GAME 332 RS Game Narrative Review

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Your name (one name, please): Kelly Roth

Your school: George Mason University
Your email: kroth5@masonlive.gmu.edu
Month/Year you submitted this review: 09/2015
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Game Title: Choice of Robots

Platform: PC
Genre: Roleplaying, Text-based
Release Date: December 19, 2014
Developer: Choice of Games
Publisher: Choice of Games
Game Writer/Creative Director/Narrative Designer: Kevin Gold, Ph.D.

Overview
Choice of Robots is a sci-fi role-playing text-based game. You play as a Computer
Science graduate student who is working on robots and AI at Stanford University. You
will play through the Students entire life, and shape the world around you through your
choices and relationships.

Characters
There are several characters that will appear on your play-through, though their
role in the story will alter based on the decisions you make:

The Student (PC) the player character. A twenty-four year old graduate student
in the Computer Science Program at Stanford
The Creation the Students first robot. It can be a powerful weapon, an
empathetic companion and anything in between. You will name it, and choose
add-ons and components based on the kind of robot you want to make.
Professor Ziegler the Students mentor and professor. Arrogant and selfaggrandizing, he is interested primarily in obtaining funding for his department so
he can continue to slack off. Far less gifted and intelligent than his students, but
seemingly unaware of that fact.
Josh Anderson a friend of the Student. Started US Robots, and is a potential
love interest for the player. Has a checkered past, but has cleaned himself up.

Mark Ali a journalist, with somewhat radical views on the government and
robotics. He is a potential love interest. He writes an article on the player which
may be overwhelmingly positive, or cast suspicion on the players motives.
Elly Lao/Eiji Aomame One of two possible college classmates. Elly is the
default if Eiji isnt selected when given the option. Both have similar personalities
and similar events will occur surrounding them no matter which is selected. Both
are potential love interests. Both are pacifists and artists. They can come to work
with you or for you at your own company or US Robots, or not at all based on
your relationship. Comes under suspicion during Sinmo-American War due to
Asian ancestry.
Juliet Rogers A representative from DARPA who is appraising Zieglers
projects. Honorable and places the interests of her country first. A closet geek.
Silas/Tammy A former programmer for the government, who left his/her
position after discovering what they were really working on. Paranoid and
antisocial. A potential lover interest, or enemy.
Mother The Students mother. A little wacky and flaky, but loves the player, no
matter what they do (and some of the options you can take are pretty bad)
Father the Students father. Reticent and brilliant, he influenced the Students
interest in science and technology. His death provides a valuable teaching lesson
for your robot, which can help shape his personality and outlook.

Breakdown
A true synopsis of this game is difficult to create, due to the sheer number of
possible outcomes to any given playthrough of this game. I have gone through many
times, and had very little overlap between sessions. I think that is one of its greatest
strengths; by eschewing any visual or audio assets, the game designer was able to focus
entirely on narrative, and thus was able to create a massive amount of choices and
options, with branching storylines to offer endless replayability. Unlike other video
games, which claim to offer real choices and consequences, but which only offer the
illusion of choice, and really keep you on rails with only a handful of things actually
changing as a result of your decisions (Im looking at you Mass Effect), your story in
CoR can change drastically with every decision you make. This has always been the
advantage of games over other mediums for delivering stories: a movie or show is static,
and presented as the creator chose; a game can change, the story alter, in reaction to
player action.
The game begins with a dream sequence, which is the first choice the player is
given. The selection of dream, and the decisions made therein will have an effect on the
beginning stats of the player and their first robot. The player has three stats which
influence interactions and outcomes in the game, which are Humanity (influences how
well you can speak to other characters and their perception of you), Fame (influences
some of the endings and interactions in the game), and Wealth (how much money you
have determines which parts you can buy for your robot, and a couple of other events you
can participate in in the game). Your robot has four stats: Autonomy (how well it thinks
for itself), Military (how weaponized it is), Empathy (how well it relates to humans and
vice versa), and Grace (how pretty/graceful it is). Additionally, your relationships with

characters in the game are tracked; they will improve the nicer you are to them, and the
more time you spend with them- blow them off or tell them off and the relationship will
suffer, which means you will have a harder time getting them to do what you ask of them.
You wake from your dream, slumped over at your desk, having passed out the
night before studying (or did you?), and create your character, name him or her, and then
begin working on your robot. You can choose to make a robot which is weaponized and
autonomous, one which is graceful and beautiful, but unapproachable, or- as I did- one
which looks friendly, if a little goofy, with dexterous hands, a wooden body and a sockpuppet face. As you build your robot, its stats will increase and decrease accordingly, and
you must keep its strengths in mind as you make decisions later, or things may, literally,
blow up in your characters face (sending your affable, sock-puppet-faced robot into
battle is a bad idea).
You will be approached by your professor as you work, and he will urge you to
make your robot more suited to military applications, and regardless of your response,
inform you that someone is coming tomorrow, and expects to see a working prototype.
You might lose your funding for school if you wont make a robot ideal for battle, or if
you insult or offend Ziegler (its difficult to resist- he is an unremittent bully throughout),
but your friend Josh may be willing to fund you, if you work for him at US Robots. One
thing I did discover, is that alienating the other people in the game is a hard way forward.
The narrative is propelled forward primarily through your interactions and
relationships, both with humans, represented by your Humanity stat, and with your
robots. If you spend all your time working on your robots, your humanity will drop, and
your robots will be more advanced and powerful, but you must be careful when trying to
speak with people. They will find you distant and strange, and dislike spending time with
you. If you spend little time on your robots, they will never be as powerful, but you will
be surrounded by friends and loved ones who will do anything for you. Whichever path
you choose, neither is truly superior, but commit to it. As any classic RPG does, back to
the days of D&D, CoR uses its stats to encourage its player to immerse himself in his
role, and make decisions that their character would make. If you do so, you will have an
easier time getting a happy ending. A player who has spent all their time working on
their robot, and blowing off time with friends, is better off not trying to talk people into
what they want. For example, you will be approached by Mark early on for an interview
which will give you your first taste of fame, or infamy; if you have high humanity and/or
your robot has high empathy, it will result in a flattering article, if not, you may be better
off avoiding him, as you will be painted as inhuman in the article. Likewise, you should
remember to play to the strengths of your robot: my robot was empathetic and nimblefingered, and thus I felt he was best suited for surgery. I sold the prototype to a medical
device company, for enormous profit. You are also offered a few other ventures to pursue,
different clients to woo, which will improve your fame and help you accrue wealth; you
can build a factory in any number of places (which will affect your wealth, and other,
strategic events in the future), hire humans or build robots to work there (affects
humanity and wealth). If your company is reasonably successful, you are approached by
Jacqueline Irons, a candidate for the presidency. She will ask for a donation to her
campaign (I had just sunk all my money into my company, and thus couldnt; plus she
was just abrasive). Your company may fail before then, of course, or you may have

chosen to build your factory in China, and youll never meet her but in any case, the story
seems to wander back to the same place: the beginning of the Sino-American War.
After winning the presidency, Irons imposes embargoes on Chinese goods,
making robots more expensive to produce. Either through player action (like trying to
sabotage Chinese hackers attempting to steal your data by planting schematics for a bomb
disguised as robot schematics, and having the resulting explosion declared an act of war.
Oops.) or international tensions, war erupts.
You can choose to support either side in the war incidentally, and, unlike many
games, you can lose the war. You can produce robots for the military, or stay out of the
war. You may be declared a traitor, or spy if you dont cooperate fully with the military.
You can build robots for combat, or, as I did, build medic-bots. If you had specialized in
Military Robots from the start, you will help your side win the war handily. I was only
able to provide robots in a support capacity, and we barely won.
At the end of the war will be an epilogue of sorts, tying up all your loose ends. If
your robot had enough points in any of its specializations, you will be able to choose one
of the singularity endings. My robot had enough Grace and I was able to obtain world
peace. Now, these singularity endings are ostensibly Happy Endings, but they each have
downsides, which are explored by the game, with your character having to deal with the
ramifications of, say, everyone suddenly having all their needs provided for and there no
longer being any reason to fight. Then you get a brief sequence with each of the
characters, colored by your past encounters, as well as the outcome of the war (Ziegler
called begging me to tell him he didnt waste his life; it was nice to hear him beg). As far
as I can tell, no matter your actions previously, you will be diagnosed with a fatal disease
called Algernons Disease. It causes hyper neurogenesis, and is responsible for both your
intellect and your fathers death, as well as your vivid dreams, and occasional black outs
(remember the beginning?). There is a treatment available, which will remove part of
your brain, and replace it with a computer chip. You can get the surgery, but lose your
humanity, or decline, but die shortly thereafter.
I cannot stress enough that I have barely scratched the surface of all the possible
outcomes of this game. You have to play it yourself to really get a sense of the
possibilities.

Strongest Element
This system of branching plotlines is the true strength of CoR. There are fewer stats to
keep track of than in other RPGs, but because the story is actually altered by the players
choices, it doesnt need so many. Multiple stats are nearly required in other RPGs in order
to nudge the player into roleplaying, as it is far more difficult to implement such a
complex story in a more graphical game. Each choice has a real, tangible effect on the
story, and thus has more emotional weight for the player. Additionally, without any
graphics on screen, the player has to use their imagination more, thus investing more of
themselves in the story and its outcome- people always say the book is better than the
movie for the same reason: the story becomes partly their own by helping create the
visuals.

Unsuccessful Element
While this game achieves a lot using this technique, when creating such a complex
system of storylines, there are inevitably more places to mess up. This is evident in a few
places where the writing seems to fall a little flat. For example, the players father dies
early in the game, and it is meant to be a very emotional moment for the player. The first
time it hit all the right emotional notes- I chose to speak with him on the phone, and
mother also mentioned him in another conversation. On a subsequent session though, my
character didnt get that call, so when he died, it had virtually no impact. This is of course
something you will find in any game narrative- because you cannot control everything
the player does, or looks at, you cannot always ensure that they will experience all the
moments you need them to for the appropriate emotional impact. You can remedy this by
taking away more control, but too much, and you may as well make a movie.

Highlight
The moment that stands out the most in my memory is the diagnosis of the
disease and the final scenes of my initial playthrough.
After a visit with my mother, who was spry and healthy as ever thanks to my
medic-bots, I suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with Algernons Disease. All my
success and brilliance was due to the very thing that was going to send me to an early
grave. It killed my father, it was killing me, but all the same, I had developed true AI, had
developed surgeon robots that were responsible for my mothers continued good health,
and lifesaving surgery, and furthermore, I had achieved world peace within my lifetime,
and despite its downsides, we were no longer killing each other in pointless wars.
It also called back the very beginning of the story, the vivid dream which partly
influenced my life choices, and was itself a symptom of the disease. It felt so profound,
and bittersweet, and right.
I chose not to treat it, so I could continue to enjoy life with my humanity intact.
Josh and I also had a young son, and was presented with not only the choice to test him,
but whether to even tell him. If he underwent surgery, there was the chance that he could
die on the table, and even if he survived the surgery, he would never have the same
intellect as his mother. We decided it was best not to put him through that, and to give
him the chance to have the life I had led. After my return home from the hospital, on my
sons eighth birthday party, I went into my study, and suffered another episode, which I
managed to fight through (if your humanity is high enough you can survive; if it isntgame over, man). I went back out to the party, and sang him Happy Birthday, with my
robot and husband at my side, happy with the life I had led, and grateful that I got to see
this day. Fade to black.
The whole ending had me weeping like a baby- a hungry, angry baby- from the
moment of my diagnosis to well after exiting. I had become so invested in my character
and her story by the end, that I was emotionally drained and couldnt imagine playing
through again.

Critical Reception
There are precious few reviews of the game, but all of them seem to be overwhelmingly
positive- most players seem to have had similar emotional reactions to my own. They all
5

uniformly praise its system of story delivery, and its vast branching system of plotlines. I
have yet to find a bad review. Dave Neumann of Pocket Tactics made a similar complaint
as I did: that some parts fell a little flat, particularly at the end. According to him they
concluded "faster than an 80s sitcom". He did say that some of them seemed just fine, so
it may have been a matter of the writer being told to "wrap it up, already." Perhaps, given
more time, all the endings could have been sufficiently fleshed out.

Lessons

A good story does not need good graphics to be effective (duh)

-Obviously, this game has the power to be emotionally powerful, using
nothing but black text on white screen
A story can be driven entirely by the characters relationships with others
-There are no battles for the character to fight, no quests to complete, just
interactions with your robot and other characters
Large, complex, emotionally impactful narratives are possible in the face of
player actions, it just requires careful planning and attention to detail
-This game has so many different possible storylines, going off into
different directions. Seriously, play a couple times. The amount of
planning that went into this, the time spent on each branch, it boggles the
mind
Placing narrative first results in an engaging game, even without all the pretty
trappings other games come with
-I have never heard anyone say that the movie was better than the book.
Its never how you imagined it, is it? With this game, everything looks
exactly how you think it should look.

Summation
Choice of Robots is a brilliant piece of literature, as well as an engaging roleplaying
game. It hasnt gotten very much attention, and it definitely deserves it. The creator
obviously put in a great deal of effort into developing this game narrative; other game
writers should play it, and take notes.