How to Outline and Design a Choice Game

Writing a choice-based game from concept to final draft is accomplished by following an outline. This statement is truer for interactive fiction more than traditional stories, because of a need to map out how choices impact the progress a reader makes. In this article, I will discuss key elements of designing and outlining your game, including developing plot, characters, and stats.

This article is written with the basics in mind. Much has been written about outlines and design of games, but this is a beginner’s introduction.

Step 1: Concept and Story Structure

Most writers have a concept in mind when they become excited at the prospect of creating a game. If you read the Choice of Games forums, you will see dozens of posts about new concepts or works in progress (WIPs) from new writers with amazing, complex ideas. Most never get past the planning stage. Having a concept may be the first step but most people fall at the very next step—mapping out the major plot points.

For the purpose of this article, I will use my game, A Wise Use of Time, to illustrate my development style. The concept was to give the player the power to freeze time and interact with the world, showing the consequences of that power’s use or abuse. I actually pitched this to Choice of Games, and they liked it enough to ask for a proposal.

After having a concept, I think about a path from start to finish, knowing players want to live out an adventure and fantasy. As with any story, you need the following elements:

1. Opening: introducing the player to the world and the stats. (1 chapter or 10% of game)

2. Comfort Area: getting players use to the world and letting them explore. Introduction to major characters. (2-3 chapters, roughly 25% of game)

3. Increase Tension: introduce the major problems or enemies in the game, which leads to a climax. (3-5 chapters, 40% of game).

4. Climax: events unfold leading to the major end to tension, resolution of problems, and dealing with enemies. (1-2 chapters, 20% of game)

5. Ending/Resolution: all major problems are resolved and the player learns where their decisions have taken them. (1 chapter, 10% of game)

This is the rough structure of a story. They are not to be taken as rules but guidelines that help in the next phase which is determining the major plot points and designing a chapter-by-chapter outline.

Step 2: Major Plot Points

Next, I consider the structure of the story in very broad terms, like a painter brushing a canvas in wide strokes. For my freezing-time game, I decided on a few major points each player should experience:

• Learn about freezing time.
• Experience romance.
• Meet other characters who can freeze time.
• Threatened by a powerful character that must be neutralized.
• Subplot: use time power to influence a major event in normal life.
• Use time power to explore the world, make moral decisions, and see consequences.

Many games offer subplots aside from the main story. These plots provide other ways to explore the game world and characters. Generally, you should plan 3-5 subplots, each tracked by distinct variables. The purpose of subplots is also replay value. How boring would a game be if there was one plot with no other adventures to experience or mysteries to solve?

Step 3: Narrative Goals and End States

At this point, I have the framework for the game. The next step, and this is where the failure in so many games exists, is to decide on the narrative goals and end states of the game. It may be seem counter-intuitive to consider the end of the game before the middle. However, in interactive fiction, you need to plan out the branches of the game and how a player can succeed or fail. 

The narrative goals answer the question, why would someone play this game? Is it to experience love? Defeat the big bad guy? Become filthy rich or famous? Become a master criminal or super spy? Narrative goals are those specific and measurable events that players may achieve by the end of the game. We track the goals through stats sand provide endings based on degrees of success, not just winning or losing.

How specific are narrative goals? For example, one goal may be to become rich in game. Well, that’s not a well-defined goal. How rich is rich? Why would a character want to be rich? What if we tied it to something specific? In A Wise Use of Time, Olivia, the MC’s roommate, has a disease requiring a kidney transplant, which costs $200,000. So I created a narrative goal—gain enough money to pay for Olivia’s surgery. Succeeding saves Olivia’s life. Failure could mean her death.

With this goal in mind, I can build the narrative. The MC meets Olivia and may become invested in her well-being. Throughout the game, I give the player opportunities to make choices affecting this goal. In other words, MCs must come across ways to accumulate money. At some point, the MC has enough money to pay for the surgery or has found other ways to help Olivia, or has become disinterested or distracted and abandons this subplot.

Note: this storyline does not affect the main plot. Olivia’s subplot, and her living or dying, does not impact Barnabas, the mystery of the MC’s father’s disappearance, or any other plot.

You should plan for at least six narrative goals in an average 150,000-word choice game. A Wise Use of Time had nearly 20, while Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, at over 1.5 million words (I’m predicting as I work on Part 3), has over 50! 

Step 4: Add Details to Story Structure

At this stage, I sort of know how I want players to experience the world, but now I have to give the story shape. Like the painter, I have given out broad strokes to my canvas and now go in with a finer-point brush to add details.

1. Opening

  a. Discover power to freeze time.

  b. Select main statistics by story-driven choices.

2. Comfort Area

  a. Spend time learning how the freezing-time power works and how it
affects the main character’s life working in a typical office job.

  b. Meet the four main characters who will be romantic options.

  c. Introduce normal life and show how the new power may affect it.

3. Increase Tension

  a. Introduction to Barnabas, the main enemy who wants to kill the MC and steal their power.

  b. Introduction to Dr. Oden, who will help the main character learn more about their power.

 c.  Provide several subplots.p relationships, including romantic ones.

d. Provide several subplots.

      i. At work, a new client may have ties to organized crime.

      ii. FBI asks for help to gather information on illegal business dealings.

      iii. The MC’s father disappeared years ago.

  e. Meet other time controllers.

      i. Alisha, who’s on the run from Barnabas.

      ii. Malaya, a world-travelling tattoo artist reluctant to help the MC.

      iii. Jeremy, a new time controller who is learning the power.

      iv. Matty, a child who you can protect by tutoring on using the time power.

4. Climax

  a. The MC must defeat Barnabas.

  b. Subplots resolved.

  c. Romantic interests have led to long-lasting relationships or breakups.

5. Endings

  a. Show the impact of the player’s choices.

  b. Account for each narrative goal.

  c. Endings are based on tracking of stats throughout the game.

From here, a chapter-by-chapter summary will almost write itself. Before that, stats must be developed to track our narrative goals, flesh out the tools of the main character, and measure choices made in the game.

Step 5: Stats

Stats are what separate interactive fiction from traditional gamebooks. With Choose Your Own Adventure books or Fighting Fantasy books, your choices direct you to other pages with little customization. A paper book cannot tailor a story as specifically a coded choice game. Developing useful stats is one thing that separates good game developers from great ones. I could write a series of articles on devising stats. For now, I will give the basics and suggest future reading for those who want more.

When I say “Stats”, I am talking about variables used in the game to track choices, events, and statuses. Many will be displayed when a player clicks Show Stats. Most of these variables will be percentages, fewer will be integers, and fewest will be strings of text. I prefer to use percentages, for example. It is far too easy to make a typo and break the game if you set a variable to text.

Primary Stats

These specific stats are set at the start of the game and define a main character. They let players choose to be fast or slow runners, charming or unattractive, smart or dull, or any other trait you predict a character will wish to explore.

When setting primary stats, keep a few guidelines in mind:

• For an average-sized game, you will want 5-6 primary stats.
• They should not change much, if at all, after character creation.
• An MC should only be exceptional in 1 or 2 primary stats, good in 1-2, and below average in the rest. MCs should not be good at everything or there is no point to replaying the game.
• Examples: Strength, Crafting, Knife-fighting, Subtlety, Academics, Piloting

Secondary Stats

These stats measure choices made in the game. They track resources like wealth or energy, track relationships, personality and morality, and narrative goals.

When setting secondary stats, keep a few guidelines in mind:

• For an average-sized game, you will want one secondary stat for each narrative goal and 5-10 additional ones.
• They should change often and throughout the game. Ideally each option of every choice will change a secondary stat.
• Make each stat memorable, understandable to your audience, and consistent.
• Examples: Money, Stress, Mana, Order vs. Freedom, Humanity, Skeptical vs. Devout

By the end of the game, you should understand a lot about a main character by their secondary stats. You should know if someone is a morally upstanding yet manipulative main character who is in a serious relationship and has solved the narrative goal of finding all 7 pieces of the Puzzle of Destiny.

For more information on stats, check out this from Choice of Games--Designing Great Stats.

Conclusion

The final step is creating your chapter-by-chapter summary. Here you will summarize the major events of each chapter, including key choices and how they impact the game. This should be a roadmap as you write the game. Keep in mind each narrative goal and how you can help players to achieve them. Overall, the purpose is to tell a good story and allow players a chance to live out an adventure.

Don’t be afraid to diverge from your outline sometimes! As you write, you may find some new subplots spring to life. Sometimes, people read early chapters to provide feedback, and you learn from them some intriguing path you want to adapt. Be flexible enough to modify your outline to accommodate such good feedback.

In the end, your outline should be a source of reference every time you sit down to write.