Measuring “choice” in games
Friday, July 4th, 2008While reading a very interesting post over at Chris Bateman’s blog about player choice in games, I obviously tried to find a constraint in how much power over the game you give your player, ranging from total (sandbox games) to none (his Guitar Hero example is quite fitting).
But then, reading it again, I wasn’t so sure it could be called a constraint. Player agency is a variable you can adjust while designing, but it has no real, tangible value you can set as reference. You can say “This game gives me more choice than this one”, but it’s hard giving both games a value you can compare mathematically.