Choice of Robots

I absolutely love this game. I've been exploring more and more Choice of Games as I really like their balance of game-like elements (navigating characters through difficult situations to 'unlock' achievements and build up stats) and rich storytelling. Choice of Robots is a perfect example of an incredibly engaging story that you feel like you're playing through and shaping with your choices.

That story, of a disgruntled graduate student who invents a sentient robot and proceeds to alter the world forever, is finely crafted. Gold presents a thought-provoking sci-fi parable in which the reader gets to play out various scenarios (grand but plausible, in the way of a good sci-fi novel) starting from the premise of the invention of a truly sentient robot. The player can seek fame, fortune, power, etc. but can also be more insular and develop the robot as a thing of beauty and a companion. Even a single playthrough of the game presents a sweeping narrative that spans decades and sees seismic transformations in global society. The game carries the player through many poignant and troubling situations that ask us to consider the implications of many trajectories that we're currently on in society. The fact that this is but one branch of a many-branched story adds to the grandeur. Just scrolling through the achievements gives the player a sense of the many, many different possibilities to explore.

I died relatively early on in my first play through -- (Spoiler - click to show)Tammy got me!. The risk of death was surprising as all the other Choice of Games that I've played have not featured those dead ends, or at least not that I've found. But I actually appreciated the risk that that introduced -- and the subsequent gravity this lent to my choices as I played through the game a second time. For the titles that Choice of Games publishes, there may be some company style guidelines that prohibit too many dead ends like this, but I'd be interested to see more ChoiceScript games explore more game-like structures that have dead ends or less optimal game ending states.

The non-player characters also seem well developed, though I didn't choose to invest much in personal relationships -- aside from remembering to call my Mom every so often! Rather, I focused more on the relationship with the robot, as this was the most intriguing to delve into, given the nature and theme of the game. The game does reward this probing of the inventor-robot relationship and presents it in full complexity and complication. Do you position yourself as a godlike creator, the inventor of a tool (or weapon), an artist, a parent, a friend? All of these shades and nuances are explored in the game, and I imagine that an understanding of this relationship would be deepened even further on replays.

Overall, this game is a wonderful expression of the possibilities of choice-based interactive fiction. The story is foregrounded -- and players are rewarded for engaging with the story at the level of narrative, structure, and style -- but this story is driven by gameplay.