Since the MC is usually protected by an insane amount of plot armor when it comes to fighting the villain or antagonist. Maybe in the first fight(or maybe final) with the antagonist the MC fails miserably and is viciously beaten by the antagonist followed by watching their friends/allies be murdered. Causing the MC to be traumatized by the ordeal and feel like a failure as hero.
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That’s dark… A really good way to make someone wonder if they actually won… I mean, there’s not even a fig leaf of plot armor left there…
That basically says F*$& Pc It doesn’t matter how much you have worked or not what your choices were and what if you wanted all Dead. I want to kill friends in many games The game does that to everyone. Where is the fun? Where is the agency? Where is the value of replay?
If the story of a Cog goes. “Do whatever you want everyone will die and you will be tortured and worse in all endings without care your choices…”
Pay me dollars!!
Hardship should never be forced into everyone, in the end, it negates all the game and makes replay value worthless. Not works in an IF.
It can be done at the beginning or in the middle as a challenge to overcome but never in the end
Edit Even in the middle it should give if possible a way to run away from the hardship but that has consequences lime be deemed as a traitor or lost a trait or money etc… That means that the choices feel important and the weight of the choices feel organic if the choice is totally forced and linear it lost part of power.
Fallen hero @malinryden is a great example you can choose how deal with many hardships if you want to overcome them or not. You can runway some or trying to hide under the carpet. That for me is a perfect example of a portrait of hardship and traumas in an Interactive environment and growth.
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I did say first or final fight my preference would be first that way there would be an actual journey of the MC overcoming the loss of their companions and regaining their confidence and becoming stronger as a result of their first run in with the antagonist. I only added final fight because it was an afterthought. But you’re right if this happened during the final fight it would be a major insult and waste of time for the player. Which is why I think it would be better if it was during the beginning. Also I have played Fallen hero so I know what trauma and hardships are available for you to deal with and that game does have great examples of trauma and growth
If there wasn’t any plot armor they wouldn’t have been left alive in the first place. Because logically it doesn’t make sense to leave an enemy that is trying to stop you alive especially if you just slaughtered everyone else. Unless the villain thought the MC was dead or was doing the typical I’ll spare you just to make you hurt even more. Also what’s wrong with a dark example where the MC get’s beaten by the villain at the beginning ?
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Nothing wrong with “dark” when it comes to traumatic events (actually I think it’s a requirement 
). I should have added some type of emoji to indicate it was meant as a “wow” moment, not a criticism. 
It’s daring, and a very difficult place to start emotionally. I thought of how close I feel to the NPCs in most games and it kinda hit me in reverse. It would have been a very intense beginning.
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Final hardship and bad end works in movies as is something not interactive same as conventional literature . In if only works In puzzle games that are linear. However, if is a serie of endings that is based on choices that ending become powerful as has been driven by your own Pc journey. Balancing Growth, hardship, player agency and branching is one of the biggest challenges in gane design
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I would find it much more interesting if the MC’s failure resulted in either a friend or ally separating from the MC because I’m bored of people believing that killing off characters is the way to raise the stakes.
You don’t need to kill off characters in every story. There are other ways to raise the stakes and they’ll more often be more interesting because the characters will still be alive to live and react to those stakes.
Unless the story’s context is a war zone or a violent one, there’s no need to kill of your characters. Having Gary the comedian die in your high school/college comedy based IF is inappropriate for the setting and tone of your comedic story.
If your antagonist is a manipulative bully in your high school IF and you give the MC a choice of doing something morally gray or just flat out wrong in order to stop the bullying, then an excellent way to raise tensions would be to not kill of your side characters - because that’s cheap and overused - and instead have them react like real people. Maybe they still hang out but there’s this awkward air to your relationship? Or maybe they cut ties with the MC entirely?
The challenging process of regaining your friends’/allies’ trust for something that wrong is something rich with potential for tension and ups and downs but that’s been pushed aside for the immediate shock value of killing off characters.
The scenario where the antagonist wins and the MC is forced to watch their friends be killed only works if a.) the reader connected to the now-dead side characters and b.) if the MC can process their trauma in the manner the reader would like. If the author fails to make the reader connect to the side characters, then you’re going to have a major disconnect between the MC and the reader and it’ll likely end up putting your story down.
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Yes you’re right it does depend on the context of the story and my idea was based in a time or period of violence that way the death of a supporting character would make sense. I wasn’t suggesting killing characters for every story let alone some weird high school comedy of all things because it wouldn’t fit with the tone of the story at all. It was just a possible example of trauma for an MC to go through. If you’re tired of characters being murdered to get the viewer to feel something ok(it has been done to the point where it seems cheap and unnecessary) . I just felt like it was a good idea to contribute to the conversation that’s all.
As for your idea of the MC doing something morally questionable to get rid of the antagonist and possibly losing a friend because they crossed a line. While it would be an interesting plot point to try to earn back your friends trust. I would argue that it’s just as interesting as to stand by what ever shady decision you did to get rid of the antagonist and see how the two of you drift apart and possibly become enemies or rivals. After all not everyone is apologetic when it comes to doing amoral things to their enemies when given the option to.
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