A chair left empty

There's a chair at my family gatherings, when I wake up every morning, when I cook Vietnamese food, or when I'm feeling cold.

There's a chair where my mom could have sat, with her pretty nails resting on her lap.

A chair left empty.

I've kept myself busy over the past twelve years. I've had a rollercoaster of a career in games, wearing many hats at very different places. I've created, played, written quite a lot about player agency and choices. What is a "choice" in a narrative game? How can we design choices that matter? Brilliant people have already written about how our understanding of player agency can be misleading, or even mimicking systems of oppression, and I won't repeat them here.

On an emotional level, the most memorable "choices" I've encountered in games feel like that empty chair.