Choice Is Crucial to Video Game Enjoyment

The developers that created surprise Xbox Live and Steam hit Bastion have stated that allowing players to choose and witness consequence has been crucial to the success of their game.

Speaking to Game Informer in a post-mortem analysis of Bastion Greg Kasavin has emphasized the role of player choice, saying, “Providing players with meaningful choices around their play experience not only makes for richer gameplay but can make the entire play experience more expressive and rewarding.”

He added, “One of our goals with Bastion was to present the player with an ever-growing series of meaningful gameplay choices. We wanted players to feel a frequent sense of surprise at the expansion of the game’s scope.”

The biggest challenge for the team at Supergiant working on Bastion has been to create an experience which has a strong, clear structure, defined by the actions of the non player character and the text spoken by the narrator, while also allowing the player to meaningfully influence the entire game world.

Kasavin sees this balance as a mix between the Western approach to role playing, with its focus on open ended stories, and the Japanese way of creating the same type of title, which includes a focus on characters and stories that reshape entire game worlds.

The developer has also spoken about the end of the game, saying that he aimed to appeal to both the logic and the faith of players and tried to simply show them what would happen, without passing any judgment on their choices.

Kasavin says that many players confessed to standing around for 10 to 30 minutes after Bastion ended, simply trying to take in the effects of their actions.

The developers have already said that nothing in the way of new narrative will be offered for Bastion but that the game might receive some downloadable content that will allow players to further tweak the way they play the game.