Meaningful Decisions - Make your Games more than 1 Dimensional

All games give players choices to make, but how meaningful are they?  If you search Meaningful Decisions in google, you'll see this is actually a very important step in game design.  You could argue that everything a player does is a choice.  Right, left, jump, pick up...   But meaningful decisions will get a player thinking and connecting to the game more.  While you need to make PoC's (proof of concepts) on new technologies, you also need to play test the meaningful decisions, and see if its fun.

So what makes a decision "meaningful?"  Bryce Morrison posted an excellent article on GameSutra.  I'll borrow from a list of what he believes makes a meaningful decision.:

• Awareness - The player must be somewhat aware they are making a choice (perceive options)
• Gameplay Consequences – The choice must have consequences that are both gameplay and aesthetically oriented
• Reminders – The player must be reminded of the choice they made after thay made it
• Permanence - The player cannot go back and undo their choice after exploring the consequences

A while back, when I first started finding out about meaningful decisions, I scoured the internet trying to find better explanations of it, because it felt to vague.  Its like the articles where trying to explain how to ride a bike.  Its hard to portray in text.  

To help get around that, I figured I would give some key examples of meaningful decisions.

Racing Examples

• Do I make a pit stop?  
• The player will lose time, but have a vehicle in better condition less likely to have a tire blowout.
• Should the car be geared for higher speed of faster acceleration? 
• Should I drive through a smoking wreck?
• If I hit another vehicle, I could destroy my own car, but I could also get ahead.  
• Do I use Nitrous on turns to keep up speed?
• At the risk of losing control of the vehicle?

FPS Examples

• Should I take the longer safer route, or the faster more dangerous route?
• Do I use a bigger weapon and risk running out of ammo, or a smaller weapon with lots of weaker ammo?
• Do I shoot from a distance where it is safer for me, but risk missing and alerting the enemy to my presence?
• Do I evade a higher level enemy or take a risk in battle?

You'll notice its not "Should I move left or right" or "Should I jump over pits?"  Those are immediate mechanical operations.  Instead this focuses on decisions a player makes in the game, that alter how the game is played.  For instance, in the racing example, a player who recently had a pit stop would be more apt to make it through a wreck and have their vehicle survive an impact.  A decision the player would have made potentially 6 laps ago is still affecting their options now.

In that example, Awareness could be a damage counter on the vehicle.  Not just gas and tire wear, but vehicle damage.  Awareness would be a pit boss telling you to come in, you need to get fixed up.  Consequences would be getting a flat or running out of fuel, possibly even a drop in speed or acceleration.  Reminders would be a pit boss yelling at you, to get fixed, or warn you that your vehicles to damages to risk taking a hit in a car wreck.  Permanence, means the player can't easily redo the decision.  Typically damage, or destruction to a player's vehicle will result losing the level, or at least waiting to get towed to the pit.

All games will have basic mechanics, but the better ones will give the player decisions that weigh in on future options and game play.  When designing a proof of concept it is important for the proofs to focus on these meaningful decisions.  This is where the game play becomes more memorable.