Timeline tangents

Suggested alternative to moral choice system

The well-bashed moral choice system, I maintain should generally not be used in games. However, for people who still find the idea vaguely enticing, there are ways to adjust the style so that it is more rewarding for players.

In moral choice systems, choice is stuffed in at the end of the mission and the full ramifications of it can’t be experienced just by saving before making the decision and loading after a few minutes playing through the consequences of the choice. Sometimes such an intervention is impossible, sometimes it takes a while for you to realise your mistake. Sometimes the choice is sandwiched in the middle of a mission, complicating this ploy. But more than anything else, it shouldn’t be necessary; developers should account for player curiosity and our tendency to want the best deal out of any action.

Phoenix Wright

Phoenix Wright is not a game series it’s easy to find fans for in daily life. I’ve got two brothers, one of whom hates slow paced games with lots of dialogue and the other is so lazy he won’t even take a game suggestion from me because that would involve borrowing a DS and putting some time aside to play it. It truly is a mystery. Anyone would think I was asking him to dig me a military war bunker lined with currency that’s been out of circulation for thirty years.

In any case, Phoenix Wright is one of two franchises I’ve played that was heavy in dialogue. The other was Zone of the Enders on the GBA. Ah, what a nostalgia trip that is. The repetitive witticisms. The character clichés. The endless text-scroll boxes. The incomprehensible storyline. The insultingly easy game play. Phoenix Wright is much newer and better and is more like an interactive story than a traditional video game. There’s no shooting the thing or poking the squirrel or whatever it is you do in popular entertainment nowadays.