How would you feel about a "bad end warning"?

Personally I really wouldn’t like it. As above as long as it’s not one bad choice that ends the game, but a series of them I’d be ok with it. Also if you make skill checks fair, like in Z safe haven where you can get high success, moderate success fail etc. It can be really annoying if it’s just success or fail with regards to choice and you’re just a few points short of success :frowning: . But yeah it breaks immersion, and not getting a good ending encourages replaying the game I think.

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Playing through an entire game only to get an out-of-nowhere bad ending would certainly not endear the game to me (as @Tyshee mentioned, Krendrickstone is a bad example of this, but then that’s hardly its only problem). That said, having a fourth-wall–breaking warning would feel a little silly, too. I’d probably agree with the comments that suggest having the MC thinking how suicidal such a choice would be, possibly with an “are you sure?” choice following it.

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I probably should have clarified what I meant by fail all over the place with Kendrickstone - Failing missions isn’t going to end the game prematurely, but you’ll get a failure lecture from the NPC(s) involved, no reward and no fame increase. Depending upon your class/stats, this can easily snowball into more failures. Not getting the gauntlets as a fighter for completing the razorclaw mission will result in getting injured in a later mission (for example.)

The only premature ending I’ve run into with one of these games is the Under Arrest achievement in Psy High, which required some pretty deliberate actions get yourself arrested or just lazily selecting the first choice option for everything.

Maybe instead of a specific warning, there should the player character can have a moment of clarify where they rethink what their about to do to give the player a chance to either not do it or continue with the unwise action.

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Instead of a blunt “beware it’s over and it ain’t good.” Perhaps one could be more subtle. Emphasize a bad feeling or premonition of sorts give them every opportunity to turn back but don’t tell them why.

Although you could be evil and do this to drive up the tension for no other reason than that.

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Yeah, my initial reaction reading this is that a foreshadowed warning would be good, but something explicitly stated like a public service announcement would be jarring, so I’ll just second all these smart people saying it’d be useful to indicate it more smoothly within the narrative context. I don’t think it’d be too out of genre to have the narration do some pretty strong foreshadowing :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

This, basically:

And, yeah, I also am just so excited for Tally Ho! I can’t wait to get the chance to look at it :grinning:

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