The Wolf Among Us & Meaningful Decisions

In the game The Wolf Among Us, you play as the Big Bad Wolf turned Sheriff; Bigby Wolf. 

Bigby has a known past of being a relentless killer and is feared greatly throughout Fabletown because of this. Due to the nature of the character you play, it is increasingly difficult to play the game as a Pacifist. Although the game forces violence upon you, the player is still able to decide to what degree, and just how Bigby reacts to any given situation. 

The game does not allow you to change the course of the narrative and ultimately the outcome of the game, you are however able to make decisions that change how these narrative events unfold. The player is able to create their own meaningful narrative based on the decisions and actions they take while playing the game. You can attempt to play Bigby as a caring, misunderstood hero, a bloodthirsty Sheriff, leaving death and destruction in his wake, or even an unpredictable mute who can snap at any point; the choice is entirely yours.

Because of this freedom in character expression, or in some cases, lack of expression; I'd say the game is full of meaningful interaction, the story does not have to be changed in order for an interaction to have an impact on the players narrative experience. Although having said this, there are still changes to the dialogue and narrative given the players decision at some points in the game (killing someone vs sparing them).

To further iterate the lack of expression, something I found really intriguing was how the game set a time limit on any decisions it presented you and the mechanic worked just as it would in reality; If you took too long to respond or chose not to reply then the other party would see you as not having a reply or not wanting to respond. "after a finite amount of time – not making any choices will produce an outcome that is different from the choice situation and that therefore constitutes a choice in itself."

This made the game an entirely new form of interaction (or lack of) as when you chose to say something you'd often be cutting someone off mid sentence, so you could choose to listen to the entirety of what they were saying by staying silent, or even make a point by saying nothing at all (such as ignoring Colin's requests).

To conclude, The Wolf Among Us offers choices that alter the ongoing narrative in which the player is immersed in, but does not offer many choices that will change the storyline and narrative direction. Although these decisions may not seem to have much of an impact in terms of story, they are still allowing the player plenty of freedom to progress the narrative in the way they wish to, ultimately changing the narrative events of their own play through.

References:

Telltale Games. (Developer).  (2013-2014) The Wolf Among Us [Game] United States: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Domsch, S. (Author). (2013). Storyplaying [Book]. Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH