My last article was bad. I didn't put effort into it, and people hated it.I'll do a better job on this one, so you don't waste time reading a bad article.

Whew! Now that that's out of the way, let's move on to the main point of this article: Just how linear is your game? Let me explain. A linear game forces you down a single path, no matter how many different things you do the second or third time around. Semilinear games offer multiple paths, but you can't freely explore them all in one game. Nonlinear games give you total freedom to explore the game world, as well as change an element or two in the game when a condition is met or when an event occurs. Some games may be semi or nonlinear, but the developers structure the difficulty or events in such a way that exploring freely will be laborious and unrewarding. Some linear games might have a single path, but the levels are so huge and filled with secrets and points where you have to make a decision between one item or the other, that you will replay it just to get the other item and use it to search for secrets. The best semilinear games fuse both exploration and one-way paths to up the replay value. A good linear game should be extremely fun, if nothing else, to make it worth replaying despite the fact that you may have seen it already. Options like difficulty and character select help too. Nonlinear games can be incredibly difficult to keep fun and balanced, and make use of the exploration factor. Have a non-Klikker friend try your game, and if they get bored or frustrated, ask them why, otherwise your game will never be as good or well-recieved as you want it to be. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't try making a nonlinear game because you can't put yourself in the player's mindset every second of testing. If you can, then you should have no excuse to not make a top-notch game. If people hate your game on the basis that it's linear, then that's their problem, not yours. Of course, if your game is linear and boring, don't post this anywhere: "im teh 1337est haXX0r, and yu avll suXX0rs!!!. If you do, then I suggest that you make games for your friends, and never upload a game ever. That is, unless you put up a huge, self-degrading post on the message board saying how pathetically stupid you are, and that you're just a powerless n00b. Let's review. Or you could just look over the article again, it's not like I'm making a speech that you need to make a time warp to the past to hear again or something. I'll stop rambling now.
In short, linear games aren't the worst, nonlinear games aren't the best, and semilinear games don't always contain the best of both, unless you put effort into it.

Cha!