Bad Endings Options

[Jens of Zanicuud]

Some times ago I was working on a project (now dismissed - or rather, waiting for my current project completion) which was designed to end badly, with the death of every character in the party (this was however related to the plot).

I've seen quite a few RPG with a default (i.e. not optional) bad ending (FFXIII-2 / KH Birth by Sleep - if we can call their ending bad), so I wonder if it's a taboo to make your game ends in a tragic way, or simply players prefer an happy ending to every game they play, since they are playing not to think to their problems...

What's your point about it?
Would you play/create a game with a tragic ending (not optional - main ending)?

If so, why?

That's a feature I've never found in a RPG Maker game (excluding maybe survival horror...)
If you know some link 'bout that, I'd be pleased to give it a look.

Maybe my project will resurrect, who knows?

Jens

[LockeZ]

It kind of is against the rules, is the thing. There are tons and tons of games where the hero fails. You know what happens when he or she fails? The game says "Game over. Would you like to load your most recent save?" And the player gets to try again, and do things differently. You had a goal, and didn't accomplish it; according to the rules of the game, that means you lost and must try again.

If you're going to break that rule, you need to not only have a very good reason for it, but you probably also should do it in such a way that the player becomes trained to understand that "if you fail, you go back and try again" is actually NOT one of the rules of your game. You would need to reinforce this idea repeatedly over the course of the game somehow. So that it doesn't seem like the game is just acting unintuitively bizarre and inappropriate at its most critical point. Perhaps have the player control a number of different characters during the game, who all inevitably die. Perhaps let the player control the manner of these characters' deaths, let him choose whether to fight or flee, but make it clear that death is inevitable - build this into the theme of both the plot and the gameplay. Perhaps have autosaving, so that those deaths can't be undone, or perhaps allow him to see both ways, via time travel or via forcing him to reload until he's done every possibility (and seen that they all fail). I'm imagining free will vs. fate being the major theme of a game like this.

Or perhaps you could simply shift the player's perspective and control to whichever side wins. Warcraft 3 does this excellently. You play as the humans and win some battles, but when the human kingdom falls, the player takes control of the undead army and fights against the humans. Then the player controls the orcs as they become demon-corrupted and destroy the Night Elf homeland, but when the elves regroup and start to turn the tide, the player controls the elves. Then you play as the blood elves and the naga as they join together under Illidan, and help him build a new home. Ultimately, Illidan attacks the undead army and fails - but at that point you're controlling the undead army again. The game ends with the failure of the mortal races of Azeroth to stop the Lich King - but it was the player's success that caused this tragic ending.

This post has been edited by LockeZ: Jan 4 2013, 05:00 PM

[Jens of Zanicuud]

@LockeZ

Okay, what I meant to say is: during the game, your characters have a hope. This hope is the main point in the whole story, a hope to escape a dying planet. In the end, the hope does really exist but is totally different and the one way the characters can leave is by means of a spiritual ascemption (or something like that) - i.e. they have no chance to survive.
The game I had planned was based on the fact that the player is conscious that the search is desperate and has just a thin thread of hope to follow, a hope which becomes everytime thinner.
I'll be more precise.

The characters are on the Earth, while the Sun is going to explode. Their last hope is the Ark, a said starship located somewhere near the city they took shelter in. You'll notice that even if they find a starship, what can they actually do, since the whole Solar System is to collapse?

I think these premises would make the player understand that said "hope" is purely fictional... but the ending was planned to be rather surprising, though almost bittersweet (more bitter than sweet).

Jens

[LockeZ]

Ah, hmm. The thing about an ending like that is, I have to wonder why dying before I get to it is a game over. Because it seems like it's no worse than getting to the ending. Losing at the beginning doesn't change anything. If a zombie kills me in the tutorial dungeon, should you show the end credits and act like I won? I actually kinda think maybe you should. Because shit, I accomplished every goal in the game that's possible to be accomplished.

For that reason, I feel like a pure shakespearean tragedy is not really appropriate for a video game. But what about a partial tragedy? Even a 99% tragedy could let you accomplish SOMETHING at the end.

In my old RPG Maker 2003 game, the hero gives up all but one of his goals and dies in the ending, but he saves his daughter's life in the process, who's been kidnapped by demons for the entire second half of the game. It's not done very well, but at least you feel like you beat the game. (Plus, the rest of your party was really trying to stop him anyway.)

I don't think the exploding sun thing strictly needs a different ending. I do think it could strongly benefit from a secondary goal which does get achieved. Perhaps the space station does not have a ship, but it has a communications device. So even though in the end your characters all die, they can transmit one final piece of information to Federation Command that will save other planets from destruction or help them catch the terrorist who blew up the sun.