Undertale

In Undertale, the puzzles advance the story in a number of ways, but most notably through player choice / consequences, level themes, and character development. One of the most unique things that I found about Undertale is how you can show mercy to your enemies, and how that can cause ripple effects in the way that the story advances. Choose your own adventure games are pretty common, but this game does it in such a unique and humanizing way. You are forced to confront your own humanity and morals and decide whether or not an enemy should be shown mercy or killed. This drives the story, and allows you to carve your own path as you decide what kind of a player you are going to be, and how the other characters will react to the character that you are developing. On the flip side of this, the character development of the enemies are another huge part of how the puzzles and trials in the game drive the story. Not all of the enemies and characters have the same temperaments. Some are less threatening, while others are menaces, which helps to make decisions that I talked about earlier, but also helps build the story and show depth in some of these characters. The themes of the puzzles and levels are another way in which the puzzles help advance and drive the story. Josh Bycer’s article discusses the importance of considering internal vs designer logic when thinking about how you want to design puzzles. I think it’s pretty clear that Undertale is a great example of using internal logic to complete the puzzles because of the weight that character development and player choices have on the game. There are different ways to handle the puzzles, and the player has to rely on their morals and character development to decide which route they want to take. The themes of different levels also help to drive the story by helping to build the world and add depth. This is something that a lot of games do, like Hollow Knight, where they are able to create a huge world with many different areas with clear themes that tell you a little bit about each area. Undertale does this as well, with different colors indicating different areas on the map, with different bosses and challenges in each area.

Overall, I think that the thing Undertale does best in driving the story with the puzzles is the idea of using a player’s internal logic. There is no definitive right thing to do that was put into the game by a designer. The player has to choose what they want their character to be, and in turn has to reap the consequences of those decisions. The themed levels and character development of the bosses help to drive the story as well with world building, but ultimately the player choices and humanization of characters is what makes Undertale so unique and drives the story.