Narrative Engine
Edge UK|November 2024
Write it like you stole it
JON INGOLD
Narrative Engine

So I was working on a game today which includes that most old-fashioned of systems: morality. A staple of RPGs from the early medieval times, a morality system allows you to define your character using binary choices with easily grokkable moral values.

Will you murder the leprous peasant or take him to hospital? Will you feed the cow to the starving child, or feed the child to the starving cow? Reform or Green? The problem is, given a range of obvious moral binaries, players feel compelled to choose good options, against their own best interests and even against what’s interesting.

Such binaries must be clear to feel fair, but in being clear they actively remove choice. (This is why more modern versions of this idea tend toward nihilism, offering a menu of equally awful options despite this being as much fun as eating in a Wetherspoons.) Curiously, though, players are rarely paragons of virtue. Should the game offer an exploit, most players will take it.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2024 من Edge UK.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 2024 من Edge UK.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من EDGE UK مشاهدة الكل
HENRY HALFHEAD
Edge UK

HENRY HALFHEAD

Where's your head at?

time-read
2 mins  |
April 2025
CROTEAM
Edge UK

CROTEAM

How a gaggle of football fans became the self-appointed national dev team of Croatia

time-read
7 mins  |
April 2025
TEMPEST RISING
Edge UK

TEMPEST RISING

Heading to the future for a very '90s war

time-read
2 mins  |
April 2025
Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Edge UK

Sid Meier's Civilization VII

Anyone who's engaged with Sid Meier's strategy series during its 34-year existence knows that the most exhilarating turns in a game are the initial ones. Sure, the mid-game can be an absorbing juggling act, requiring you to manage diplomatic crises and placate the citizens of a sprawling empire, while choreographing your battalions' advance into enemy territory.

time-read
6 mins  |
April 2025
HEAVY HITTER
Edge UK

HEAVY HITTER

Doom looks to the past for its biggest and weightiest iteration yet

time-read
10+ mins  |
April 2025
Darkest Dungeon II
Edge UK

Darkest Dungeon II

Having marvelled at Red Hook's leftfield approach to sequel-making in E385's review, Darkest Dungeon II's Kingdoms DLC was always going to pique our interest.

time-read
2 mins  |
April 2025
ASSASSIN'S CREED: SHADOWS
Edge UK

ASSASSIN'S CREED: SHADOWS

Ubisoft's signature series finds itself at a crossroads. After Valhalla concluded Assassin's Creed's trilogy-length RPG pivot back in 2020, it was three years - which felt like an eternity for this once-annual series - before Mirage arrived, with its promise of a return to the concept's stealthgame roots, and no pretence to the scale of its immediate predecessors.

time-read
5 mins  |
April 2025
THE MAKING 0F... ARCO
Edge UK

THE MAKING 0F... ARCO

How a ramshackle gang of indie developers formed over three continents to produce an epic reverse western

time-read
10 mins  |
April 2025
DEATH HOWL
Edge UK

DEATH HOWL

A gloomy deckbuilding odyssey and an accidental Soulslike

time-read
3 mins  |
April 2025
Sludge Life
Edge UK

Sludge Life

Peer through the haze to discover a game that makes you ask some surprisingly sharp questions

time-read
6 mins  |
April 2025