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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/36111
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In my game, the player may run into deadends in the story, which causes the game to end prematurely. This can range from the player simply getting killed, another important character in the story getting killed or an important event happening or not happening. Sometimes, you might be in chapter 5 and realize you need to do something differently in chapter 2 to progress in the game, otherwise you can't continue to chapter 6.

Thankfully, I have a save system in place that allows the player to easily go back to specific points in the story without having to replay the whole game. If a player, for example, wants to go back to the point in chapter 2, where their character crosses a bridge, they can. When they return there, they also get a quick recap of what happened up until that point. This should allow the player to clearly separate what happened before this point and what they remember to have happened after this point, as what happens afterwards may turn out to be very different depending on what they do differently this time around.

Remembering what happened in other playthroughs is still important. Just because the story plays out differently, doesn't mean that other elements don't exist anymore. That gang you managed to avoid in your current playthrough? Yeah, they are still in the place you avoided going to, they might just get their hands on another unfortunate victim instead, drastically changing what happens in later chapters.

I am unsure if this would cause confusion for the player or get too complicated to keep up with over time. The whole point of the game is to go through many paths and find the right one, while finding out more info from playing all the different paths and putting the pieces together based on knowledge the character shouldn't have at this point, because the game keeps resetting to an earlier state. Could this be too much for the player to keep up with? What can I do to make this a comprehensible experience (such as the recaps I mentioned)?

Original score: 11