The Unfairness of Choices In The Walking Dead Game 2012: An Unasked-For Essay

A game post? On my book blog? It's more likely than you think! 

I've read a lot of fun books recently, but none that I've had the urge to write about. So instead, take this essay on the most important choices in Season One of The Walking Dead Game. Spoilers ahead, but hopefully entertaining ones...

The first Walking Dead Game came out in 2012 so this is some real up-to-the-minute, zeitgeisty gaming chit-chat here. Nevertheless the first season of this game is something of an obsession of mine. I humbly boast that there are few people out there who know the inner mechanics of the characters and choices as well as I do (and even fewer with encyclopaedic knowledge of the larger Walking Dead universe).

One of my hobbies is watching new players having a go at it, because the nature of this decision-based game turns it into an incredibly revealing psychological experiment. It's like watching people take a crack at the Milgram Experiment over a period of ten hours. Someone who begins by only making the nice dialogue choices can, in just a few short hours, be defending their ability to vengefully murder a depressed teenager. 

The Walking Dead is at it's best when it gives you moral choices. Who to trust, who not to trust, when is killing someone ok, who to let into a community? etc. etc. It distils all the moral choices needed for a liveable society into forty-five minute episodes with the added entertainment of seeing someone smash a walker head open with a car door. Telltale's timed choose-your-own adventure format is perfect for that. It is one of the reasons the game remains popular (with due kudos to the exceptional character writing and stylised artwork) despite it's often janky nature and frustrating puzzle segments. 

While the overall outcomes of the game remain more or less the same (many, many spoilers ahead) the game cunningly tells you that your choices may not affect the plot, but they will affect the story. 

In most cases, these seem minor. Clementine (the eight-year-old girl you are caring for) will always adore you, group-leader Lilly will always descend into paranoia, and you might get a bit of extra romance or redemption along the way, but only in small amounts. But each change, no matter how small, affects the way you view the events. 

It's actually fellow survivor Kenny who has the biggest effect in this game. At his best, he's something of a Daryl Dixon figure: hot-headed, rough around the edges, a capable leader in a crisis... a bro. He's a family man, with a genteel veterinarian wife and a son - Duck - who even he cheerfully describes as 'dumb as a bag of hammers'. Your choices can lead to him being an embittered cynic who won't lift a finger to help you, a begrudging ally, or a blood brother who will stand by your side until the bitter end. 

You and Kenny have numerous scenes together and your perception of each other changes their tone. Comments he makes may stay the same across all versions but can easily be viewed with affection or irritation by the player. Likewise a player who has been at odds with him during the first half can soften in the face of his grief, or a player who has befriended him can be startled at how that same grief shortens his temper and lessens his restraint. If things start off well, the game can quickly descend into a Kenny-pleasing simulator, as you strive to keep your only non-child ally on-side.

Now it makes sense that your friendship with Kenny shouldn't be easily won, but the game makes it especially hard by massively weighting that friendship on a few major moments that can be easily misinterpreted by the player. Indeed, there are just five choices that truly make or break the story aspect of the game, and all of them have elements I'd consider unfair. 

1) Shawn or Duck

This is the first life-or-death decision you have to make in the game. You arrive on the scene to find Shawn trapped under a tractor that Duck has been playing on. Walkers have appeared from nowhere (as they so often do) and are swarming. Duck is also seized by them - so the player must choose who to rescue.

Having seen many players experience this moment, I'd say this is the only one where the user display works against them. The fact that it's an actual choice is often missed, with players assuming they can save both, or instinctively moving towards Shawn for a better look, not realising they are 'choosing'. 

The game goes out of it's way to imply that Duck caused the accident, and combined with his Sid-from-Toy-Story face and grating voice, many players are also not inclined to choose him over the amiable Shawn, kid or not. I'm not sure this was intended by the writers, who give Duck some quite funny lines ("I'm the foreman! Lift with your back, Shawn!") and may have assumed that most players would instinctively rescue the child. 

Later decisions are flagged very clearly as binary options, but this one isn't. This is presumably because anyone familiar with the universe knows that this is an Easter Egg of a set piece - Hershel is a popular character in the comics and show, and the farm is a major location. Kenny will always rescue Duck and Shawn will always die. Hershel will always kick you all off the farm and Kenny will give you a ride whatever happens. 

Part of this is the game teaching the player that their actions matter and that they will rarely have time for moral or debate. Life comes at you fast and the game encourages you to live with the consequences of your choices and cock-ups. 

But this is your first significant opportunity to build a relationship with Kenny. Indeed, if you choose Shawn over Duck here, you have to get nearly every other big choice right. The game sets the course of your friendship in this moment, and it's a shame that they don't make the mechanics clearer. 

My Initial Choice: Duck

2) Carly or Doug

This is probably the most famous choice you have to make in the game, with the impact being - on the surface - the most significant. 

That's not true, as the next entry will explain, but it certainly seems to be at the time.

At the end of the first episode, players are faced with a decision to save one of two characters. This time the 'choosing' element is clear, with two characters fighting for their lives and a big red 'CHOOSE WHO TO SAVE' option. 

This is already one of the most controversial aspects of the game, with early players overwhelmingly choosing to save Carly. Carly initially rescues your group, and proceeds to have several emotionally revealing chats with you, before joining you on a zombie fighting mission to rescue the universally beloved Glenn. Doug stands lookout for most of the first episode and then joins you for an INCREDIBLY tedious puzzle section, only to repeatedly shout over your poignant goodbye to your dead brother. Carly is a crack shot, a journalist, and a romantic possibility; Doug can reprogram a remote control, which isn't priority one in a world about to lose all electricity. Unless you are really annoyed at Carly's inability to work batteries, it's an easy choice. 

Of the people who do choose Doug, some do so unintentionally. Many players look at Carly in the decision scene and misinterpret the scene. She is holding a gun and fighting a lone walker off - it's easy to miss that she is out of ammo and struggling to reach it. Doug is literally swarmed, and many players have chosen him in the belief that Carly will handle herself. It's a brutal lesson, and usually an entertaining one.  

The game writers addressed this character imbalance at the time, stating it was something they intended to learn from, so I'm not dunking on them for this. But even later episodes prove that Carly is the superior choice, as she fits more naturally with the group and has a stronger bond with Lee. Choosing her also gives you an additional precious opportunity to win over Kenny (or make things worse with him) by encouraging you to reveal your murderous past to the group. 

Whatever happens, the story outcome is the same, with either Carly or Doug being killed off a few episodes later. This was always meant to be the clearest 'your choices matter' option in the game, and it's a shame that the writing lets it down.   

My Initial Choice: Carly

3) Kenny or Lilly

This is it. This is the biggest decision in the game. 

Oh sure, it doesn't affect the plot much. but this is the moment that makes or breaks your relationship with Kenny and - to some extent - the whole future atmosphere of the group. 

Now I'll level with you and say that I personally hate this episode. It's bloated to hell, the story is all over the place, and you are forced into numerous stupid decisions. Anyone who has seen any media ever knows these people are cannibals before they even say a word. The puzzles are a ball-ache and the middle will see you waddling around that damn dairy for what feels like hours. At one point Kenny is casually racist to Lee. No, 'being from Florida' isn't an excuse, Kenny.

No-one explains why these people turned to cannibalism so fast. Yes our group are starving, but they've been living in a motel near a big town. These people have a FARM and, even with bandit trouble, they are only three months in to the apocalypse. It would take me a lot longer to reach the cannibalism point. Terminus - another iconic Walking Dead cannibal situation - had the good grace to wait at least a year.

(As for the nonsensical bandit plot... why are they all wearing balaclavas? It's not like anyone can call the cops.) 

There are bright-spots. The opening leg-chopping scene is great, we get the reveal that everyone turns into a walker no matter how they die, and choosing who to give the last rations to is a psychological mind-fuck that forces you to not only choose practically, but also to understand the group's factions. The last third of the episode dials up the horror to levels never reached again - with Mark being butchered and the group locked up and at the mercy of the cannibals. 

It's at this point when the unstable and most-hated-game-character-ever-nominee, Larry, has a heart attack. 

This is his second heart scare, but this time his breathing has stopped and they are all locked a cell with him. He's a large man and if he turns into a walker there will be no stopping him. In just two episodes he has threatened to kill Duck, left you for dead despite you spending an entire episode fetching his medication, and he has taken every opportunity to verbally attack you. His daughter Lilly defends him to the group with every line in the abuse-victim's playbook. In short, saving him isn't the most appealing option. 

Still, you are asked to choose. Kenny wants to smash his head in and stop him turning. Lilly believes he can be resuscitated despite the terrible circumstances. You must choose whether to hold Lilly back while Kenny does the deed with a cowlick, or try to help Lilly (curtailed by Kenny doing the deed with a cowlick anyway.) You can also technically do neither and have literally everyone hate you, if that's your jam.

It's a great moral choice that can be - and has been - argued nine ways to Sunday. I personally believe that even if he had been resuscitated, Larry wouldn't just jump up and walk around. He'd have been at death's door, with no medical treatment available, and that's even if they all got him out of the clutches of the cannibals actively trying to kill them. But that's me. You can also argue that Kenny is a hypocrite who only finds it a 'logical' choice because of his dislike of Larry and Lilly.

If you choose against Kenny, your friendship is forever ruined. He might be just about ok with you if you hit every other emotional beat, but you have to hit every single one, and he'll still bring it up. If you've already failed to rescue Duck at the start, the friendship is doomed from here on, and you will spend the rest of the game dealing with his snark.

I don't find the choice an unfair one - it's one of the best - but I find it annoying that it's so heavily weighted to your friendship with Kenny. Yes, if you choose against him, it's a moment in which you had a major disagreement... but people tend to err on the side of caution when given a few seconds to decide to smash someone's head in.

You also go through much more significant moments with Kenny. It's entirely possible to take on the burden of shooting Kenny's infected son for him, being there for him in the worst moment of his life, and than have him turn around at the end and call you an asshole for not backing him over the cowlick.  

My Initial Choice: Kenny

4) Stealing or Not Stealing 

This is a small decision in my most hated episode that has the biggest SEEMING consequence, and I think it's one most players won't realise is actually kind've broken.

Because to most people, it's a no-brainer choice. 

After the cowlick saga and escape from the cannibals, the group stumble across an empty car filled with food and supplies. The doors are wide-open, as if someone has recently fled. You have the choice to take the items (keep in mind that the group is actually starving) or refuse. 

It's another classic moral choice, but not especially difficult in the moment. Only Clementine doesn't want to do it, and you can either side with her, or gently explain that this is the way things have to be.

Most people, given the opportunity to feed Clementine and give her a snazzy warm hoodie to wear over her thin dress, take it. But during my game I had just let her down in a number of ways: I'd accidentally let her eat human meat due to a bad dialogue choice, I'd asked her to risk her life, I'd helped Kenny smash Larry's head in in front of her, I'd stabbed a guy with a pitchfork in front of her, and then she'd watched me beat the remaining bad-guy for way longer than needed because I didn't actually realise the game gave you the option to stop. I needed to prove to her that I was still someone she could trust to do the right thing. So I said no, and was promptly overruled by the group anyway. 

See what I mean? The plot doesn't change, but the story does. 

Naturally the person you've stolen from comes back, in a rather unlikely way, and eventually kidnaps Clementine in the final episode. He's a creepy, crazy villain who insidiously worms his way into Clementine's trust, and you will stop and nothing to free her from his clutches. 

Except, when you find out why he's done this... he cites the theft as the event that killed his family and destroyed his life. He cites your numerous failings (which Clementine has innocently told him about) and acts as the final critical judgement of your game choices. 

But if you chose not to steal from him... it's pretty annoying to get this long lecture implying you are a terrible person for doing it. You, as a player, had no control over the theft and actively tried to stop it. In real life you might still get the blame, but to be singled out for punishment for this crime is utterly infuriating - especially since it caused you to get bitten and (depending on what you decide) lose your arm. 

I strongly suspect the game expected most players to choose to take the logical choice, but once again, it's an unfair one. 

My Initial Choice: Not to Steal

5. Shoot Lee or Don't Shoot Lee

And so we reach the end. Possibly one of the most iconic video game deaths ever. 

We, as Lee, are bitten. We have Clementine handcuff us to a radiator and talk her through the killing of her first walker. The story passes from Lee to Clementine, as this small girl takes up the mantle of the main player character, which she'll keep for (more-or-less) the rest of the series.

In the final scene, Lee says goodbye and can either ask for Clem to shoot him, or instruct her to abandon him and save the ammo. It's an arc that has been foreshadowed from the start. Lee began his story in handcuffs, and ends it the same way, having found redemption by giving Clementine the tools to survive.

In a heart-rending moment, with tears streaking down her face, Clem lifts the gun and - with a bang - the screen fades to black. The only sound is a rasping sob, which is Lee's voice actor's real sound of despair while recording those final lines. It's one of the most beautiful moments imaginable. 

About 95% of players initially chose to give Lee that merciful end. 

Not me though. 

I wanted to save ammo. Like a prat. 

Instead I watched Clem slowly creep away, as Lee slumped into unconsciousness behind her. Not quite on par with having her shoot her mentor and father figure in the head. 

Is it a grossly unfair choice? Not really. The game practically waves a flag making clear that this is the final emotional beat for the character and anyone choosing otherwise is an idiot. 

Well I am that idiot. 

And yes it's unfair that I missed out on the greatest ending ever. 

My Initial Choice: Not to Shoot