Tricking the player

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7 comments, last by JLW 10 years, 4 months ago

This game avoided tricking the player, the established tropes are so strong that when a wave of aliens comes at you, blasting them is quite a natural response. Even for such a simple game, the experience of being confronted with the consequences of your decision was significant, or for me how much it felt like not having made an important decision. The description above cannot capture this feeling.

No, but I can try to replicate it in a different game.

For instance, a survival game, which when the player first starts out and exits the first house they see a man facing away from them, holding a double-barrel shotgun, in face-concealing apparel, muttering to himself in German while he tries to break into an abandoned truck. I'm willing to bet that less than 1% of players will choose not to kill him on their first playthrough, and that's not too hard because he's not paying attention. The first hairline fracture to the idea they were supposed to do this, is a steam achievement popping up, named "Murderer". The second is opening his inventory and seeing his name above it. The third is going into the looter compound later and finding out he's got a wife and two kids, the former now having to take over his job to support their children, and the latter having to take over her old job in the mess hall. Several of the men there are still angry that their friend was murdered, and the only reason the player is still breathing is nobody knows they're responsible. Further, when they try again, while the man does freak out and point a gun at them when he hears them coming, he doesn't shoot them, lowers his weapon as soon as the player puts theirs away, and actually helps them out a great deal.

If the player doesn't get the message after all this, then they're a lost cause.

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