Nonlinear gameplay
Super Mario 64 is an example where the main stages are free roam, while the levels where Bowser is encountered follow a straight path to the end.
[7] For example, Black Isle Studios' Fallout series of role-playing video games features numerous quests where player actions dictate the outcome of the story behind the objectives.
Players can eliminate in-game characters permanently from the virtual world should they choose to do so, and by doing so may actually alter the number and type of quests that become available to them as the game progresses.
[7] Nonlinear stories increase the chances for bugs or absurdities if they are not tested properly, although they do provide greater player freedom.
[9] Facade, a video game often categorized as an interactive drama, features many branching paths that are dictated by the user's text input based on the current situation, but there is still a set number of outcomes as a result of the inherent limitations of programming, and as such, is non-linear, but not entirely so.
Decision points within a visual novel often present players with the option of altering the course of events during the game, leading to many different possible outcomes.
[10][11][unreliable source] Visual novels are popular in East Asia, especially in Japan where they account for nearly 70% of personal computer games released there.
[12] A recent acclaimed example is 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, where nearly every action and dialogue choice can lead to entirely new branching paths and endings.
A well-known example is the 2005 title School Days, an animated visual novel that Kotaku describes as going well beyond the usual "black and white choice systems" (referring to video games such as Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and BioShock) where the players "pick a side and stick with it" while leaving "the expansive middle area between unexplored".
School Days instead encourages players to explore the grey, neutral middle-ground in order to view more interesting, "bad" endings.
An early example, published in 1999, is the fantasy role-playing game Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor, where players have to choose between Light and Dark.
These factions include Caesar's Legion, a group of Roman-esque slavers; the New California Republic (NCR), an expansionist military government; and Mr. House, the enigmatic de facto ruler of New Vegas, in command of an army of robots that patrols the city.
A fourth option, siding with a robot named Yes Man and prevailing upon or eliminating the other faction leaders, enables the player to go solo and take over the Hoover Dam for themselves.
Another RPG example is tri-Ace's Star Ocean series, where the storyline is not affected by moral alignments like in other role-playing games, but inspired by dating sims, by friendship and relationship points between each of the characters.
[21] Star Ocean: The Second Story in particular offers as many as 86 different endings[22] with hundreds of permutations, setting a benchmark for the number of possible outcomes of a video game.
[23] A similar type of conversation system later appeared in a more recent action role-playing game also published by Sega, Alpha Protocol.
Early attempts at such an approach included Squaresoft's Chrono role-playing game series (1995–1999)[25] and ELF's visual novel YU-NO: A girl who chants love at the bound of this world (1996).
