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[unsilentwill]

Bad news, (spoilers) you probably didn't save the girl.

[man of doom]

I played One Chance earlier.

Likely Spoilers




I felt was a very effective use of this negative ending status. This was quite likely due to the fact, as many have noted, you feel almost doomed from the start with little chance of victory. In a way I suppose this causes it to be more about making the decisions you think are 'right' rather than ones that are 'correct'. I got the ending where you save the girl and yourself, though immediately after that I regretted how I'd spent my time given that presumably we are now doomed anyway. Although the entire theme is that you only get one chance, you can't change the past. Kinda blew it really.

[Melly]

I have ideas for games which are built to be sad and hopeless.

I wonder what would be most effective. A game that's completely linear, where the player goes through a single, unavoidable path, where it seems his actions are meant to better things, but he never truly manages to, or an open-ended game where the player can choose to try and improve things, and maybe have only a slight effect on the sad outcome, or contribute to everything going to hell.

[bento_smile]

I think the second way is better as long as the conclusion of the story feels natural. 

Sounds interesting :3

[Dustin Smith]

I concur, the second way is better. I have a game kernel that I've held on to for the past two years that incorporates this, but my game-making skills aren't up to par. That and general apathy on my part.

[Captain_404]

I propose a third option, an open-ended game where every progressive action is also destructive.

[Melly]

So the choice is either to plunge into a destructive path or succumb to apathy?

[Captain_404]

Well, isn't that more or less the choice in every option?

[bento_smile]

I quite like experiments with futility in gameplay, so apathy is fine by me.   (But then, like Captain_404 suggests, if each action is destructive it could be interesting! So you get a few different types of destruction maybe?)

Edit: I mean, you can frame it so actions are well-meaning but ultimately destructive, if that's what you want XD

[Dustin Smith]

Game protagonists are usually big lummoxes, so if you had a large character that inadvertently destroys (or harms) everything he attempts to fix could be interesting. It would probably turn out comical, though.

[Evan Balster]

Oh, man.  Dustin.  That got gears turning in my head.

I wrote a story for a short comic at one point where the protagonist, a robot, rummages frantically through a warehouse for replacement parts and materials, apparently guessing.  "MODEL: UNKNOWN".  He rolls his way back out, and across uneven ground, mumbling robot things to himself about "REPAIR".  Gunshots are seen and heard.  The robot ultimately makes his way to an ambiguously incapacitated person with a gruesome wound in her stomach.  The robot scans the wound and judges the parts he's collected to be "INCOMPATIBLE", and it ends with him standing and fidgeting in the night.  "REPAIR INCOMPLETE".


I think that's what I was remembering, among other things.  The frustrations and tragedies of a gentle but clumsy giant would make wonderful story fodder, though they're not untrodden ground.

[Pineapple]

Likewise the penultimate level of Braid reverses much of what you thought you understood about the plot.

Wow, yeah, Braid is an excellent example. Makes me think of those movies where a character is looking for some kind of self-knowledge, and in the end that knowledge is a big payoff that makes everything click into place, but is still horrible.

Unfortunately, the only example I can think of is The Machinist, which sucked.

I think The Prestige is an excellent film example of the scenario. (It's a great movie btw, I highly recommend seeing it.)

Star Wars III also works, though the clicking knowledge belongs to the viewer exclusively (given they've seen the rest of the series) and not to the characters (in contrast with The Prestige)

Daybreakers also comes to mind, though it's not a perfect fit. The resolution kind of seemed like a drawback rather than ultimately beneficial to mankind.

[Dustin Smith]

Go for it Celluose.  Most of -- if not all -- the time you're playing a narrative there's a disconnect between player and protagonist -- this would be a great way to highlight it.

[Peevish]

Well, isn't that more or less the choice in every option?

Life is not zero-sum.

[Evan Balster]

Unless the sun counts as a player.

In which case the sun is really bad at this game.

[gimymblert]

Grave of the fireflies: the game

[Melly]

One of my ideas is of a game that starts at the literal end of the world. Not those fancy final levels of most games where the world is ending but your mighty heroism will save the day. In this case there's jack shit you can do about it. maybe you're just a random Joe, and the mighty hero was someone else and you get to experience the consequences of his failure. Your actions however can further tangential plots to this, and maybe even make life a little better for some people or yourself before all of you fall to your inevitable demise. It would probably include a love story.

SPOILERS AHEAD, FASTEN YOUR SEAT-BELTS FOR DANGER

One game that comes to mind is Odin Sphere. The game starts as a fairly unique fantasy game, but still looks like it'll have some kind of generic fantasy happy end with some kind of good shining kingdom ruling over the world and making everything better. In the end you inevitably fight through the end of civilization, and the best you can do is fulfill a prophecy that will allow life to be reborn in the ravaged world after nearly everyone dies.

[Pineapple]

Grave of the fireflies: the game

[dongle]

There's a spoiler-filled thread on Select Button cataloguing games which include protagonist death: http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=30681

[man of doom]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2545-Narrative-Mechanics

Extra Credits this week was about the narrative behind the Missile Command, including the fact that no matter how hard you try or how good you are at the game, you ultimately will lose. Of course this is true of most arcade games but the implication of missile command is that millions of people die in the losing situation of the game, so essentially they were all doomed anyway and it was your job to defend them just for the sake of maintaining hope.