CH: Can you give an example of that with the paint mechanic? Because in the part I played, which is up to about the only place where I saw a choice where you can save the guy or get the treasure, it’s a very rote thing.
WS: It’s a training level.
CH: Exactly. So what’s an example where you’re really making a choice? [...] When I wrote my preview I said I can’t tell much from here but it’s Warren Spector!
WS: Well, let me tell you, it’s so Warren Spector that Warren Spector didn’t even know something until today. Chase Jones, the lead design on the project was sitting here and he was describing that exact scenario. Now that was set up to teach players that you can’t have these two things; which one do you want. Okay? And a player actually figured out how to get both of them. Which should not be possible.
In Deus Ex, there were a couple of characters that you could not, could not defeat. And then there were two characters that you had to kill. And players figured out how to get around both of those. Which the team, we emailed back the guy who said “I got through the game without killing anyone” and we said prove it. And he was right, he found a way to do it. It was unbelievable. And the same thing is happening in this game.
So the fact that just in our training scenario there is a way that nobody on this team knew to get both of those, shows that you really are in control of your experience.
CH So when you hear about that when you’re still developing the game you just like it, you don’t say maybe we should make it harder?
WS: Noooo. In any game like this, players are going to find a way to break it. If you give players power they’re going to use it and some players are going to abuse it on purpose or not. And I know we’re here to talk about Mickey but in Deus Ex players inevitably found a way to get out of our game maps. They made their way into the void outside. Most people say, “oh that’s a bug we need to fix it.” I thought, “heck, that’s awesome. Oh my god.” And so what we did was we put crates and ladders and things outside so you could actually get back in the world if you figured out how to get out.
But no, once you buy a game, it’s yours. And as long as you’re having fun, what do I care? So no, I don’t consider those bugs. If it breaks your game, if it does something really horrible and your save game is no longer useful of course you fix that. But if it’s just players did something you don’t expect you celebrate that.
But let me give you some examples of choice and consequence beyond just figuring out a way to do something that should be impossible. That’s pretty cool, but it doesn’t directly answer your question. There is a scenario in the game – I’m using examples from things we’ve shown because I really do want players to discover this for themselves.
At E3 we showed Skull Island – Adventureland and Skull Island. Adventureland is populated by pirates and Skull Island is a dangerous place where cartoon pirates are being turned into animatronic monsters. And one of the pirates in Adventureland asks you - it’s an optional quest - “please help me. I need you to rescue my fellows who have been turned into animatronic monsters.”
And so you leave Adventureland and you go to Skull Island. And you can decide to ignore that quest completely. You can decide that you’re going to wreck the machinery that is turning them into animatronic monsters. You can decide that you’re going to repair the machine. All three of those have different consequences. They have different results and they have different consequences. And the next time – again, I’m going to leave you with some mysteries unless you really, really want me to reveal the ...
CH: Naw, I like surprises.
WS: The bottom line is, which of those three choices you make – ignore the quest, repair things, which is a painty solution, or wreck it, which is a thinnery solution – which one of those you do determines who, if anyone, is in Adventureland when you get back. Who is there changes what quests you learn about. Who’s there changes what shops are open. So you may or may not be able to equip yourself depending on how you interact with that one simple optional quest. And that sort of thing happens through the entire game. That’s not an isolated incident.
So the key here is, yes it’s Mickey Mouse, yes it’s cartoony, no it’s not cyberpunk near future dystopic science fiction, but the idea that play style matters, the idea of choice and consequence, it’s as much a part of this game in its way as it was in Deus Ex or Thief or System Shock or the Ultima games I worked on back in the day. You just get different choices with different kinds of consequences.
Next: A Game That Can End in Hundreds of Ways and Make You Cry in All of Them
