Sometimes choices clearly communicate they are important™ while other times a choice that seems inconsequential actually has wide-reaching consequences.
Example:
Do you wanna betray the king and stab him in the back or do you declare your loyalty to him?
VS
If you cut through the gardens instead of the streets, AND wore the green suit AND have good stealth you overhear people gossiping which unlocks a whole new hidden story path.
I was wondering what you guys think about this? I am tempted to think it’s better to communicate important choices clearly, it might increase replayability as people want to explore what happens in scenario B. But there might be advantages to these “hidden” or inconsequential-seeming choices too? As a reader sometimes it’s frustrating to know something is possible (for example bc there’s an achievement) but have it be very not intuitive on how to achieve this. BUT it can also be very fun to stumble on a “hidden” path. As a writer, I worry about putting effort in something few or no players will play AND won’t even know they COULD have played.
So, thoughts?
PS: Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this.
It depends. When you write something, do you want the majority of readers to see it, or are you ok with writing something maybe only 5% of readers will see, to reward the hardcore readers searching every nook and cranny of your game for content?
Personally, I would lean towards having obvious choices. If I were to guess, the number of playthroughs for an average player would be something like 1.xx. If you write in branches which are very difficult to reach, you will need to prepare for the possiblity that most people simply aren’t going to read that content. It can feel fun to reward people who really go all out to find the hidden stuff, but I would still rather that a majority of readers get to read what I write.
Case in point. My game, Dragon of Steelthorne, has a secret ending which requires a specific set of actions to have been completed. Only 3.7% of steam players managed to find it (using steam achievements), and I personally regret making the secret ending so difficult to reach. Maybe the stats are different on mobile platforms… but I wouldn’t know since achievements aren’t tracked there. (On another note, the game sold much better on mobile platforms than Steam.)
For me, personally, I’d rather have obvious choices. That said, if you don’t mind writing hidden stuff only 5% of players will see, that’s equally fine too. Just sharing my thoughts.
Thanks for sharing! Yeah I think I’d rather make it obvious too, I agree.
Any authors likes to surprise their reader, of course, but if they never even find out a choice can lead to a hidden path I don’t think that’s fun for anyone. What you mentioned about less than 4% of players reaching the secret ending, yeah I get how that can feel disappointing. The issue is that you can’t always know how obvious something is to players. As a DM for example, sometimes my players guess stuff quickly and sometimes hints I thought were obvious go over their heads.
After thinking about it some more, I think the way to go about this might be to reveal later in the game that the “inconsequential” choice really was important.
I’ve had most fun plotting a path that makes sense only if the player makes a few specific choices and performs very poorly; I estimate most players won’t see it, but it amuses me, so I think it’s worth it. If it’s not fun to write, though, you might need to do a different calculation.
I vote for a bit of both. Make the big choice paths clear, and write a few harder-to-find ones as bonuses. Maybe don’t make them so hard that only 1% of people find them? But the point should be that most readers never reach them, only the especially dedicated or lucky ones.
If that prospect doesn’t feel fun to you, then make them all obvious.
I actually AM having a lot of fun writing the path I’m talking about. It has nothing to do with the example I gave above, rather it’s a secret option that allows the player to “run away”. I am still debating making it an early ending OR having the player be caught no matter what, branded a traitor, and thus profoundly changing the tone of a lot of the rest of the game.
But it IS fun, although I also think I’d be a bit disappointed if no one knows about it. Right now I’m leaning towards leaving a greyed out option as a clue to players that it IS possible.
Also depends on how long of a branch I’m writing. I don’t want to spend days writing an entirely different chapter or scene or ending with tens of thousands of words only for 2% of people to ever see it. But I am willing to add a conditional to another scene which reveals a few extra paragraphs for those 2%
I do like to add slight bonuses in those small things to, which can feed back into other choices though. Like, maybe very, very few people will do the specific actions in chapter one which could lead to them fighting the dragon. BUT if they have done that, then when everyone has to fight it in chapter three, I’ll include a variable that will give the rare path players an advantage, or an option to bypass the fight without a hard choice, or something like that. Something like “You’ve fought this dragon before! You have the scars to prove it, but you also know it’s missing a patch of scales, just under its right arm. You could go for that, kill it immediately.”
Small reward, just a few more words, but really makes the game feel reflective.
I definitely think adding small Easter eggs or small extra scenes make games a LOT of fun, they feel so rewarding when they happen. I am already doing that. Small interactions you only get if certain customization options were chosen, or if you picked a certain dialogue option.
I completely agree with this! It might just be a sentence, but it feels like those choices mattered.
I also think this is the way to make character creation/customisation matter and it’s something I’m paying attention to. Just a sentence saying “you twirl your ${pchaircolor} hair” is fine. But where it gets really fun imo is when characters recognize your gang-tattoo, or joke that everyone from X country must be a giant.
An important thing to note with the hidden example you provided. Is context. Has wearing different colored clothing ever been relevant to whether other choices exist? If it hasn’t been. Then you will only get a minor amount of players who have lucked into it. Thus its a bad hidden way because there’s no logic reasoning to lead you into attempting it. Its like a game where you holding interact against the wall opens a secret. If the entire time, holding that button does nothing unless explicitly highlighted, and no where else. You wont have people trying the walls unless specifically hunting for secrets. Thus it’d be bad to hide important stuff this way.
But say you have used this mechanic before and showcased that its something you as the author are aware of and care to use. Then maybe with some proper context (missing said important conversation because you get spotted too early, even with good stealth). You can make the player later retry with said green clothes.
The players will often only put as much effort into thinking about what may unlock choices as the game makes them think. If it feels like every choice, particularly important ones, is obvious or clearly lead to by very clear choices. Then they wouldn’t think to try more hidden combos or thoughts of their own. That’s to me the more important part of which one is better.
Imo, people who consume IF fall all over the spectrum. Some will want a more straightforward experience, where the consequences of a choice are clear so they can make the best one. Others will want the anticipation of discovering things on their own, even if they miss out on content during a playthrough.
I’ve been both at different times; I think it depends on if I’m looking for a mood that’s closer to a game or a story (though ik this form is neither. Or both? Something else?). But I think most games I’d consider my favourites had a few easter eggs sprinkled in.
I see what you mean, there should be some logic to it. The example I gave was just something I made up on the spot (there’s not even a king in my game). I included green clothes specifically because it seems like a random choice that most players would never suspect would be important. On the one hand it can be fun to surprise players with specifically those choices, but I agree it’s not so smart for it to lead to a whole hidden story branch. Like someone else said, one or two lines specifically about those green clothes would be fine.
Maybe I should have talked about the actual path I am thinking about. The player needs to a) successfully hide important information (they can fail), b) resolve to run away (one of three options) and c) not act too suspicious (based on a stat). If all this is accomplished then the player can succesfully desert. I do think I want to include this option, because I think it’s fun.
From what everyone’s been saying the consensus seems to be: easter eggs are a definite yes. Hidden paths: most likely not the best idea unless you’re fine with very few people finding them.
Obvious solutions provide clarity and emotional response, increasing replayability and transparency, but can be predictable. Hidden paths create an element of surprise and discovery, but can be frustrating if they are too subtle. The best approach is to combine both, so that key choices are obvious, while hidden paths add depth and mystery for exploratory players.
It depends. There’s a place for both IMO. I think it’s important (unless there’s a REALLY good ingame reason) not to trick players by having their chosen choice mean something completely different, or not giving people enough information to understand what the choice might mean. (Like it is a bit frustrating if you come to a fork in the road and get asked “do you go left or right?” without any information about where each path might lead.)
In saying that I love delayed impact choices. I frequently used them where a decision made earlier in the game, pops up later to impact choices available or interactions with others. You can also use delayed impact with “accumulative” choices (e.g. a single choice to do something can be a one off, if you keep picking those sorts of choices it’s a pattern for your character). Single choices made one way may have only small story impacts, but can add up to larger game impacts later on.
I also kinda like sometimes throwing in choices that reward players for choosing choices that don’t always seem to lead to the “obvious goal” ending opening up other paths. But that can also make them harder to find, especially if they’re not signposted well enough. (Learned that from my first game!)
Agreed. I like when small choices lead up to bigger impacts in games, but I also like all choices to be very clear on what I’m actually choosing in the moment.
A few things:
A good piece of writing advice I heard once was to never have good things happen to the protagonist by coincidence. Bad things can happen to them by coincidence, but any “good” coincidences just feel like the author cheating by invoking divine providence (as the author is the ‘god’ of this story and world) to get the protagonist out of a tough situation in a way they haven’t earned.
To use an example - if the player is held captive by bandits and a wandering knight busts in to save them when all seems lost - well, that just feels cheap and lazy. BUT, in the spirit of hidden consequences of earlier choices, if the player had earlier befriended or been kind to a wandering knight, and that knight shows up to rescue them from the bandits later because ‘I realized you were heading through dangerous territory and decided to follow you’ - suddenly that feels like an earned consequence, though one the player didn’t know when choosing to be nice or not to the wandering knight.
I would also say that I’d personally reserve obscure or hidden paths not for arbitrary choices like your example: “Do I take a certain path on my walk? Did I wear green today?” and save them for more meaningful choices, like “Are you good at stealth?”
To use your example, you can have every player take a certain route, but point out a pair of people in hushed conversation who become quiet at the sound of your approach. This provides feedback to players of how they might gain more information on a replay - namely, if you are a stealthy enough character, your footsteps, quiet by habit, allow you to get close enough to overhear this clandestine conversation before the participants become aware of you.
This ties everything in not to seemingly random choices, but to the consequences of the type of character the player is building with their choices and behavior, especially if you call attention to the reason why the player is being shown this scene or not in the text.
I really like that writing advice. You put this really well, appreciate it. It’s good to keep in mind the distinction between negative/positive consequences. I think in IF even negative consequences can feel rewarding, because you earned those. They show how you can influence the game world, which is of course the best part about IFs.
If the game is stat heavy or resource dependent, I prefer the obvious choices. But if it’s story first and mechanics second, I’m okay with the hidden choices as long as they aren’t entirely opaque. Your given example is one that could be too opaque, unless there are earlier hints about the significance of the earlier given choice of wearing green. It can be very fun to build upon the less openly stated choices and see what you get.
