Would you be okay with a game having just a BAD ending and no GOOD ending?

It all comes down to being true to the world created. If it was the darkest story ever made and it suddenly ended with everyone happy and alive…it wouldn’t feel right.

That depends on how you define bad ending. Would I be okay with having an unsatisfying ending? No. Would I be okay with ending from varying degree of bittersweet? Yes.

I don’t have the capacity for a 100 percent angst right now, though. (Not with the way my life is.) So I would not be in for playing a tragedy at the moment. (Though, that is personal).

Of course the problem with good and bad endings/good endings is that the player might not agree on what constitutes a good ending. Many people felt that DA2 had no good (as in both win and satisfying) endings, but I think that DA2 is the only bioware game who had an ending which was 100 good for my protagonist and thus didn’t feel bittersweet to me.

Would you be okay with a game having just a BAD ending and no GOOD ending?

Well, you can’t have both at the same time. You have in mind a game with only bad endings? Or have them along with good?

I find that some bad endings can be better than the normal good endings where everyone lives happily ever after.

I totally agree with that. In fact, it was those inconvincing, artificial happy endings that got me quit watching movies. Along with the imposed ‘good guy’ stereotype, portrayed by Silvester Stallone, or more recently, who - Jason Statham? Damn, he’s so gross, I’d only watch him if he’s slain by a jihadi. And may this be his last role, after that - send him in retirement, no kidding. So they put forward some asshole without alternative and telling viewers ‘this is the kind of guy you have to like’. No way, I just quit watching their crap for good. It’s been ages since I last watched a film and I don’t regret it slightest bit, I used to hate them so much. When watching as a kid I almost always wished that overrated, fake and arrogant, self-contented ‘hero’ be taken out by the ‘bad guys’.

So, in a game-novel, it better be diverse as reality is, including bad endings built-up and consistent with the gameplay and convincingly portrayed. And best such ending be a door to new beginning. If some people from your past died or went away, that shall be pictured as opportunity to start a new life. Or if the MC dies, you have to admit life is eternal and he simply stopped living in this realm at this particular time, but can reincarnate later. That will be a good ‘bad ending’ for me, leaving space to imagination.

I think this could work well for a story that is supposed to be a tragedy from the start. Like it could be implied using context throughout the story that it will probably end horribly.

But the exciting question won’t be if…but instead how it will end horribly. I think you could pull it off :slight_smile:

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Creatures such as we is a good example of this working out!

I was never able to get a happy ending, it was driving me crazy so I stopped playing after a while.

Sure. It’d just be a tragedy. As long as it made my choices FEEL meaningful I have no problem with it. The WIP “Mordred: Blood Cries Afar” seemed to be going in this direction.

NO! NO! NO! NO! FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE HELL NO!
I HATED Paradox Factor because it does not let you a way out so give me a good ending or I will give a recension with one star and the text, that even this one is still to mutch. Because Real Life is a game with Bad Ending and I play CYOA Games because I want to have the option to end it good.

[[so give me a good ending or I will give a recension with one star and the text]]

Jeez. Entitled much?

Sure I’d be okay with a game like that existing. I wouldn’t play it, but I don’t expect every game to be for me.

Has anyone here ever played Fatal Frame 2? That is one of the few titles I’ve dabbled in that manage to make even the ‘good endings’ feel bad. Basically, no matter what you do you will always lose something; either someone you care about, your life or you end up realizing your sacrifices were in vain. Feels bad man.

I don’t mind a game with bad endings but I do hope they have some relevance and aren’t just knee-jerking “Oops, you messed up. Game Over.” types. I really don’t like games that punish the player for not taking the very specific path the author envisioned. If that’s the road you want to take then make it a novel and label it Dark Souls: Text Edition.

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This is a pretty bad attitude to have.

While authors need to treat their readers with respect and always strive to tell the best story they can, readers, too, should respect when the story the authors are trying to tell takes directions they don’t necessarily like. There’s a difference between genine critique and taste. Punishing the author’s work for the latter is pretty irresponsible.

Fiction is not all escapism. Some of it is grim, and deals with confronting (and sometimes accepting) the darker sides of life. Sometimes what lies at the end of the tunnel is a good ending. Sometimes it isn’t. It is what it is. If it had been a badly-written ending, then it would’ve been a different story. But if it’s just a dark ending, then it’s the result of the author’s decision and should be respected.

In the case of the game you’re referring to (Paradox Factor spoilers):

The core message of the game is to come to terms with your decisions. That real life doesn’t have a magical time machine, and that accepting the past and overcoming it is the best way to move forward.

It’s, I think, a message that came across fairly well. It’s one that would’ve been demolished had there been a “good” ending. It’s what the author chose to tell. And it’s a decision that should, in this case, be respected. Certainly not worth rating the game one star and giving the impression it’s badly-written.

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Well for me this is bad writing. If there is a message which is unchangeable then in my opinion there are normal books better suited because CYOA are that you will choose how the adventure is going and if there will be a good or bad ending. If there is no choice to end with any possibility to end it good but only to choose whiche bad outcomming is in the end then there is no real choose in my opinion.

Actually, it made perfect sense for Paradox Factor to be a CYOA. You yourself get to experience making decisions – again and again and again – seeing the effects those decisions have first-hand, until you’re forced to admit that your changes aren’t leading to the good end you desire. Then the decision of how you come to terms wih that comes about, leading to one of the four endings. That’s the story. That’s the “adventure”. That’s the point.

You can expand that argument to say that Paradox Factor should’ve given you the ability to travel to every moment of the POV character’s life, and do absolutely anything that came to your mind. Indeed, why weren’t we able to do a cool breakdance session at the wedding? Why weren’t we able to use that gun we bought to rob a bank and become an outlaw? Why weren’t we able to quit the time machine job and spend our days watching YouTube videos?

The answer is that, even though it’s a CYOA, none of those options served the themes, the message or the overall goal of the story. And, as I explained earlier, the same can be said for a “good” ending. It doesn’t fit in with the work as a whole.

So calling it “bad writing” on the account of that – and suggesting that the lack of the good ending is reason enough to trash the entire experience where part of the experience was coming to terms there simply isn’t one – is, as I suggested earlier, irresponsible.

There’s a difference between what you wanted to have in the story, and giving objective critique. Giving one star with a note of “not even worth that” on the account of no good ending is the former. You can have an opinion. But respect the author’s, too.

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Hollow Knight’s a great example of a piece of media with no truly “good” ending that’s absolutely fantastic.

I do not know what message there wanted to tell but I get with each try angrier and skipped the most of the text looking if there whas something new until I angry refounded it. I tried so long until I found no way out and looked for Walkthroughs.
If he would have just written it as a Novel he would have just writtin it as a set novel it would have done better but as a CYOA game it whas clearly garbage.

Nope. It wouldn’t have worked as a novel, and it’s one of the best things yet written in ChoiceScript. Your frustration with it not being what you wanted it to be has (I’d suggest) blinded you to what it’s about.

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So we have different opinions. I hate it because it continue to let suffer and let you stuck in it without really to change anything and gives you only the illusion of being able to choose. Blood Money is better than it because it can let you choose how to change the outcome. It may be no optinal outcome but at least you can set the first stone for the changes. The struggle experiance of Paradox can be in a Novel and it would not really change it.

It would have completely changed it. You couldn’t have had the Paradox Factor experience in a novel. The things you disliked about PF–the feeling of being stuck, the long hard hunt for a way forward–would have driven you ten times as crazy if anyone had tried to write them in novel form. It’s at times a frustrating game even for those of us who admire it; it would be an unreadable novel.

As a piece of fiction exploring the limits of choice–the limited extent to which our choices really can change things, and how we ultimately come to terms with the limits on our choices–Paradox Factor is written in exactly the right medium.

Some people won’t read a game without choice of gender. Some people won’t read a game without a self-insert protagonist, where you can choose everything about the MC to fit who you are/want to be. And now we see that some people won’t read a game that doesn’t let you choose how to change the outcome. No problem, tastes vary–but it irritates me whenever any of those people start accusing games that lack the types of choices they like of not being real interactive fic, or say “why didn’t you just write a novel?”

Really well-crafted choicescript stories can be written with a set protagonist rather than a self-insert… and as PF shows, they can be written around our inability (as well as our ability) to change the world

I know I’m not going to talk you into liking Paradox Factor; it’s not to your taste, and that’s fine. But the idea that it could have been written as a novel (let alone would better have been written as a novel) is ridiculous. To do what it does, it needed to be interactive.

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And here I’m, thought that you guys are talking about this Paradox.
Paradox Interactive logo

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