AdviceToolbox
Narrative and UI
Wild Hunt uses simple colour
coding to let the player subtly
know which dialogue options
are on the critical path. Those
in yellow irreversibly advance
the game to a new state,
whereas those in white are
simply additional context, and
will return you to the same set
of options once the dialogue is
complete. Two or more yellow
options means you most likely
only get to choose one: this is
a branching point. Although
some are tricks, and lead to
only slightly altered transitions
into the same end state. Annabelle’s kiss with Graham is visually arresting
and packed with emotion. It’s not only the most
‘moral’ outcome, but also the most entertaining.wfmag.cc \ 39does the best job, by thoroughly investigating
the tower and noticing inconsistencies in the
cursed spectre’s testimony. Being a Witcher – a
professional monster hunter – is a job. If I were
to map the whole the game out in the detail I
have here, I’d find the same thing over and over:
do the job properly, get better outcomes. This is
an excellent example of good narrative design;
the game is using better story outcomes to
influence player behaviour.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
A useful takeaway here is how simple the
process of unlocking that better ending is. The
designers could have asked the player to interact
with optional bits of content throughout the
mission. Instead, the player only
has to examine one optional
object, which is highlighted and
placed a few metres from the
mission’s unavoidable critical
path. To unlock the possibility
of a better ending, you just have to investigate
thoroughly. The other optional content then
reinforces the player’s suspicion of the spectre,
and therefore their likelihood of correctly
distrusting her at the crucial decision point.
Another bit of mastery: the player never
knows when they’ve reached the crucial decision
point. The dialogues are complex enough that
any choice could be a deciding factor in which
ending they get. In this example, the crucial
decision point is whether you shrug and say
“fine” to the ghost’s request, or whether you
delay by saying, “Not sure I totally trust you...”.
That’s it. From that tiny decision, the whole quest
bifurcates, but the player would never know.
This is great game writing for two reasons.
First, it means that the outcome feels like the
result of all the player’s actions rather than
one pivotal decision. It consequently makes
the game seem extra-impressive, by tricking
“Bittersweet
endings are usually
the most powerful”the player into believing there must
be more outcomes than there
really were. Secondly, it focuses
the player. With no clear signal
of whether a decision has large
ramifications or not, they have to
treat every decision as if it does.
I’ll end with a few thoughts about
designing endings for interactive
fiction generally, and particularly for
short stories with few ‘true’ branching
points. You’ll notice in Figure 2 that
I’ve labelled the endings ‘best’ and
‘worst’ rather than ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
This is because both endings here are
sorrowful. If a player feels that they’ve
definitely gotten the bad outcome,
they’re going to feel annoyed at the
game, possibly even reload an earlier
checkpoint and try
again, thus breaking
the fiction’s illusion
by allowing them
to do some mental ‘mapping’
of their own. If the player gets
an unambiguously happy ending, unless they’ve
really earned it, they’re often going to feel
pandered to, and are unlikely to increase their
effort when playing future quests.
Bittersweet endings, meanwhile, are usually
the most powerful. They leave us satisfied, but
yearning for what could have been. And so it
should be with quest endings, or interactive
fiction endings generally. Your endings should
only be subtly different from one another –
slightly happier, slightly sadder, but not outright
happy or sad.
There are a million aspects of quest design
we could have explored here, but in the end,
hopefully you’ve gotten something from the
few I’ve had space for. Did I choose the best
things to focus on? Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.
But there’s enough good here that I’m going to
live with my unique outcome, rather than start
over. That’s bittersweet. Figure 2: It’s worth noting
here that at the critical
choice point, you can walk
away, investigate, then return
to make the better choice.