I think I’ve learned that I don’t like when a game gives me a Telltale-style choice because:

• it always feels like I don’t have enough information to make an informed choice (and if I did, it would probably become more like an objective puzzle rather than a subjective dilemma)
• some of these choices in games are traps (and others feel like traps but might not have been intended as traps), where there’s an objectively right answer and an objectively wrong answer and the game will shame or punish me for guessing wrong
• I often learn more information about the choice I’ve made after I’ve made the choice, which generally leads to regret
• since I don’t want to be shamed or punished for my choice, I try to think of ways around the dilemma instead - like out-of-the-box solutions that might solve the problem without any downsides. and then I get upset that I can’t do those instead

I think I really enjoy thinking about ethical dilemmas in shows like Star Trek but I don’t want to actually make them in a game and be held accountable for them lol - that’s not a good feeling at all

@kasdeya

Yes, this.

Less subtle, but more annoying are the forced binaries. Do you: a) kick the puppy, or b) sacrifice yourself to save the orphans?

I get it, the game has constraints and limited story paths, but come on, give me some flexibility.

@pseudonym yes omgg - especially when the “good” path was written with morals that I don’t agree with, but the evil path is so much worse

or like, in KOTOR1 you can scam a fascist slaver out of some money by pretending to be another fascist slaver, and your party members (including a member of the race that is being enslaved) will disapprove and say that you’re profiting off of the slavery (???) and you get dark side points for it

@kasdeya

Yes! This!

@kasdeya I think something that tricky tony learned from Undertale is that if there's a reward for "choosing right" then the choice becomes a puzzle instead of an emotional beat, which is why Deltarune has lots of choices that don't actually matter outside of a single callback line of dialogue.

meanwhile AI Bros are jerking off over the idea of a "game where you can do anything" and hey fuckos, if you get rid of all the narrative constraints, you don't have a narrative anymore

I think this is why I love time loop stories so much, they're a special case where the choices are *supposed* to be puzzles, instead of it being a weird accident of the medium.