The gamebook I'm currently making with Twine features a number of links in a sidebar. As well as the essential 'Save' and 'Restart' ones, there's also two others; 'Backwards' and 'Forwards'. The 'Backwards' link essentially reverses time and is therefore rife for 'cheating'. The player makes a wrong decision, so they simply hit 'Backwards' and pick an alternative.

I can disable these two links with CSS, but wonder if it's a bad move. I see it as a way to discourage cheating, but others might say whether a player cheats at a game is entirely up to them. It's also worth considering that saving the game before possible crucial decisions would mean they could step back a turn just as easily, but at least this would require a little foresight on their part.

My argument is that game developers in the mainstream market go out of their way to eliminate cheating and exploits. Fair enough, it's in their interest to do so for marketing reasons, but the principle remains.

Thoughts?

I think with Twine you can go back and forward using the browser buttons anyway, so nothing you can do to stop cheating.

No, the game's history isn't logged by the browser nav buttons, so not an issue thankfully.

I'm a big fan of games that don't let you undo your mistakes. My personal preference would be to save after every click and don't allow anything but a full reset.

If I recall you are making a survival game, and I suspect you will want to present players with tough choices. However, if these tough choices can simply be undone, they're not really that tough.

You should choose the system that best reflects the nature of your game.

Thank, tts, they're my sentiments exactly.

As I say, I can remove the designated 'Backwards' / 'Forwards' links, and I think I probably will, but TP's commen above has got me thinking about the browser's 'Back' button - so I need to look into this.