This post was going to be epic. I was going to use the relationship between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to talk about different kinds of choice in games. The thesis: there are two kinds of game choices, organized by whether their outcome affects the gameplay mechanics or the narrative.

I thought the distinction was pretty clear cut. How you level up your character in Mass Effect and how much money you save carry over into Mass Effect 2 as bonuses to your initial stats: gameplay decision. Characters from the first game that send you an email about the fallout from your interactions with them: narrative decision. Then I was going to argue that for narrative choices in a game to matter, they have to have gameplay consequences as well (a not-so-implicit critique of the "carry-over" between the two games - did those emails represent my choices in any meaningful way?). Clever, right?

I was purposely creating narrow definitions (what a "choice" is, what "matters", what is "meaningful") from a narrow experience. Better to stick to specific examples and let readers extrapolate, because that way you can't be taken to task for gross generalizations or dismissed by people who have different definitions or different game experiences than you do.

Then I thought, why not look at that first? Different choices, different kinds of choices. Just throw everything out there and see what sticks.