On Saturday Dylan at Digital Orc wrote that he hasn't been playing video games much lately, and compared movies, roleplaying and novels as media, while Stuart Lloyd wrote about an old ST game called Mystic Well, a simple example of a digital dungeon crawl.
Coincidentally, on the same day I also watched some videos of a player running through stretches of Skyrim with a good knowledge of the earlier Elder Scrolls games. He had a thoughtful approach to the morality of the sides in what's still a very modern insurrection, and took the time to edit and polish the series in line with the general tone of the game.
Skyrim seems to encourage this kind of thinking. In Mystic Well historical terms, it feels like a Lure of the Temptress meets a Frontier: Elite 2 for depth and scope, with few easy answers. Although Jim joins the Empire out of pragmatism - and an odd lack of dialogue options - he's not entirely happy, and hopes there could one day be a return of religious tolerance, but presumably doesn't expect so subtle an approach will be accommodated.
But when he's there as the leader of the uprising is executed, an incautious comment by another character suggests there is hope, as if the designers did think it all through. The game seems happy for a player to take no side, and an armistice can be negotiated too.
This and the overall complexity, from politics through terrain, weather and encounters to picking
flowers and even tasting bees, makes me think any options missing in the
game might be not so much limits of thought or technology, just space
for a future instalment.
Where am I going with this? As in Skyrim, it may be near incidental, but there is a point.