Episode 41 Decision Space

Decision Space

Hi and welcome to Experience Points by University XP. On Experience Points we explore different ways we can learn from games. I’m your host Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. Find out more at www.universityxp.com

On today’s episode we’ll cover the decision space in games.

One can say that decisions are the heart of many games. It’s why we play: to see the impact of our actions. As game designers; we want to empower players to live their fantasies through our games.

As educators we want our students to have the agency to make meaningful decisions so that they can learn, grown, and excel in our courses.

But the desire to give players interesting decisions, and our students’ agency, is informed by an aspect called the “decision space.”

So, what is the decision space? How do designers use it to tailor the player experience? How do educators use decisions to provide students agency? How do players interpret decisions in games?

This episode will provide an overview of decisions and the decision space in games. It provides an overview of interesting choices for players. This episode will include what characteristics make interesting choices for players; different types of decision spaces; and opportunities for creating informed choices.

This episode will conclude with direction on creating and designing decision spaces for the player experience as well as applications for both game and instructional design.

Decisions are the heart of games. What makes games interesting is having interesting choices for players to pursue. Those interesting choices usually fall into one of three categories: obvious choices, non-choices; and scripted choices.

Obvious choices are choices presented to players to continue down a set path. There are often linear examples in story-driven games.  Here, players only have one option: to continue.

In education and games-based learning: non-choices for students are to continue with the class; course; or module without any agency or meaningful decisions to choose a different direction.

In games, this could also mean meaningless decisions where there is no active agency for the player. These non-choices are where decisions could be automated; made blindly; or randomized without any impact on the player experience.

Lastly, scripted choices are those where the continuance of the game is based on a decision that has already been pre-made by the designer or the educator. For table top games this could include starting player setups.

For first-person shooters; this could be a starting weapon. These scripted choices are made by the designers ahead of time and can be done for any number of reasons ranging from game balance to student scaffolding.

If interesting choices are the heart of decisions in games; then making choices “hard” is a plausible path to pursue.  Making hard choices doesn’t mean that it is particularly difficult for the player or leaner. Rather, it has been constructed so that they need to think carefully about how and where to go next.

One example of offering a hard choice is having several options available for the players with equally attractive outcomes. Yet, the player can only choose one of them. This can be seen in table top worker placement games where players are rewarded with diverse resources for placing their pawns in a number of available positions.

Another example is to present the player with multiple options that also provide them with balanced pros and cons. This often takes place in social deduction games like The Resistance: Avalon or Secret Hitler where any number of choices that players make could be a good one. But they must decide if they should take a risk now in the hope of connecting secretly with a teammate or wait until later.

Furthermore, you could provide the player with many choices that all have bad outcomes. However, the player MUST make a choice that will negatively impact them. If you’re a glutton for punishment you’ve probably seen this playing Agricola where much of the time it’s not a choice if someone on your farm will go hungry; but WHO will go hungry.

Lastly, an interesting hard choice for players to make includes an element of push your luck. Here, the player has to choose whether or not to take a reasonable sized reward now or gamble for a larger reward later. One of my favorite auction games that includes this is For Sale.

In For Sale, players must constantly struggle with whether to bid (and how much to bid) for properties or money to gain them points or position in the late game.

Now that we’ve seen what interesting choices look like for gamers; designers; and educators; we can look at the types of decisions spaces available for inclusion. They include unlimited, limited and tailored decision spaces.

In an unlimited decision space; players may make any number of different and informed choices at their disposal. Games that include these types of decision spaces are also defined as sandbox type of games since they give players full control and accountability for their decisions. Terreria and Minecraft are digital examples of sandbox type of games that give players seemingly limitless possibilities.

However, unlimited decisions spaces can also be paralyzing for players. That’s because there are too many things to choose from; too many things to do; or too many places to go. The decision space is too large.

Imagine if you enrolled in a class and your instructor says “Welcome! You can learn anything you want in this class!” While that’s great and gives students a lot of agency; it doesn’t give them much structure.

Of course students can pursue self-directed learning; but that’s probably not the reason they enrolled in the class in the first place. They are there for the structure (and the interesting decisions) to be offered.

A limited decision space is what we see in most games. These are beneficial and rewarding for players because it shows and allows them to get used to the core loop of the game and how it generally operates.

Fighting games are great at providing players with limited decision spaces because for the most part you can only jump, punch, or kick. You can even go further with a game like Dive Kick where are there are ONLY two things you can do in that fighting game. Yes, you guessed it: dive and kick.

But, having a limited decision space also provides some interesting tension in the game. Since we’re talking about fighting games: One Finger Death Punch is a “fighting game” that only has two options: punch left or punch right. But, the tension comes from timing your punches, to coincide with your opponents, in order to form combos. Chain combos together for an ultimate fighting experience!

Likewise, limiting players options also speeds up the game. One of my design priorities is to create fun, engaging, and intuitive table top games that you can play with 2-6 players. That means that I often need to keep turns short so there is little downtime between player actions.

I’ve accomplished that by limiting the decision space for players. This in turn allows my players some agency while also limiting their scope and command over the total outcome of the game.

Lastly, a smaller decision space also means that players with limited experience and knowledge can still demonstrate agency and competency in the game because there are only a few things that they can do.

Unlike an unlimited decision space; one of the actions they take is bound to have a good effect. With repeated play, players can experience the ramifications of their decisions further throughout the game.

Tailored decision spaces are one of the most interesting design choices to make. Primarily because it provides emergent complexity for the players as their seemingly simple early choices rapidly evolve into a larger and larger space of new decisions to make later on through their play.

This occurs in engine building games like Dominion, Alitplano, and Splendor where player decisions now inform and support what decisions they can make later on in the game.

A tailored decision space also provides for maximum agency as players are given the reins to create their new decisions later on. One of the applications of this is in role playing games where players “build “a character following a skill-tree. Decisions made earlier in the game determine what decisions (and direction) their character can go later in the game.

No matter what the kind of decision space you include in your design; it’s always wise to provide your players with the options to make informed choices.

Go is a good example of this. The beginning board state allows players to place their stone in ANY spot. With a 19x19 board that means the first player has 361 options. While the premise, core loop, and win condition of Go is simple; the options provided to players at the beginning can be anything but.

Go provides players with a vast number of decisions and options; but without a tutorial (or in my case a lesson); players don’t have the confidence or the information to make an informed choice of WHERE they should begin. That often ends in frustration (I can attest to that).

It can often feel like the player in these scenarios is making a blind or random choice. Because they do not yet see the applications and further strategy of their choice; it seems that they could make a play anywhere for any reason.

I’ve also ran into this explaining modern table top games to my local group. Introducing new concepts; mechanics; and themes to players who have only played UNO, Scrabble, and Monopoly can be paralyzing. They are often faced with the daunting prospect of having absolutely no idea what to do.

But this can often be mitigated by the game master by explaining what options are available to players; what outcomes it includes; and how those outcomes gets them closer to winning the game or improving their position. I’ve done this in the past in explaining the game’s core loop.

Likewise, educators can provide this to their students by returning feedback and information on how activities; content; or assignments inform their learning outcomes. How students can benefit from assignments as well as how they are aligned with what everyone is trying to accomplish (learning).

Designing for the player experience is one of the most challenging and hardest parts of game design. This is compounded even more when taking into account the different types of decisions that players can make through your game.

Some of the simplest games that we’ve grown up playing; like Tic-Tac-Toe; provide an easy starting point. But with enough plays (and age) the game becomes solved for even the most elementary players.

Conversely, a game like Go seems simple from an outside perspective; but the immensity of the players decisions for opening moves can make it very daunting. However, unlike Tic-Tac-Toe repeated plays are rewarded with a deeper understanding of the game’s decision space.

That’s because Tic-Tac-Toe provides player with a decision; but we quickly see that the results of that decision make it so that the rest of the game can play itself out. There is no impact for the player based on the decision that’s they’ve made.

While this episode has talked about player strategy and the player experience in the decision space; emotion can play a role too. This perhaps affects the players’ overall engagement with the game more than anything else.

Role playing games like Fallout place the player in a position where they must make game decisions that may not impact their strategic play; but rather their emotional state. Contemplating these moral decisions provides yet another dimension for players to consider.

Often including these types of decisions for players depends greatly on their emotional state. When players are in a sad emotional state during a game they usually make choices based on logic or practicality. Whereas, when players are happy they make choices based on their gut instinct.

There is a case to be made to include players’ emotional state in their decision space for games-based learning. Especially when working with content that where they must contemplate the impact that their choices have on the characters in the environment.

Creating educational games that serve an emotional as well as a strategic dynamic gives us a chance to address player and student growth from both directions.

The decision space for players can be both complicated and simple. But, if you want your players to make the best strategic choices for your game; then the mechanics need to make it clear to players how their choices affect their play.

I’m playing through Dead Space again and the game makes these choices abundantly clear when picking up nodes that can be used to upgrade the player’s weapons. When you spend nodes to upgrade one weapon; it means that you won’t be able to upgrade another weapon in your arsenal or a function of your suit.

Players that are able to make these clear – and strategic connections – between their choices and their overall agency and development of competency within your game will be around to stick it out for the long haul.

This episode provided an overview of decisions and the decision space in games as well as provided a review of interesting choices for players. The review included characteristics that make interesting choices for players; different types of decision spaces; and opportunities for designers to create informed choices.

This episode concluded with direction on creating and designing decision spaces for the player experience a well as applications in game and instructional design.

I hope you found this episode useful. If you’d like to learn more, then a great place to start is with my free course on gamification. You can sign up for it at www.universityxp.com/gamification You can also get a full transcript of this episode including links to references in the description or show notes. Thanks for joining me!

Again, I’m your host Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. On Experience Points we explore different ways we can learn from games. If you liked this episode please consider commenting, sharing, and subscribing.

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References

Eng, D. (2016, January 21). Hard Fun. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2016/1/21/hard-fun.

Eng, D. (2019, December 3). Core Loops. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/12/3/core-loops.

Eng, D. (2019, September 10). The Player Experience. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/9/10/the-player-experience.

Marriott, E. p. (2014, February 7). Decision Space in Game Design. Retrieved from https://boardsandbarley.com/2014/02/07/decision-space-in-game-design/.

Peacock, N. (2019, May 1). Turns Out There's A Scientific Reason You Love Hard Decisions In Video Games. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://junkee.com/scientific-hard-decisions-video-games/202610.

Reinink, B. (2016, July 14). Creating interesting choices in your board-game. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://makethemplay.com/index.php/2016/07/14/creating-interesting-choices-in-your-board-game/.

Schreiber, I. (2009, June 29). Tips on Decision Making. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-6-dot-1-tips-on-decision-making.

Shafer, J. (2012, July 27). The More You Know: Making Decisions Interesting in Games. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/174832/the_more_you_know_making_.php.

Wiltgren, F. (2016, October 23). Why Large Decision Spaces are Boring. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.wiltgren.com/game-design/why-large-decision-spaces-are-boring/.