Today is the 20th birthday of the Gameboy, the little Tetris-playing machine that swept the world and showed that portable game consoles could actually be popular.

I never owned an original Gameboy when I was younger, but I did spend many a bus ride home from school swapping turns with a friend who had one, making our way through Super Mario Land.  The first one I actually owned was when I was older, picking up a Gameboy Color before leaving for my semester abroad in Japan.  I really only used it to play Pokemon at the time, but that was more than enough to keep me occupied.

In the years since, the Gameboy family moved on to become the Gameboy Advance, and then onward to the DS (which does not share the Gameboy name, but we all know is a direct decendant).  I use my DS daily on the trainride to work, and I think at this point I own more games for it than I have for any other console.

So, let’s raise a toast today to the original giant gray brick that started everything, and if you’ve still got one laying around, fire it up and play some Dr. Mario or something.  Happy Birthday, little friend!

Now that we’ve seen the distant past of moral choice in games as well as recent history, let’s take a look at what it all means, and where it all could be going.

Choice is a powerful thing for a gamer; it can be the critical difference between a player simply playing a game and a player really experiencing a game.  Choice draws the player in, makes them feel like they really have a say in what’s going on in a game. Obviously, some choices are more important than others, and players want to know that the decisions they make have an actual effect.  Simply offering them the choice between going down the left hall or the right hall may be a choice, but it’s not one they are likely to remember. Moral choices, though – especially the ones that carry real consequence – those are the ones that players really remember.

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