frustrating results

Something’s been on my mind lately, summarizing some of the things we’ve been talking about:

When writing narrative games, we have a unique opportunity to explore the intricacies of the real world.

We can work complex moral and ethical dilemmas into our stories, we can create experiences that are thought-provoking and reflective of the nuanced world we live in. Or not.

For instance, think about the tough choices some people face in resource allocation in real life, like in healthcare or during a natural disaster.

That’s something we don’t experience daily, unless we work on those areas, and many people might find that interesting.

Many video games default to violence as the primary conflict.

It’s the easiest thing to do, obviously.

Two opposing sides, war, and that’s enough.

Many of us are tired of this and are looking for different ways of interpreting conflict.

The selection of options opens the possibility of generating a type of conflict that does not exist in linear media, but is very strong in human experience.

And I’m not referring so much to moral dilemmas, which are great to explore.

I’m referring more to the conflict that arises between making a decision and the outcome that follows.

This is slightly related to Brian Upton’s concept of the horizon of intention and horizon of action.

The intention that the player has when choosing an option, and the action (or result) can be different, and a great source of conflict.

Obviously, we need to be careful and subtle with this, it’s not about removing the player’s agency, but about exploring the frustration that things turn out to be more complex than one imagines as a design goal.

Have you played any games that perform this? I think I have not, but I’d love to…