SC2Mapster

Story-based games which endeavor to give the player a choice come up against a problem, which is: how can the characters be consistent when players can force them to make choices against their nature? Or the flipside, which is: can players be given meaningful choices, when characters must remain consistent?

It's a difficult paradox, demonstrated in the recent PS3 game Heavy Rain, where in many cases the player could force the character to make choices that were largely incompatible with that character's personality.

As I want DNA Wars to be both character-driven and with realistic player choices, I've decided to deal with this paradox by adapting something from a semi-famous Japanese visual novel: Fate/Stay Night. In FSN, several mages summon "heroic spirits" in a battle to obtain the holy grail. The heroic spirits have personalities of their own and sometimes they don't agree with the mages' decisions, so each mage is given 3 "command spells" which allow them to FORCE their heroic spirit to do something against their own will or, in some cases, to accomplish otherwise impossible tasks (like instantly moving from one location to another).

In the DNA Wars, players will also be given command spells, which right now I'm calling "divine mutations," with a two-fold purpose: players can use them to force characters to follow their decisions or they can use them to lower the difficulty of the game by granting certain benefits at certain junctions.

For example, while controlling the half-noble, half-villainous Voldemon, players must make the choice of whether to spare a group of Master-race children. If the player chooses to spare them, the screen will shake and turn red, and the player will be informed that the character of Voldemon has absolutely no mercy for members of the Master-race, and they must use a divine mutation to alter Voldemon's personality in order to save the children.

An example of a gameplay benefit is that during the one mission involving a typical melee battle, a player may use a divine mutation to increase the HP of all their units by 20%, turning an incredibly difficult mission into a moderately difficult one.

The players use of their divine mutations (and other choices) will ultimately determine the ending that they receive. In this way, divine mutations also serve as a difficulty setting for many missions and battles.