I just used labels in the scenes the deaths happens.
Thanks. Do you have to use *ending at the end of the scene still?
No. I use a checkpoint system after the death scene they are sent back to the start of the “episode” (what I call chapters in UnNatural)
I only use *ending once at the very end of the game.
This subject is one of my favorites! And you’ll find several related threads here on the forum.
To succinctly summarize the current situation:
- Standard CoG format (official games from the company) require that you never die/game over until you are at least 70% of the way to the end. A lot of modern players really enjoy this feeling of safety, knowing that the risks along the way are relatively minor.
- HG (Hosted Games, published by CS but written by fans) and WIPs (games by fans that are Works in Progress) have no such requirement. Some are designed to make it very hard to not die, which some folks (like me!) consider to be an awesome challenge.
That being said, most folks on the forum prefer #1, but there is no telling what the wider gaming community (i.e. on Steam, Android, and Apple) prefers.
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If you have lots of potential deaths it can be useful to have them al in one place in a particular scene file which may be labelled however you might like. This allows you to view all you “deaths” in one particular place. Its really a personal choice since it is perfectly possible to just write any deaths into the body of regular scene as you go.
having them in a separate file does allow multiple potential deaths along similar lines to easily lead to the same scene by using code like this example from mine:
*goto_scene death chapter2_mercenary_shooting
There are multiple times in a single battle where you might be shot and killed, this way I can point them all to the same ending scene for getting shot by a mercenary in chapter 2. It also means you can get a comparative sense for all your death scene as a whole in one location - and leave easy placeholders all in one place for coming back to later - or for implementing a checkpoint system.
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I have no idea how to quote things yet but…
70%?
Shouldn’t it really be more focused on the tone of the story? You’re much more likely to die (or worse) in something like Lovecraftian horror or a warzone than you are high school, after all.
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The same could be done with labels, correct? A generic sort of death scene in any given chapter represented by something like this:
*if (Health = 0)
*goto DeathByBananaPeel
What I mean by this is having the “deathbybananapeel” label be the generically written death scene for the given chapter.
Yep.
*if agility >= 20
*goto safe
*else
*goto deathbybananapeel
*label safe
that was close. Time for chapter 2
*goto_scene chapter2
*label deathbybananapeel
Whoops. somehow you have managed to die in chapter 1
Do you want to restart?
*choice
#Yes
*goto_scene chapter1
#No
*ending
You get the picture
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If you highlight text, you’ll see a little gray box pop up thay says Quote.
Try highlighting this sentence.
Keep in mind that with a lack of a back button, a lot of casual readers will be turned off with early deaths. It’s not uncommon for many readers to only attempt a single playthrough, so they want to feel like they get their money’s worth in the initial.
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Would you say this can be mitigated then if “checkpoints” were implemented? Something that makes it so you won’t lose much progress at all if PC death occurred?
I’d actually say that a lot of games regardless of genre would benefit from a checkpoint save system, so yes.
As time goes on, games have gotten longer and longer and while I’m personally l o v i n g it, I’m also aware that in the past few years, there always comes a point where I agonize over my choices just because if I don’t like the outcome I don’t wanna restaaaaaaaart. 
And again, this isn’t necessarily because I’m expecting my character to die. Quite the contrary, I tend to agonize over romantic dialogue because oh god there’s two good options oh god howre they gonna respond to this versus this ahhhhhh my heart, like, it’s very dumb, my reasons, but I’m sure that others have more game design-centric arguments in favor of checkpoints, lol.
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Hopefully I can emulate that in my own game. I know a lot of the people that play it absolutely adore Polanski but aside from her the only one I’ve even heard feedback about is Pierce. Even then his boiled down to a few words and not much else in the response.
My aim with these death scenes is not to cut play time short or whatever other reason someone could potentially think up. To me, death scenes are just a part of a well balanced game with consequences.
What I mean by that is if we look at TWD (I forget the name of the game but it involves Lee Everett) the game was… okay in my opinion. It definitely wasn’t an RPG like it was advertised since there was little (if any) influence that the character could have over events around them and little that they could do to change the world around them. Sure, it told a story and it was fairly cohesive but very limited in scale and scope.
I personally enjoyed Morrowind much more even despite hating the game mechanics and the way they were explained. Choices had real consequences. Back then Elder Scrolls didn’t have an “essential NPC” thing going on where certain characters were simply unkillable. Quests could be failed well before someone got to them simply because someone had been killed by the PC before they knew the quest was available, every quest impacted the world in ways both big and small…
I’unno. Maybe I’m old. Certainly compared to most forum users I’m probably a lot older than most. Tends to be that way on the internet these days. But it’s the little imperfections in PC choices that always made a world of difference to me.
I mean, after all, if you can do nothing but win (even if by the skin of your teeth) what leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat? Why bother with stats and game mechanics when simple text dialogues can do the job while being much easier to write and keep cohesive?
Personally, for me, I think that every COG/HG should be made to make the player think: what if? Sure, they can always replay the game any infinite number of times and eventually unlock every ending but the biggest thing, in my opinion (humble as it may be) is making them think: what if I was actually here? What if this was my life?
One of the biggest games that had a massive influence on my life was actually Missile Command. If you’d like I can send you a link to a video that explains why in great detail.
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In my opinion it’s best to keep MC deaths to an actual ending rather than “game over”-type things scattered through the game.
I feel this way because, if their character is killed early in the game with no possibility to reload a save and try again, it’s likely that players will just quit, as mentioned above; but at the same time, if you do include checkpoints that take you to just before the death scene, you are removing the stakes just the same as if you didn’t have character death at all.
In those cases it becomes a matter of “okay, let’s go back and try the next option then”, “oh, fine, so that killed me too, let’s go back again…” And in the end I’m kinda disappointed that only one of the options is something I can do without dying (even if that is dependent on stats or whatever).
Tin Star does this thing where each death knocks points off your legend score, but I still feel like the death scenes add nothing to that game (and in fact, the first time I was killed by a bear I just decided to accept it and end the game there and it took me weeks to go back to playing 
).
Plus when games do this I never know when “accepting my death” is going to lead to an actual, fully-fleshed out ending vs just quitting the game, if that makes sense?
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You’ve just given me an off-the-wall kind of idea. Appreciate it.
I once found a WiP where all four options killed me because my stats weren’t right. 
And the checkpoint was after the last time I could change my stats, so it actually only made it more frustrating to play.
Regarding the main idea, I’m not a fan of premature death in these games, especially without a checkpoint. I feel that each and every playthrough of an IF game should have a satisfying narrative, and there’s nothing satisfying about setting up an interesting story only to finish it two chapters later when the protagonist dies in an unrelated bar room brawl. A character who dies as part of a heroic sacrifice to save the world from great evil? That’s narratively satisfying, but it would have to happen right at the end of the story.
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This sounds like absolutely terrible game design if you ask me.
I agree, to some extent. Earlier in the thread I mentioned I dislike narratively boring death scenes and scenes that lead to death which really shouldn’t.
That’s a very fair opinion to have, and surprisingly I think it’s rather rare around here.
The current trend is for games not to features deaths at all, and at most contains flags that—as yet—appear to just influence flavor text rather than anything…not substantial, but essentially, in the past these failures might have resulted in a branch in the story but today the games will chug on through in a more linear fashion.
This isn’t to say that choices don’t matter any more in games being made today, but that choices—and stats—are utilized differently.
Okay, so I’ve been writing and rewritinf this for like an hour and I’ve consistently failed in actually reaching my point, so! Last attempt!
Ahem.
The two main examples of games that don’t feature player character death, that are pretty darn linear in narrative, but who are nontheless among the most popular in the community are Fallen Hero and Wayhaven Chronicles, and this is how they do it:
No player character or NPC death? No problem! They’ll just take your heart and squeeze it until it pops, but like…emotionally, psychologically.
Death isn’t the worst thing that can happen in these books, heartbreak is (oof, ouch, no pun intended) and there’s a lot of it and I am here for it.
The main avenues that these games use to build tension is the potential of failure, of heartache, or in some cases actual heartache. It manages this by pulling the reader into investing in all these wonderful characters and in their relationship with the player character, and the player is encouraged to heavily identify with the player character via choices and stats.
A lot of forum users will tell you that they either heavily prefer or even outright require character customization. Many authors tend to see this simply as a way for readers to merely connect with the story, but savvy authors will realize that when it’s coupled with the ability for the reader to choose a player character’s reactions to the events of the story means, it’s much more likely for the reader to become as invested in the plot as the player character is written to be.
By giving these choices, the author is prompting the reader into placing themselves in the mindset of the character, in not just seeing themselves in the player character, but also in immersing themselves in the story. And this can be compounded by stats.
Stats kind of go hand-in-hand with character customization because they essentially keep track for the reader what their player character is like in terms of personality, values, and skills. They’re not super important and stat checks are not always needed or even expected, but—and this is especially true for Wayhaven—they can actually be utilized to create interesting story beats and throughlines for a reader to take with them as the story marches on.
A good example of this is the climax of Wayhaven Chronicles Book One. Stat checks dictate if a player is able to rescue themselves or not. In most games, failing this stat check might indicate a game over, but in Wayhaven it just creates more tension, more drama because the player character is still at the whim of the villain and oh no how will the love interest save them? [damsel in distress noises]
Adding onto that is one of the final choices in the first game is that, if the player is not out of the villain’s grasp by the end of the climax, that the villain (a vampire) will still bite them, but! The choice is in where the villain bites them, the wrist or the neck. 
The reasons for choosing one over the other will be unique to each person, but I think that when taking this into account with the stat checks I mentioned, readers are drawn into creating their own story beats that best fits their character.
Choices and stats aren’t utilized in the traditional sense of branching and whatnot, they’re used in the service of letting the reader influence their character’s story.
I have…been writing this for almost two hours now, so I’m just gonna post this and hope for the best, lmao.
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At least one of my games will have unique death scenes… It’s going to be a while before it will be ready, since it will be involved with my book series (which I only have one book out right now) it’s not death scenes but one of my WIPs currently out will have different “career ended” scenes. Come to think of it, I do have a fake death scene for my other WIP that’s out. I haven’t written any real death scenes yet, since you won’t even get to the actual plot of the story until chapter 3. But chapter 2 may have a couple, but I don’t even have the first chapter completed, mostly released the demo to test the waters with it.
Even though I enjoyed Zombie Exodus and Safe Haven, I don’t enjoy dying. It just kills the momentum and kicks me out of the experience. My reaction is something like ‘oh. Guess I have to speed run my way up to the point I died and pick a different choice.’ 
In my story, I do plan to have two unique death scenes that extend past the MC’s death (keep in mind I’m not creating a survival horror game) by changing the narration point of view because I don’t find the ‘You died.’ screens satisfying. Any ending, even a premature one, should be satisfying and switching the narration PoV to another character to get some kind of closure makes it satisfying to me as a writer. Don’t know how it will be received to readers but we’ll see.
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This is the reason for CoG’s policy. I think it’s a good one; the CoG design is aimed at producing novels, not just games. Most people only read these games once, and if they hit an early ending, that’s what will set their impression and their review.
With that said, I also think in some genres–horror, grimdark fantasy or sci fi, some comedy–a satisfying narrative can involve an abrupt, premature, and unpleasant ending.
But even though I wrote Rebels before CoG had that policy and wasn’t bound by it, I didn’t write early deaths into my gritty fantasy novel. Rather, like @rose-court suggests, I wrote other unpleasant and shocking consequences into the early chapters, and saved the deaths (with one rare exception) for the final chapter. That seems to have satisfied the Steam gamer audience just fine – the smattering of unhappy reviews there don’t (to my recollection) mention “too safe-feeling” among their gripes.
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