Alright, so I’ve been working on this game, you know, one of those where players get to make a bunch of choices, right? And I needed a good way to keep track of all those options they pick. It’s kinda important for how the game unfolds, and I didn’t want to mess it up.
First, I thought, “Okay, I’ll just jot down the choices as they happen.” So, every time a player made a decision, I tried to store it right away. But that got messy real quick. Imagine a player changing their mind a lot – I’d end up with a ton of data, and not all of it useful.
Then I tried doing it in batches, like, collecting choices at certain points in the game. I set up these intervals, kind of like checkpoints. Every time a player hit one of these, I’d grab all the choices they made since the last checkpoint and save them. This was a bit better, but it still felt a bit clunky. Some checkpoints had tons of choices, others almost none, and it was a pain to manage.
I even played around with the idea of tracking points. Like, players could earn points for certain actions, and I’d keep a tally. Then I thought, “What if they could ‘cash in’ these points for some bigger reward?” It sounded neat on paper, letting players rack up points during their turn and then trade them in later. But then I realized it might overcomplicate things, especially when trying to balance the game.
So, I looked into using class selector things for team-based games. The idea was to have different classes or roles, and each one would have a set of choices or actions they could take. I thought it could be a neat way to streamline things, but it didn’t quite fit the style of my game, which is more about individual player stories.
After that, I stumbled upon something called Talo Stats, which is supposed to be good for tracking player actions in Unity games. It sounded promising, like, “Just one line of code!” and all that. But when I dug into it, it felt a bit too much for what I needed. I didn’t want to get bogged down in a whole stats system; I just wanted a simple way to track choices.
I know there are apps out there, especially for tabletop games, that help you keep track of character stuff, spells, and all that. And there are even these pre-made templates for tracking your gaming progress. But I wanted something built into the game itself, not something separate that players would have to use.
I was starting to feel like maybe I’m overthinking it. So, I took a step back and tried to simplify. I decided to create a basic system that just records the major choices, the ones that really matter for the story. No more tracking every little thing, just the big decisions. And I made sure it was all happening in the background, without the player even noticing.
Here’s how I ended up doing it:
- Identify Key Choices: I went through my game’s story and marked down the choices that significantly impact the narrative or character development.
- Create a Simple Storage: I set up a simple data structure to store these key choices. Nothing fancy, just a way to remember what the player picked.
- Record Choices Discreetly: When a player makes one of these important decisions, the game quietly notes it down without any fuss.
- Use the Data Later: When the game needs to recall a past choice to shape the story or an outcome, it checks this storage and tailors the experience accordingly.
It’s not perfect, but it’s working pretty well so far. It keeps things clean and focused on what really matters in the game. And the best part is, players can just enjoy the game without worrying about how their choices are being tracked.
It was a bit of a journey, but I’m glad I went through it. I learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t, at least for my game. And who knows, maybe this will help someone else out there who’s trying to figure out the same thing. This is how I keep track of player options in games.