. Because three’s an odd number as well. Four is gonna feel too symmetrical, or something.
I’m almost sure it’s 5 but I won’t bet on it . It’s been a while and I’m not motivated to dig that up. But I don’t take it as a hard rule, just a rule of thumb.
This doesn’t always work for me. Neo Cab does this, but it somehow comes off as a reduced range of choice. “Here, you have three choices, but one of them is forbidden. Ha ha.”
This might be because I didn’t feel a lot of agency over my character’s emotional state (which determines which choices are available). Your big choices are about which passengers to pick up in your cab, and what you say to them. Emotions feel like a consequence of that. Mind you, I only played through once, so I never got into the mode of “Let’s try to make this come out differently.”
On the other hand, games like Disco Elysium and Sunless Sea grey out choices with an explicit reason like “Your Veils stat is too low” or “You must raise your Rhetoric skill before trying this again.” This gives you a goal – you must go out and do more stuff before coming back to the challenge. But this only makes sense in RPG-style games on a fixed map. (In simple branching narrative, you never return to a “place” unless you replay the game.)
I totally agree with Andrew on greying out options. I find it tends to feel more annoying to show greyed out options, because it kind of feels like the game is saying, “You screwed up earlier by not doing whatever was required to get this option.” This may then lead to the player wondering if they should scrap this run and reload at a point where they correct that, which would mean that they wasted time and effort in the current run.
It also feels unnatural. When people think about what options are available when making choices, they generally don’t also think about the options they can’t take. Thus, it’s often better to simply hide options which aren’t available.
Instead, in some cases you might want to hint at an action which could be done add other options. That hint can help prevent players from thinking that they’re stuck with only the currently visible options. This is extremely handy with things like puzzles.
I’m not saying that greyed out options can’t be done well. However, I would say that it requires a balanced and obvious system which can rule out some options and, by doing so, enable others. For example, Mass Effect’s Paragon/Renegade choice wheel, where most choices had clearly indicated “Paragon” (blue & upper-left of the choice wheel) and/or “Renegade” (red & lower-left) options among them (example image of the choice wheel). Sometimes a “Paragon” or “Renegade” option may be visible, but it will only be enabled if you have sufficient “Paragon” or “Renegade” points at that time (“Paragon” disabled vs “Renegade” disabled in the same scene, also here’s an example of the point tracking display for the two routes). That way you feel like you could play another run of the game to get the other stat high enough to try the other options next time. It’s not that you were “dumb” and made a “bad choice”, it’s simply that extra option X is available on one route, extra option Y is available on the other route, and it’s clear that there’s usually no way to get both extra options at the same time.
Thus, I’d say that having “greyed out” options should be used with caution, since, if done improperly, it may actually make it feel like you have less options, rather than more.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, but yes, as MoyTW suggested, sprinkling throughout your game callbacks to choices the player previously made is another good way to help make sure that players feel like their choices actually matter in a game.
I’ve seen different numbers for the optimal number of choices (ranging from 3 to 5). Possibly dependent on screen space (mobile games tend to have less space in which to put the choices than games initially envisaged for a desktop), gaming tradition (visual novels rarely have lots of choices on a given screen but some other forms of interactive fiction do) and target audience (some people just plain prefer more choices than others).
(I’m using a maximum of 5 options per choice on-screen for Budacanta, with potential later on to only surface the 5 choices most likely to be relevant given previous choices. One of the 5 is, under most circumstances, the advice/hints and thus not a choice that would progress the game in itself. At this point I hide choices that can’t be taken, though there is a later section where I’m considering whether to do that or not for plot reasons).
Ok, back in the ‘What did Jon Ingold say?’ betting stakes, I found one of the places where I heard it (the number three). It’s in his 2018 talk at AdvX 2018 - Jon Ingold - Sparkling Dialogue: A Masterclass.
Proceed to the 26 minute mark to hear the quote arrive soon, but really you’re better off watching the video proper to receive the context.
Lots of good discussion about this. I just wanted to chime in and say there are some who like making choices but feeling like there is only one version of the story based on what they did, and some who like being aware of other branches not taken who will scour to see every path. It’s totally a preference-thing.
It might come down to how compelling the choices and story are and whether the player is motivated to play again. I’ve totally gotten a bad-end in narratives and decided “that’s my story, I’m done.”
Hopefully we don’t consider threads dead here…I thought I would link this useful resource from Sam Kobo Ashwell for the OP.
Personally I am fond of gauntlets and open maps as described in the article.
To add extra passages, I make certain passages act as bookmarks or waypoints that users will always return to no matter what they do. Then I add extra surrounding passages that are not so important. Usually I try and make sure players are no more than 3-4 clicks from a core passage.
My approach is not really appropriate for “choose-your-own adventure” style games where choices affect the plot though, ie. if you want certain core passages to win/lose the game.
I recommend that article all the time when people are talking about how to structure their CYOA-type game. It’s a good article, however, it doesn’t really answer the question about how to make players realize that there are a variety of other choices or how to show that the choices they make matter or affect the game.
That said, it does make me think of one other method to do that: showing regret about choices that weren’t made. It shouldn’t be anything major or that insults the intelligence of the player, but having the character remark how unlucky it was that they took the long way around, and if they’d chosen another path things would have been faster, or something like that, also demonstrates that the player’s choices really do affect the character. People sometimes regret their bad decisions, even if there’s no way they could have known it was a bad decision at the time. It’s basically a case of “the dog that didn’t bark” if you leave that out. It’s easy to forget to include comments like that, but if you do include them, then it can add a bit of realism to the character and a greater feeling that choices matter if you do it right.
To avoid this problem, I’m going to be having a progress map that readers can view at any time. The rectangular boxes are the pages where they can make choices, and so they’ll have the option to click on them to return to those pages and choose alternate paths (which won’t be visible until they’ve chosen those).
I just joined Twine, so not sure if something like this is possible.Progress Map example
Flowcharts can definitely be done in Twine. You can do pretty much anything you’ve seen on any website in Twine. The real question is whether you can do it in a way which is actually beneficial to your game, instead of being harmful or merely wasted effort.
If your “map” (or “walkthrough”, which is what it really is) is a confusing, complicated mess, it’s not going to be particularly helpful. Also, if the whole thing is revealed up front, then it’s just going to be a mass of spoilers, even if it just indicates “you have 13 clicks to get to the end of the game from here.”
I’d only consider attempting a “map” like this for fairly short and simple “Time Cave” or “Gauntlet”-style games (to borrow from the nomenclature from the “Standard Patterns” article), where it’s basically a fairly simple tree of choices. Otherwise it can be difficult to represent what the requirements are for certain options to be available from certain points. Anything more complicated than those basic patterns will probably make a flowchart like what you showed rather difficult to represent clearly. (Though, for most games where it’s simple enough to flowchart it like that, it’s probably simple enough that you don’t actually need a flowchart for it.)
An alternate method, used by some games with images, is to have an “unlocked images” and/or an “unlocked scenes” screen, where the player can see all images from scenes which have been visited and “blanks” representing scenes which haven’t been visited/unlocked yet. The order that the scenes are given on that screen should be done similarly to how they’d appear in the game, thus giving a clear indication when branches in the game haven’t been explored yet and hinting at where they branch from. (Then it’s up to you to have saves so you can quickly go back and try the missed branches. Note: SugarCube v2 includes the special “bookmark” passage tag, which can be used to create a list of critical passages the player has visited, which they can jump back to at a later point, that could be useful for this. However, that feature may be phased out in SugarCube v3 though, since it’s rarely used.)
Personally, I like hints and figuring things out on my own far better than someone simply handing me the “here’s how you win” chart. Walkthroughs like what you appear to be describing should be reserved for those who are really stuck, and even then, including them with the game is a bit… unusual, likely for the reasons I describe above.
I think the interactive map should be blank at first.
The rooms/pages you visit are shown as you go through them, with the rectangular pages with choices as clickable if you want to return and investigate another hidden, unexplored path.
Kind of like the map for Advanced D&D for the Atari 2600 (or Intellivsion?) from the 80s.
. It’s been a while and I’m not motivated to dig that up. But I don’t take it as a hard rule, just a rule of thumb.
