fren Ledoux Ms. Lindgren Creative Writing ~ Period ¢ been redibly popular in 0"s an when home consoles first started to gener Telltale reinvented the genre, and the stories the predecessors. The Walking Dead Game had a ‘choose your that the player chooses the dialogue and decides how the have two completely different experiences, yet, the ga everyone. All of the choices, deciding who to be, did it reall thLedoux 1 jen Ledoux Is. Lindgren Creative Writing ~ Period 6 29 February 2016 x The Illusion of Choice 8 In 2012, the video game company Telltale Games released a point and click adventure home consoles first started to generate mass appeal, the genre began to fade into memories. q However, The Walking Dead Game reinvented the genre by changing the way games told stories. | The Walking Dead Game allows the player to choose the dialogue and control the actions of the ‘character, which in tur affects how the story is played out; this means two players could have completely different experiences. But at the same time, the game ends the same way for \ everyone. So, the path we took, all ofthe choices, deciding who to befriend, deciding what wasLedoux 2 made the right choices? Even if you made the right choices, would it matter? Would it really make a difference? It ends the same way for everyone, we just take different paths to get there. Ifyou're a fan of science fiction as I am, then I assume you know the common troupe of the multiverse. For those unaware, the multiverse is the idea that there exists an infinite number of dimensions that each contain a reality in which different outcomes to different scenarios are ‘expressed. For example, if you flipped a coin right now there would be, in an infinite number of realities, a version of you flipping a coin as well. In two equally infinite sets of realities, the coin ‘would either land heads up or heads down while, in another, smaller, infinite set of realities, the coin would land on its side. In yet another, smaller infinite set of realities, the earth would ‘unsuspectingly implode in on itself before the coin ever landed. While seeming ludicrous, ‘current models of quantum mechanics actually support this ‘many-worlds interpretation,’ most ‘notably the science behind the famous Schrédinger’s Cat thought expierement. So, if these ceeintciae: eeLedoux 3 vietims alive. Yet, no matter how many times you try, or how good of a player you are, the game doesn’t allow you to progress without using the white phosphorus. Only after using it do you discover that these rouge soldiers were only defying orders to help and protect a group of civilians. At the end of the game, the ‘villain’ makes you look back on the various atrocities you committed and, though addressing the protagonist of the game, in reality, he speaks directly to you: “You came here to be something you're not, a hero. You could have stopped at any time, but you kept on going anyway.” The only true choice video games give us is whether or not to rp alan The Walking Dead Game was not critically acclaimed because of its pointlessness, video ‘games are pointless by nature to begin with. But we give them meaning through the choices we ‘make inside of the games. The people we befriend and the adventures we have. The path we take _gives games a purpose, no matter the end result.