Choices and branches
Learning paths through this topic
Let players revisit a choice without doubling its rewards
A scene that can be visited twice hands out its gold twice, or leaves both the old and the new decision active at once. Here is how to store a decision so that choosing again replaces the first one cleanly and choosing the same thing changes nothing.
Give chapter select a believable starting state for the story so far
A player who jumps to chapter five has made none of the earlier choices, so the story may greet them as a stranger or break. Here is how to see which earlier states really arrive at that chapter and choose defaults from them.
Find characters who are in two places or arrive impossibly fast
A story with a cast moving through the day quickly collects mistakes like a person at the café and at the library in the same hour, or a trip that takes one hour on the map and five on the clock. This entry lists them all before a player finds one.
Prove a chase scene can be survived and is not too easy
A chase where every choice is secretly fatal is cruel, and one where any choice works is dull. Here is how to count the surviving sequences of moves, so you know it can be won, how forgiving it is, and what to adjust.
Deliver story messages sensibly when the player was away or replied early
A story told through chat messages with delays has to cope with a player who closes the game for an hour, or who answers before the nagging follow-up is due. This entry shows the rules for what arrives, what is dropped and what is cancelled.
Make sure a choice never shows only options the player cannot pick
Each option on its own has a fair requirement, but together they can lock the player out of every answer in some situations. Here is the search over situations that finds such a menu and shows the path that leads there.
Find the choice that silently closes off a whole route
In a story with several paths, one early answer can make a whole ending impossible without the player ever being told. This entry shows how to list every option that costs the player a route, so you can warn them or move the cut later.
Find choices where every option leads to the same result
Players feel cheated when they agonise over a choice and then see that it made no difference. Some of these are intended, but many are accidents. Here is a way to list every choice whose options are the same underneath, so you decide on purpose.
Draw city events that fit the city and do not repeat back to back
A random event that suits a village of fifty makes no sense in a city of fifty thousand, and the same one twice in a row feels broken. Here is a fair draw that respects what the city is, remembers recent events, and still returns something when the deck runs thin.
Schedule a consequence for later and cancel it if things changed
Spare the thief now and he robs the shop three days later, unless you already had him arrested. Here is a queue for delayed effects that fires in a fixed order, survives saving, and drops items whose reason has gone away.
Let players skip scenes with heavy content without breaking the plot
A horror story can offer to skip or soften scenes on request, but cutting a scene out of a branching story can leave a dead end or hide an ending. Here is how to give every flagged scene a safe way past it and to check each setting.
Pace crises so a disaster never lands on top of another
Left to chance, a plague, a raid and a famine can arrive in the same week, and the player is lost, not challenged. Here is a small director that keeps a tension budget, lets it cool, enforces a gap between crises, and picks the biggest crisis that still fits.