The idea of a game having a narrative is not revolutionary, be it a narrative written into the game that is revealed as the player progresses or a narrative that the player projects onto the game. Players are always guided by the mechanical elements of a game from its start to its finish, but the narrative determines how they will be guided there and occasionally what the “finish” looks like.
From this, players receive both a real and imagined amount of choice. There are various ways in which players can engage with mechanics to progress, however, there are often specific criteria needed to qualify the progression. There are innumerous ways in which players can interpret the story of a game, but the events that are shown are rigid and bound to the mechanics. Even in games with multiple endings, the player must still obey to the choices they are given, choosing even a predetermined outcome.
In narrative games, the choice becomes even more illusory, as interaction with the narrative is the basis for the game. But does choice really matter?
Narrative games are unique in that the interactivity of the game is designed with the focus of leading the player through the story. More than mechanical progression in the traditional sense, gameplay is also narrative progression. The choices that the player makes are always significant to moving the story forward but can be insignificant as to where the story goes.
Take the example of Butterfly Soup. The game occasionally presents multiple dialogue options in certain situations, but these serve only for the purpose of character development. Any real choices that the player makes, such as naming the baseball team, do not affect the plot. The story resolves the same way regardless of how the player interacts. What, then, is the point of the game? Narrative games rely on the player having a complete interaction. The player must finish the narrative to gather its meaning, just as a reader must do with a book. The interactive aspect of this makes the player feel as though they are part of the events unfolding as opposed to the reader of a book or viewer of a film, who have a degree of separation between themselves and media. The real choice in a narrative game is the choice to interact and become a participant in the narrative.
