I was watching an animated episode of Cyanide and Happiness. And there was an episode with a teenager in a theater watching a horror movie. Just when the protagonist is about to open the scary door he screams " don’t go in there" she looks at the audience and says " ok" and heads to her car and leaves smash cut to two hours later and she’s in bed reading and the audience boos as the credits too.
It got me thinking about making a game where you are offered a choice near the beginning. Either you participate in the main plot or you go on a different story with mundane choices and outcomes.
Well, mundane outcomes would be boring. I would much prefer an alternate storyline which completely derails from the main plot and is something you can choose instead of the original route. Or, perhaps, the two paths could intertwine later on, effectively creating a different beginning which alters some events in the main plot.
Honestly, the way I imagine it, that almost sounds like a game over to me.
I think it could work, though, if you make it heavily meta and there are actual consequences for the MC refusing to play their part in the story. I mean, what happens if the hero just doesn’t show up?
Like Prince Lír says in The Last Unicorn:
But the true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. […] Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever.
