Real Consequences in Game Stories

​I recently finished my first playthrough of Undertale, which has been well received as a game with traditional JRPG stylings on the surface, but a few notable twists in the formula. Finishing Undertale made me think of The Talos Principle, which was an excellent puzzle game that - like Undertale - had consequences to my actions that I wasn't expecting. If you haven't played them yet and want to, there are probably going to be a spoilers below - for Undertale it won't be so much with the plot, but with gameplay mechanics. For The Talos Principle it'll be the other way round, with plot spoilers but nothing on the mechanics.

​As far as the two games go, I liked The Talos Principle better. It was more satisfying in terms of gameplay, and polished to the point that I can't think of a single irritating thing about it, not in the puzzle mechanics, controls, or story. Undertale is much funnier with some great characters and a sometimes fascinating world, but those old school RPG trappings that I mentioned do on occasion take their toll on your enjoyment. Backtracking can be a tedious slog through long mostly empty corridors, the interface is a bit clunky, and the random battles can sometimes get to the point of annoying instead of entertaining. I should note that backtracking isn't strictly necessary and there are some aids in place to ease the pain a little (such as a ferry to take you between some central locations), but I wanted to explore and reinvestigate some things - the payoff for which were some amusing jokes, that would have been perfect if I hadn't wasted so much time walking around.

Most of the environments in Undertale look more interesting than the above. Blame my lack of screenshot skills.

​So, consequences. I'll start with The Talos Principle, since I played that first. The situation as explained to you initially is that you're a kind of robot AI test subject, following instructions from Elohim, a benevolent god figure who sets the tests and tells you how to behave. After you complete the first set of puzzles, you reach a hub area with entrances to the three different puzzle sets, and a tower. Elohim tells you not to climb the tower, but as you play you find computer terminals which hold fragments of history - these hint at what happened to the world before you, and what your human creators were like. Humanity is dead now, wiped out in some kind of apocalypse. But the terminals also have another AI within them, one which acts as the serpent in your puzzlely Eden. It tells you to question Elohim, and poses philosophical questions. You can choose your responses and engage in a dialog with the serpent in a way you never do with Elohim, who just talks at you.
 
I played through the game, and decided to be 'good'. I stepped into the lobby of the tower, but never went up any floors (you collect blocks as you complete puzzles which allow you to unlock the different puzzle sets, and which allow you to unlock special areas, like the tower lift). I went to some trouble to collect every single standard block in the game (there are also some secret blocks hidden outside the puzzles, which require extra thought to collect), but then never used them. In the final puzzle set hub, which has the visual theme of a cathedral, I did what Elohim asked, and passed through a set of large doors to my final destination. Another small garden, with a computer, where I could end my journey. Up to the very last moment where I chose to accept the computer's prompt, I could have turned around and just gone to have a look around the tower, at least. But I didn't, which I feel says something about me that I'm not sure is especially complimentary.

I wrote all this, and then realized I only had two screenshots from each game. Oops.

​Now, I was obviously thinking in game terms: which ending would I try first? This can be particularly blatant in some games, like Deus Ex 3 with literally three buttons in the same small room to pick your ending (even the first Deus Ex did better than that, with a few different tasks deciding your final cutscene - basically the same thing, but far more thematic and satisfying). Nonetheless, I did go with my natural instinct which wanted to try out the pure, correct, and yes, obedient option. Blindly obedient at that, since I didn't even look inside the tower. The Steam achievements somewhat spoilt things here, because I noticed along the way that there were achievements for things like 'Changed my mind.' which has the description 'It is never too late to accept Elohim's forgiveness.' There are of course achievements for the other endings too, which detracts from the sense of choice a bit. I had made my decision, though. I did what I was told... and was effectively rebuked by the game - I had passed the puzzle tests, but I didn't have enough independence. I was not what my human creators were looking for - I completed the simple puzzles, but failed the last one. Okay, that makes a good point. But that wasn't all - I saw the message explaining this (in the format of a command line type log), and then the game went through the process of 'rebooting' me in a new version for another attempt, which fits with the lore of the game where you find messages left by different AIs and different versions of each one. The game had restarted, and all the puzzles were incomplete. There was no way for me to go back to the end and make a different choice - if I wanted to try again, I'd have to run through all those puzzles again.
 
Maybe I should have seen it coming as the game didn't allow multiple saves, but it took me by surprise and made me think about my choice in a way that I wouldn't have done otherwise. I did everything right and I followed instructions, and what did I get for it? Nothing in particular. Just a hollow pat on the back and a note that I wasn't what was needed. I had made my choice, and this was the consequence. If I ever wanted to see what was in that tower, I'd have to work for it, again. All because I took the boring option.

I wrote all this, and then realized I only had two screenshots from each game. Oops.

​Undertale does the same thing with a single save. One of the selling points of the game is that you don't have to kill anything. Passive resistance (dodging enemy attacks in little mini-games) and certain actions will lead enemies to a state where they no longer want to fight, and will allow you to show them mercy, which is a particular option in the fight menu. It very clearly explains how this works early on, so there's no gotcha moment as such where it turns around and says 'you could have been a good person, but you fucked it up' -  though it will happily rub it in over any wrongdoing during the game's final scenes. Despite this, I did basically fall at the first hurdle - the first friendly figure you meet, who protects you and helps you, refuses to let you continue your quest because it's dangerous. She says you have to fight her to carry on, to prove you're strong enough. So I did, after a few attempts to talk my way out of it. Then I tried to weaken her, to see if talking then would persuade her to give up. This wasn't what I had to do - I needed to offer her mercy, several times. The game even tells you this too, with a character pointing out that sometimes you may need to show mercy while another character is still fighting you.

See what I did there? Because it's a loop? Get it?

I didn't try all that hard, I didn't try every available option before effectively getting a bit impatient and deciding to just keep hitting her until she stopped blocking my way. So I killed her. Later in the game, I figured out better how the system worked, and I realized how I could have avoided that early murder. Of course it was too late by then. I could have restarted, but I'm not sure that would entirely erase things. After I finished the game, I started over and played to the point where I could avoid killing her. I did, but the game remembered that I'd played before - even in a message during the fight, where it says something along the lines of 'You think of telling her that you've watched her die, but decide it would be creepy.' And of course in that first playthrough the game refers to the main characters you kill, and it affects the ending.
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The trouble with consequences is that they can be infuriating if they feel undeserved, or if you've put a lot of work in beforehand. Undertale was very clear about how things worked, and isn't such a long game that replaying it would be an unreasonable undertaking if I feel the need to do a full pacifism playthrough - the fact that story text seems to change as well to reflect that you've been there before helps. The Talos Principle almost annoyed me, but that might have just been the fact that it was basically criticizing my choice.

Here's another screenshot, for making it this far.

I've written on this topic before, regarding the undo button, and you get similar issues with consequences in stories. One difference is that I could just go online and most likely find videos of people making the choices I didn't, or a save-game of someone before key decisions, whereas gameplay consequences are very specific to you and that one playthrough. I didn't do that with The Talos Principle, and I won't do it with Undertale either. I think doing so would cheapen the decisions I did make, and in a game I'd rather make the wrong choice on a meaningful decision than risk taking any sense of consequence away entirely.