Pick an Ending
John Wood
While working on the endgame for my 1997 competition entry, it occurred
to me that there are a number of different outcomes which could be
regarded as successful. These are not "lesser successes" (like saving
the planet in Planetfall while being marooned there), but rather depend on
the attitude of the player. For instance, in the case of my game, the
"best" win from a player's point of view would depend on how they ranked
1. Life;
2. Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness;
3. Fame.
Apologies for being so vague; I'd rather not reveal too much about the
game. Here is an alternate example (it's rather lame, but I couldn't
think of a situation where it fits quite so naturally as in my game):
Premise:
You are trying to stop a mass-murderer who has targeted you as his
next victim. In typical Hollywood fashion the police don't believe
you, so it's all up to you.
Option #1:
You buy a gun and shoot him. You are jailed, but the rest of the
world is safe.
Option #2:
You drag him with you over a guardrail into a vat of molten lead. You
are dead too, but again the world is safe.
Option #3:
You move house, successfully hide your tracks, and construct a new
identity. The killings continue, but you are safe.
It occurred to me that there is really no need - other than scoring,
which can be omitted - for me to pick out one ending as the "right" one.
In a sense, that would be imposing my morality on the player/PC - refer
to another thread for the arguments for and against that.
So, my question is: How would you feel about a game which had no scoring
and no "right" ending? There would be "wrong" endings - I suspect
nobody would choose to have their character die without achieving
anything, even if they valued their life very little - but even these
would only be indicated by more downbeat end text, so masochists can
join in too.
[I only mention scoring here because the idea is incompatible with
scoring:
You have died. Your score has gone up by 2 points - or down by 7 -
or stayed the same. Your score is now 666, 23, -273, or 3.14.
If you want to reopen the discussion of the (de)merits of scoring in IF,
please start your own thread. 8-)]
John
Jon
>
> John
I think you should try it. However, it seems like it would be EXTREMELY
difficult, perhaps impossible, to truly write endings that would not,
in some way, reflect a preference on the part of the author. Fiction, by
definition, is full of the author's biases, preferences, and all the
opinions s/he has picked up in his/her traipse through life.
IMHO that the third ending would be a failure; if the "point" of
the game is to stop the killer, then an ending in which this goal is not
accomplished would not be ideal. The first and second options are better,
but I suspect most players would not really feel a sense of accomplishment
out of either--but would probably prefer the second ending.
One game that tried, although not that hard, to provide multiple
endings was "Plundered Hearts". As I recall, there were four full-score
endings. However, the bias of the author showed clearly, I thought, so
that one ending (the longest one) was clearly the best of the four. Perhaps
"Plundered Hearts" points out that it is difficult to write separate-but-
equal endings. (Although the romance novel atmosphere of that game also
decided the best ending, I suppose.)
Another important aspect of how satisfying it would be to have
multiple "win" endings would be the relative difficulty of reaching those
endings. I have a game in my head with different "endings". It has three
different conclusions, all resulting from different puzzle sequences, which is
what you also seem to have in mind, rather than the "last action decides"
style of Plundered Hearts. I feel that if the 3 different
puzzle sequences have difficult endings, players will gravitate towards the
most "difficult" ending as the best option. You'd want to keep the difficulties
similar to try to equalize the reward.
Jon
David Fletcher
John Wood (jo...@elvw.demon.co.uk) wrote:
[snip]
> So, my question is: How would you feel about a game which had no scoring
> and no "right" ending? There would be "wrong" endings - I suspect
> nobody would choose to have their character die without achieving
> anything, even if they valued their life very little - but even these
> would only be indicated by more downbeat end text, so masochists can
> join in too.
I think I'd want it to be made fairly obvious at the end what I could have
done instead. In your example, this would mean that if I finished the
game by moving house, I would want to know that I could have stopped the
murderer instead. If I finished by shooting him and getting jailed, I
would want to know that I couldn't have shot him and got away with it.
I suppose what I'm saying is that I would still be looking for a "right"
ending, or at least a most right one. But, as you say, which one this was
would depend on me.
--
David Fletcher
Paul Trauth
John Wood (jo...@elvw.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: [I only mention scoring here because the idea is incompatible with
: scoring:
Is it? In the set of ideas i've been toying with for a competition entry
(which will definitely not be for the '96 competition; if i ever begin
writing the damned thing, i may even find that it winds up being too big
to really be an entry, but anyway--), i very definitely intend to have
scoring, and multiple, equally-valid, rather incompatible ways to win.
I'll simply arrange things so that, no matter how you go through the game,
if you make it to a winning ending, you WILL have a full score. Each point
will be attainable by several actions; the first action you take to attain
it will get it, and possibly make the other ones impossible. But if the
other actions ARE still possible... the player simply doesn't get a point
for them, because he's already GOTTEN that point. If that makes sense.
Points are a way for the player to know how he's doing in progressing
through the story. It's akin to idly looking at how much of a mass of pages
remains in the book you're reading.
Zork 3, in some ways, did this. Each of the seven points was given for doing
something crucial to finishing the game, rather than the usual 'well, here's
a point for picking up a stuffed wombat, and a few more for putting it in
the treasure chest, and, oooh, three points for opening the door to the house
of Fun, and...' manner. Unfortunately, it was possible to have all seven
points and not the faintest clue what to do next.
And... poo; I've forgotten exactly what point i was intending to make about
points and multiple endings. I think it's somewhere up there. Oh well...
--
"But I don't want no tea. It gives me a headache." - Pete Puma
paul trauth: cartoonist, animator, programmer, raccoon. rac...@gs.net
Nulldogma
> 1. Life;
> 2. Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness;
> 3. Fame.
Somebody's been playing too much Careers...
Anyway, I like the idea of multiple acceptable endings, as long as it's
made clear that there are other options you can try. (I think I once
mentioned that I was at one point convinced that Change in the Weather
worked this way -- I was actually disappointed when I discovered that
there was one preferred ending.)
The game I'm starting to work on now will have scoring of a sort, but
finishing the game won't necessarily correlate with the highest score.
It's also going to have an alternate way to keep track of your progress,
so using scoring as a "look at what page you're on" thing won't be
necessary.
Neil
Trevor Barrie
John Wood <jo...@elvw.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>So, my question is: How would you feel about a game which had no scoring
>and no "right" ending?
Very good. Do it.
james reese
John Wood <jo...@elvw.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>So, my question is: How would you feel about a game which had no scoring
>and no "right" ending?
I'm working on a short, medical IF (possible contest entry) where the player's
"score" is his/her/its vital signs during surgery. Various game actions
affect blood pressure, pulse, and temperature. There is a preferred "outcome"
(surviving the surgery), but the final vital signs will be different for each
"winning" game.
As a note to TADS programmers, this code is actually rather complex, as
each incscore() method invokes a weighted random change in one of the vitals.
I'll post it after the game is released, but I'll privately email it to anyone
currently interested.
John Wood
In article: <3193DC...@ucla.edu> Jon <en...@ucla.edu> writes:
>
> I think you should try it. However, it seems like it would be EXTREMELY
> difficult, perhaps impossible, to truly write endings that would not,
> in some way, reflect a preference on the part of the author. Fiction, by
> definition, is full of the author's biases, preferences, and all the
> opinions s/he has picked up in his/her traipse through life.
Sure, I agree - and it would be a very bland piece if I didn't put some
of my personality into it. However, having NO choice puts you into the
situation (described on another thread) where in order to progress you
are forced to do things that make you feel "I'm only doing this to
complete the game".
Even if I don't succeed and end up showing too much bias towards one
ending (or miss out somebody's choice), maybe it'll inspire a better
writer to experiment with the same idea.
> IMHO that the third ending would be a failure; if the "point" of
> the game is to stop the killer, then an ending in which this goal is not
> accomplished would not be ideal. The first and second options are better,
> but I suspect most players would not really feel a sense of accomplishment
> out of either--but would probably prefer the second ending.
I'm glad you said "IMHO", because that's what I was trying to get at -
not everyone has the same opinion. Is the "point" of the game to stop
the killer - or is it to stop being killed? Why should I decide that?
In real life, I'd probably go for the "run away" option - and then feel
guilty about it. If that option wasn't available, I'd go for the "save
my life by shooting first" option even if it meant being put in prison -
and then feel bitter about it. When playing a game, I'd probably agree
with you and go for the "dying with the villain" option.
> One game that tried, although not that hard, to provide multiple
> endings was "Plundered Hearts". As I recall, there were four full-score
> endings. However, the bias of the author showed clearly, I thought, so
> that one ending (the longest one) was clearly the best of the four. Perhaps
> "Plundered Hearts" points out that it is difficult to write separate-but-
> equal endings. (Although the romance novel atmosphere of that game also
> decided the best ending, I suppose.)
I haven't played Plundered Hearts yet. All I can say is that I'd try to
avoid an *obvious* bias.
> Another important aspect of how satisfying it would be to have
> multiple "win" endings would be the relative difficulty of reaching those
> endings. I have a game in my head with different "endings". It has three
> different conclusions, all resulting from different puzzle sequences, which is
> what you also seem to have in mind, rather than the "last action decides"
> style of Plundered Hearts. I feel that if the 3 different
> puzzle sequences have difficult endings, players will gravitate towards the
> most "difficult" ending as the best option. You'd want to keep the difficulties
> similar to try to equalize the reward.
This is a genuine problem with what I have in mind, since some of the
endings would be much easier to achieve. Consider a fourth option for
my example:
Option #4:
You buy a gun and (without bothering to hunt down the killer) shoot an
innocent passer-by, then turn yourself over to the police. You are
jailed and the killings continue, but you are alive.
Very few people would choose this way, but if it was not stopped in some
arbitrary fashion there is no way to make it as difficult as either path
where you have to track down the killer.
Incidentally, you are right that my intentions are to have different
paths rather than a single branching decision point. I should point out
that the game is not designed around this idea. It just came to me
while I was thinking about the setting, principal cast and basic plot
(which is all I have at the moment) and trying to decide what to do with
them.
John
John Wood
In article: <4n2eb7$9...@news.ox.ac.uk>
linc...@sable.ox.ac.uk (David Fletcher) writes:
> I think I'd want it to be made fairly obvious at the end what I could have
> done instead. In your example, this would mean that if I finished the
> game by moving house, I would want to know that I could have stopped the
> murderer instead. If I finished by shooting him and getting jailed, I
> would want to know that I couldn't have shot him and got away with it.
How about suggesting the alternate endings in the "afterlife", rather
like an "amusing things to try" option?
[Incidentally, the main reason I said this was a contrived example is
that there *is* the very obvious "best solution" of capturing/killing
the villain and going free yourself, which short-circuits the idea.
There is no analagous win in the actual game I'm planning.]
> I suppose what I'm saying is that I would still be looking for a "right"
> ending, or at least a most right one. But, as you say, which one this was
> would depend on me.
I'll take that as a "yes, this could work" vote 8-)
John
John Wood
In article: <4n6sld$4...@spike.palmer.com>
>
> John Wood (jo...@elvw.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> : [I only mention scoring here because the idea is incompatible with
> : scoring:
>
> Is it? In the set of ideas i've been toying with for a competition entry
> (which will definitely not be for the '96 competition; if i ever begin
> writing the damned thing, i may even find that it winds up being too big
> to really be an entry, but anyway--), i very definitely intend to have
> scoring, and multiple, equally-valid, rather incompatible ways to win.
>
>
> Points are a way for the player to know how he's doing in progressing
> through the story. It's akin to idly looking at how much of a mass of pages
> remains in the book you're reading.
Well, maybe I spoke in haste. I must admit I was thinking of the "point
for this, point for that" method - with care, you probably could include
Zork 3 style scoring. It would certainly be possible with the three
options I posted.
In fact, this might be a good way to get a balance between a totally
judgement-free game and a single-win game. The fourth option I posted
in response to someone else (get a gun and shoot a passer-by so the
police arrest you and you are safe in prison) would score fewer points
than shooting the killer - an indication that there is a better way.
Actually, each ending could be rated according to a number of criteria:
Do the killings stop?
Do you live?
Do you avoid being put in prison?
The original options all score 2, and the extra option scores 1.
It would have to be made clear that a score of 3 is impossible, and
unfortunately this doesn't let players know how they're doing until
they've finished, but it does make clear what the endings mean.
John