Bad Ending

[Shuji]

What would you think if in the end the main character loses anyway?

I mean, yeah, he killed the final boss but even so he can't win. 

 

[Alexander Amnell]

That depends entirely upon how it is done. I'm not really so much of a fan of everything always working out no matter how impossible the odds, and sometimes authors set up a world in a way where it's worse to have everything work out in the end.

Spoiler

i.e. Mistborn trilogy where aside literally becomes god at the end and just fixes everyone's impossible problems with the wave of his hand and a few old memories or the end of the wheel of time series were rand 'sacrifices himself' but wakes up in a different body and gains a presumed happy normal life in some weird unexplained deism ex machina moment... I'm not a fan of how Brandon Sanderson ends stories.

I'd say in these cases the story actually suffers for it's happy ending, because it was so far out of left files that it doesn't make sense that it could even happen. If you want to write a tragedy or a sacrificial victory I think that's great; just don't backtrack at the end and make it right so that the story is so grim that it consigns players to their eventual fate only to blindside them with an unbelievable survival.

 

[cabfe]

There's a high risk of frustrating the player.
It *can* work if it's well made, if you don't show a possible good outcome that'll never happen.
 
Not all stories end well, but sometimes it's better than a happy ending coming from nowhere or breaking the logic.
Spoiler for movies doing it that come to my mind:

Spoiler

Gladiator. It would have been so lame to have the main character live happily ever after.
Seven. It's the climax of the movie. Having a happy end is unthinkable.

 

[Shuji]

Well yeah, I wasn't thinking of just letting the main character lose out of the blue.

I wanted to give the sensation way before the final battle that there were no possibilities of victory.

The player will expect to lose the final battle

 

[Tokumei No]

If your story needs a bad ending, just give it a bad ending! Of course, you should not make it too much brutal for the player, but if it's needed, it's needed. And, personally, I hate classic happy endings.

 

[Shuji]

Then I'll go for it^^

 

[Tokumei No]

Bad ending is the new black!  BD

 

[Andar]

If you plan something like this, you need to keep in mind the difference between "bad ending" and "loosing the game".


Loosing the game will leave the player frustrated, so a bad ending can only work in two conditions:


1) The player still wins (for example if the bad ending is that the actor has to sacrifice himself to save the village)


2) The story counts and is more important than the actor (a tragedy)


The second option is very hard to pull off in a game where the player expects the choices to matter - a game is not like a movie in that regard.

 

[Matseb2611]

I wanted to give the sensation way before the final battle that there were no possibilities of victory.

The player will expect to lose the final battle

Then why have the final battle on the first place? What is the difference between beating the boss and getting a game over if they both lead to the same outcome?

That's something important to consider for endings like these. A bad ending is fine so long as the player feels they've achieved something and wasn't just given a game over via a cutscene.

 

[Shuji]

Surely it's not the first.

The hero doesn't save the "village".

Probably it's more the second. But even so the player doesn't feel he won. My story is a bit controverted. becaue in the end the hero goes to the enemy's side

 

[Tokumei No]

I am getting interested in this story 

 

[Shuji]

I think there should be a final boss battle.

The hero's mission was to kill him. He already knows it's a suicide, but he has to do it anyway. 

 

[Wavelength]

I sounded off on a very similar topic in this thread.  Long story short, it's an extremely difficult thing to do correctly as a designer because the player is going to feel a much greater disconnect here than they would in a happy ending, if they sense a loss of agency over their character's actions (and the direction of the plot).  You have to make the player feel like they're in control of the factors behind this bad ending, and you have to make them feel like they've done some things right despite the downer mood.  That's tough to do!

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I'm actually interested in that... I'm always interested in the ending of a story, no matter what the ending is. Bad (negative) endings can be frustrating, but good (positive) endings can be quite predictable and sometimes could also be frustrating. It still depends on how well the story was constructed.


I think one confusion here is that people mix "bad ending" and "game over". They are totally different. With a bad ending, it's just that the ending wasn't a positive one, the story and the game is still ended, finished, won whatever you call it. With a game over, you didn't even see the ending...


I think it's better to just call it negative ending though, since bad seems to send me the idea of an ending that was poorly made...


Though of course, I would agree that most players do expect a happy ending. We always seem to seek a happy ending, not just in games.


IMHO, a somehow negative ending can also be a good precursor to a sequel... Like FFX, you somehow "saved" the world, but Tidus is gone with it so it's kinda anti-climactic. But then, because of that, X-2's story began.

 

[Shuji]

"You have to make the player feel like they're in control of the factors behind this bad ending"

I don't understand the meaning of this phrase, could you explain?

I read that thread and got some nice info, thank.

Anyway I wanted to explain that in the end the character doesn't go to the enemy's side by her free will. She get "indoctrinated", so she was forcefully taken to their side

 

[Andar]

Anyway I wanted to explain that in the end the character doesn't go to the enemy's side by her free will. She get "indoctrinated", so she was forcefully taken to their side

That will actually translate to the player as "I have lost the game", and if that is the only possible ending you'll get a reputation as "the developer whose's games are impossible to win".
And that is what the phrase about "in control of the ending" actually is about - the ending has to be the result of a player choice, even if all options are bad options - if the ending is forced upon the player, then a bad ending will always be seen as loosing the game.

 

[Shuji]

Yeah now that I think about it, it seems like losing. 

And what if I don't give player any option to choice? 

I mean there is a prefixed path, I won't give the player any choice during the game.

Hypotetically speaking, the main character does choice bad options, but it's still a prefixed path. would it be alright? 

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

That will actually translate to the player as "I have lost the game"

Now I seem to realize how close-minded we are as players... Especially to feel that way even if that was the intended ending all along.

 

[Shuji]

Yeah, why can't I just tell the story I have in mind? ahah

Probably I'll just go with 2 endings, in the first one I edit the ending to satify a little the player. And the 2, or "developer's real ending", where the player can see what I really had in mind as ending xD 

Even though I don't like this solution.

I'll see if doing the sad/negative ending works out before using that solution. 

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

you could maybe try it out first, then hand it to a few select people, preferably those with a lot of gaming experience and see what they think. :3