I had the notion that it should be possible to create a short game using nothing but *fake_choices. Fake_choices which change nothing. No reaction text. No gotos. No stat changes or setting of variables. Just the choice itself. Shall we call these faux-choices or phony-choices?
But the text of the choices themselves would have an impact on the reader if not on anything else. I have an inkling of how this could be done. Actually I have a few ideas but I’m interested on anyone else’s take.
So does anyone want to give it a go? No need to do anything long. I was thinking just a very short scene. Call it an experiment to see how far we can stretch these phony choices and if they can actually be used to some effect.
No! I thought Heroes Rise was great. It wasn’t as linear as everyone lead me to believe. There were still choices in there. I think it’s easy to disparage Heroes Rise. The one game I did find extremely linear was Choice of the Ninja. But even that at least had reactions to your choices, even if it didn’t remember what decisions you’d made. I’m not sure if it’s still the case in the full version or not.
Definitely nothing long, or time-consuming, or even polished in any way. I’m just saying a short scene. Stretch yourself, see if you can find a way to make fake_choices have an impact and be important, even if they don’t change anything concrete. Think outside the box.
I think a true test of the challenge would be not even a customised response. Since there are games, like Choice of the Ninja, which just uses the customised responses, even if everything does feed back, eventually to the main plot line.
That said, if you want to do customised responses, go ahead. The whole thing is to see if we can push faux-choices after all.
I’d see it more as
Which colour of ball do you pick?
*fake_choice
#I love red!
#Blue, it's boring, just like you.
#Purple, fit for any Queen.
#Green is so environmentally friendly!
#Black, like the colour of my soul.
Hmm… a game based on a scenario where every path is predistined to end up the same way, where our only choices are, at best, cosmetic, sounds to me like you’re asking us to make a congress/parliamentary election game FG.
I just watched an old clip from Mr Bean. After Bean cuts customers hair while the hairdresser is busy, most come back and complain later. However one, short-sighted, is pleased with his ‘hair cut’. As he leaves, he says to the hairdresser “Thank you very much Derek.” The customer is genuine, but the hairdresser understands it as sarcasm.
I’m sure this could be used (perhaps only once or twice) with a fake choice to give a very different outcome to a choice despite the same text.
It just needs to be a very, very short thing. Even a couple of choices would be enough. Actually I love that idea. DO IT!