All of the games that I have played over the years have typical hollywood endings, the only expetion I can come up with now is Half-life. Allmost all games end in this manner, the hero gets the princess and half the kingsdom. Couldn''t you have a cool ending like in some movies, or doesn''t this work in games? The ending in Half-life is kinda cool, but when I had finnsihed the game after hours of playing I hated the ending, "What the f**k is this?" I thought, it seemed that I had been playing the game i vain... When you haved died a hundreds times in a game and finally complete it, and you just die in the ending, it is not so very fun. Can''t you do cool and "unhappy" happy endings in games? Does it spoil the whole gaming experience for the player? ------- Me Hardguy. and here is my game...

If the ending got to you, was it wasted?
You''ll remember the Half-Life ending more than you will remember ANY "you rescued the princess and had lots of babies together" endings. It might have been frustrating, but maybe that''s what the designers were aiming for.



Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
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In any game where there has been a negative conclusion I have liked it. If there is a "positive" conclusion as well, I always like the negative one more. Hollywood can bite my genitalia.

BTW, you want a good ending? Panzer Dragoon Saga. That game is consistantly amazing... Yes, it holds up to "landfish" standards...

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"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates

"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt

Hi there !
What did you do to die in the Half-Life ending ?
I know you can get dispatched of by just waiting, but you could also walk through that yellow-greenish teleporter thingie to get to a new employment ( HalfLife 2? ).
I think the main cause for good endings is that the developers want to keep a door open for a possible squeel, for which it wouldn''t be so smart if the main characters died. Ok, Diablo is an exception, as the hero of the first part became the manifest of evil in the second. Another exception is the Lufia series for the SNES where you''d in the second part lead a party which was to get killed at the beginning of the first.
Ok, thats it,
Pestilence

Hah, actually, the ending in Halflife was the most noteworthy event, the rest just reeked Hollywoodiana.

Actually v2.0, it is very interesting to analyze just WHAT you remembered from any given game. For example:

Halflife: Bizarre ending, intense fights with the marines, sound ambience.
Doom: Wide open landscapes, hellish symbolics, armies of monsters, music.
Unreal: Nuffin. Everything was soo bland.

This is something that has always botherd me. I hate playing my ass of in a game, and then I get a "Congraturations" message, AND I have to reset my f**king NES.

Ahem...anyway. I think that regardless of the neg/pos of the ending, it needs to finish the story well (at least enought to allow for a sequel if desired). This should include making the player want more game, giving a feeling of closeur, and possibly making the player/char bond grow one last time. And don''t ruin a good game with a bunk ending, please (Fallout 1).

"What do you mean I have to leave? DO YOU SEE THIS MAN-SIZED CHAINGUN IN MY HAND?????"

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

My favourite endings are confusing one''s like Terminator 2 where you don''t know what is going to happen.

I hate (dead) end-ings to games especially if i was enjoying it, i would prefer it if it just came up with the stupid two words and reset the game back to windows or whatever. If an ending is sh*t then don''t have one! Period.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

If once, just once, there was an ending as good as a Philip K Dick''s book, I''d worship it for such game goodness. (Think, UBIK, think Blade Runner, think Total Recall ... he wrote them.)

But a twist at the end for a game might be the most difficult thing on earth . What about playing Bruce Willis in a 6th Sense computer game ?

The problem with an ending is that you have to stop ... so the question really is, do you want to make it open so that the playe is expecting something more to come ("I''ll be back !") Or do you make something a bit more like a Scoobidoo episode ("And so the ghost really was Mr Doe, the owner, and all those mysteries wher e just tricks, and ...")
Maybe we should look at the X-Files and the way they can make it last for years, and years, and years, oh my god ...

I think I''ll go and read some articles about story telling again.

youpla :-P

I find it kind of ironic when people ask for complex, less predictable endings yet they still believe that endings fall into the simple categories of positive and negative or good and bad.

Endings, like in good movies, should be full of imagery, metaphors, and general "tying up loose ends" material. Often a "bad" ending can affect a player more by making them think, but unless it is in origin thought-provoking, the ending is just disappointing. Often gamedesigners like to skip the process of putting thought in their endings and they go for:

1) The standard good ending mentioned in the first post.

2) A bad, "disturbing" ending that is supposed to make the player feel something special.

When you see a good ending, to a movie or a game, you KNOW it, and I have found very few that truly uplifted/affected me. Even in my favorite games. In the games I make (or make that: in the game I''m making) I am trying my hardest to make a meaningful ending, because I feel that it can greatly alter a player''s perspective on the entire game.

Anywho, just my $.02

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Changing the future of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive

A good ending needs a good story, and the best endings are just natural extensions of the story they are concluding. I prefer my endings, good or bad, to be interactive (in lieu of cinematic, which is what most endings are these days). I think the player should play every bit the role in the ending as they did in the rest of the game. It''s more rewarding to interactively reap the benefits of your accomplishments (or the consequences, depending on the situation) then to just sit there and watch a cool cutscene.

Landfish: I find it... interesting (to be kind) that one would always like a negative outcome over the positive ones. I stubbornly resist wondering what, if anything, that says about one''s character and personality.

Aversion: I couldn''t find the word Hollywoodiana in my dictionary.