Multiple Endings

[Babar]

From as long as I can remember, "Multiple endings" have been a selling point or something praiseworthy in adventure games, but I've never quite understood why. The ways I have seen it done didn't seem to be good methods. Honestly, the only only "good" way I've seen it done isn't in adventure games; it is in those open-ended free-roaming RPGs that essentially give you total freedom anyhow, and I'm not sure how easily that could be applied to adventure games. The way adventure games do it seem to fall into 3 groups:

The first way, which I'm sure everyone can agree is a bit silly is everything going the same, and then right at the end, you have to make some sort of choice (through dialogue or some such thing), and then depending on that, your end cutscene/text is different.

Similar to the first way is one where the choices are in the middle of the game, or littered throughout, or hinging on something like whether you got a particular inventory item, or used it or such, and then depending on that, the end cutscene/text is different.

Finally, there is where the game forks out before the end, and you play a bit (or a lot), and then depending on which path you took, you get a different ending.

Now in the first and second case, it would be pretty silly to try to make it a selling point (although a number of non-adventure AAA games do just that even today). In the third case, perhaps it is because I've never seen it implemented properly, but it annoys me somewhat. The way I've seen it used is to provide "lesser endings" alongside the optimal ending. I've even seen this suggested (even on AGS) as a useful method of allowing variable puzzle difficulty: Someone solves the really difficult puzzle, they get the best ending. If they are unable to solve it, they get one of the secondary ending. I don't know about anyone else, but I am really not fond of this...it feels like a form of punishment, especially in some games where after the game is finished it gives a message like "You have completed the game on easy, you should now try completing it 'properly' for the 'proper' ending!".
Again, I can only speak for myself, but having just completed a game, being told (or seeing) that what I did was something lesser, I'm not usually in the mood to restart and go through most of the same game all over again till I get to the point of the fork to choose the different fork (this becomes an even more annoying problem when the fork is something like not having picked up a particular inventory item at one point, or not using it properly...something you might not even know).
The way I end up having to deal with this becomes an incredibly immersion breaking thing...if something pops up that appears to be a fork, usually in the form of a dialogue choice like "Do you want to do X or do you want to do Y?", I usually save (or more often load a slightly older game, get right before that point and save, because you can't save during dialogues), and then proceed. If I'm seeing signs of this being a "lesser path", I load and try the other. I realise fully that this isn't the way the game is supposed to be played, but why should I continue down a path in a game that I KNOW is going to be one of the lesser paths, and probably end with a less than optimal ending?

How do you deal with these multiple ending games? I've got to admit, replayability itself in adventure games isn't something that's worked on me, so I might not be the intended target for "multiple endings"..it took me almost 9 years, with long gaps inbetween to finish all three paths in Fate of Atlantis (although that was an example of multiple solutions, not multiple endings).
Perhaps I have missed out on some major adventure games that had proper multiple endings that didn't have one or two be the "good" ones and the rest be lesser endings. If so, please enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

Also, in the interest of honesty, I'm actually using the 2nd method I listed in my game , where a number of totally optional items, if picked up, will very superficially change the ending, but none of them in a negative way, unless you don't find any of the items at all, which would be difficult to do.

[Stupot]

I like the idea of multiple endings, but in practice, once I complete a game, I rarely go back and try again for different endings.  There have been exceptions where I have tried for all the endings (Ben Jordan 8 being a recent example), but that is only when the different choices have been obvious and I have saved in all the right places.

I just finished Myst for the first time last week (it was too hard for me when I first tried it).  This game gives you the feeling of choosing two different paths, by chosing whether to collect the blue or red pages from each Age, but in reality I took both paths by collecting all the blue AND red pages in the same playthrough and then just played out the different endings from a save point near the end.  Maybe that wasn't in the spirit of the game, but I wouldn't have been arsed playing through again just for the sake of some different coloured pages.  And then...

Spoiler

...it all becomes irrelevent anyway because the green book gives the best ending, which makes collecting the red and blue pages seem rather pointless in the end.

[close]

[Spummy]

I've never really enjoyed games with multiple-endings I've played, but I certainly get a bunch of reasons why they try.

There are two obvious player desires they can fulfill: Curiosity and Self-expression. The first one is quite obvious to understand: Wanting to see what would've happened under certain circumstances. The second one is actually a whole reason why some people play certain games; they want to express their own self or at least some fantasy of theirs in a fictional character. This is basically why WRPGs sell at all, and is the fundamental difference between WRPGs and JRPGS, and really why they're too separate thematic genres that share mechanics. But a key part of this self-expression is the player wanting to feel like their choices mean something or just doing things they want to. Remember that one NPC you just wanted to murder so you could stop having to deal with them, but the game wouldn't let you? Those moments lead to players wanting to express their own will and opinion upon the game world itself. Self-expression is also why RPGs can be quite irritatingly shallow and self-glorifying experiences; people want to play their own fantasy, and usually that fantasy will be an empowerment fantasy, so RPGs end up in the scenario where usually, your character can be amazing at everything and you slowly progress towards becoming basically a god.

Another really good usage is that if you're running a game where there is a theme of choice, particularly having to make hard choices. Then because games are best as narrative simulation rather than narrative depiction, it makes sense to make the player make tough decisions. ( I always hated "Be Gandhi or be Hitler" mechanics, there needs to be more "Pick what you think is the lesser of two evils" mechanics )

Another element that requires a lot of nonlinearity is that it can create a sense of a truly organic world. Where you can do anything (within some reasonable bounds), rather than have everything be an exactly picked sequence of events.

So really, the major reasons I can think for including multiple plot tangents are: curiosity, self-expression, thematic interest, or immersion.

However, I hate multiple endings on their own. I don't think just the ending changing is good for any of these elements. I think if you want to do any of these, the game should change quite extremely and go on very very different tangents from many different points in the plot, and the difference is apparent before the very end. It also greatly improves replayability if the game has entirely different plot points happen. But this requires a lot of effort to create a truly variant story.

But I agree, I'm not really a fan of using multiple endings to make one ending better than all the others. They should mostly just be different, but they can also be "better" of "worse" in different kinds of ways. I like the idea of there not being a single ending where you can get everything you want, you have to make sacrifices. Then don't tell or imply the player made a "bad" choice. Give them both the benefits of their choice, and the downsides, and let them evaluate if they're happy with the outcome. Using it to create "proper" endings just seems like an artificial way to draw out the game experience by trying to get them to play it again.

[Stupot]

Another factor is that it may appeal to people who fancy themselves as completionists.  If you tell them there are 5 endings, they are going to want to 'collect' all the endings.

Although having said that, I fancy myself as a completionist, in the sense that I like to click on every item and dialogue option possibly available, but this is also part of the reason why I generally don't replay games... I can't be arsed doing it all twice.

[CaptainD]

I'm not really very keen on multiple endings, to me they sometimes work in RPGs but I can't remember any instances of an adventure game where I felt they really worked well.  Not to say that they couldn't, but to make a game that was genuinely different in separate play-throughs would require enormous effort.  The only replay value I find in adventure games (as much as I love the genre) comes if I replay a game several years after I first completed it.  (The record is SoMI which I've played through 4 times, the final time using the Special Edition, each time with a gap of around half a decade - enjoyed it each time, although I enjoyed the SE less due to its terrible interface - kept switching back to classic mode anyway!)  Considering how much repetition there would have to be with even the most finely crafted adventure game with multiple endings, it would seem more sensible to spend the equivalent time making more than one game - although there's still part of me that would love to see the idea done really well.

One thing I DO like in adventure games - to me Zak McKraken was a good early example of this - is having puzzles that can be solved in more than one way.  It might be quite simple, it using different items to shift dirt (Bobby Piz sign or golf club) and optional things that didn't really affect the game (Use Antique Silver Butter Knife on Two-Headed Squirrel) - I'm going to try to incorporate this sort of idea in my own games, but even this can add a lot of extra work.

[Squinky]

I have a hard enough time making one ending for my games.

I'm pretty much with you guys, I don't want to totally replay a game for a new ending. Typically I just go youtube the other endings.  There are some caveats though, when it comes to my xbox 360. For some reason, I've replayed games to up my gamer score. Which really has no bearing at all on anything .

Games like Fallout 3 and New Vegas though, I can replay those all day.

[cat]

For multiple endings I strongly recommend The Vacuum. I have to admit I only played it once because I got a very good ending at the first try. What I did like about the game, is that you can change the ending on various occasions during the game and that it all depends on real decisions you make. I don't like it when just accidentally picking up an item (which is what you generally do in adventure games) changes the outcome.
I also did like the different modes of FoA (despite the fact that with every mode I got stuck in the maze on Crete).

On the other hand, I usually don't like when just one single action changes the game. Only in the Whispered World I really wanted to have an option to choose another ending, which wasn't there.

[Crimson Wizard]

I like multiple endings in RPG when there are numerous possible consequences to your actions in the end, like in Fallout serioes. It does not even matter if I am going to replay the game to see other endings, it just is very interesting to know how your actions change the world.

In adventure games I'd prefer to have two or more paths that have quite distinctive differences in the story, not just few missing score points. I am not an achievement-hunting type, and I usually just ignore minor bonuses.

[Trapezoid]

I'm not that fond of the idea of multiple endings. I think it undercuts the importance of one ending for there to be another. That's not always the worst thing, I guess, but I think if you've written your story well, the way it ends should feel like it's the only it way it could end.

[Armageddon]

To date I don't think anyone has done multiple endings properly, the main problem is that the game always tells you there will be multiple endings so you're worried about what you're going to get the entire time of playing. If you're going for a moral choice system to decide the endings do it right, just put it in based on what the player chooses to say, never tell the player he's choosing right or wrong. As Trapezoid said the ending has to actually feel like the only ending. Heavy Rain did multiple endings really well, but it still had the thing of, you knew there were multiple endings, they didn't tell you if the choices you make were going to be right or wrong like Mass Effect, but you still worried about what you were doing.

[Radiant]

I like the concept of multiple endings, but it is rarely done well. I like the idea of getting a normal ending, well, normally, and a special ending if you try really hard, for instance by beating the bonus boss (on the other hand, if "trying hard" means "pixelhunting for the 55 golden blurbles" then it gets rather annoying instead). I also like the idea of having different endings as a result of a meaningful choice made by the player, but this is a truckload of extra work for the scripters, so it's usually implemented either as an early ending where you just opt out of the rest of the story, or a simple binary choice at the end of the game.

I think multiple endings can work well in a short game (e.g. Errand in my signature). I'll also note that we've used two of the above in A Tale Of Two Kingdoms, which has a normal ending, three earlier endings where you step out of the plot, and a best ending that requires significant extra puzzle solving. While I like having written this feature, it has not received a lot of feedback; for the earlier endings I suspect that most players check them out, then simply restore to twenty seconds earlier, and play on.

Off the top of my head I can't remember any big games with true multiple endings. There's things like the Eleventh Hour (binary choice at the end), Ultima 7 (ditto), Planescape Torment (lots of character choice but the ending is practically the same), Abe's Oddyssey (extra cutscene for pixelhunting)... hm, I suppose the closest I can come up with is the often-imitated-never-equalled Maniac Mansion.

[Snarky]

There are some games that make multiple endings work. The Vacuum is one of them, The Pandora Directive another. And Blade Runner. Fate of Atlantis only has one "proper" ending (you're not gonna let Sophia die, are you?), but with three separate paths through much of the game it's practically three different games in one.

Back in the day I quite enjoyed multiple endings (replayability, bang for your buck and all that), but these days I'd usually rather just have the game be over with once I finish it.

Mostly I think you shouldn't do it unless you have a good reason. If your game involves a lot of branching paths, optional bits and bobs, and general non-linear design, then you might want separate endings to wrap up the different things that may have happened (The Vacuum is a good example of this). Some aspects of the ending could be emergent, for example, imagine a game where you have to escape from a prison, and have to pick a partner to help you, from among a group of NPCs. The person you pick will be with you at the end, causing different dialogue or what-have-you. I think this can be quite natural and non-intrusive use of multiple endings.

Or if there's some thematic reason, like in Blade Runner (the different endings partly reflect that the film itself has two different endings depending on the version, one of which was considered ambiguous, plus alternatives from earlier drafts, the book ending, etc.; it lets you craft your preferred Blade Runner). Similarly, The Pandora Directive lets you do the story in three different "styles" of detective pulp, from romantic hero to hardboiled anti-hero, and the endings reflect your chosen genre.

Like Spummy sort of said, I think it's a big problem with multiple endings that players will almost inevitably rank them from worst to best, and we've been conditioned to "win" every game (i.e. get the "best" ending). Though if each ending is elaborate enough, "winning" might become "get every ending" instead. In that case, I feel you should design the game so replaying isn't unnecessarily tedious, allowing people to get the other endings without wasting hours going through the same stuff again.

Anyway, I'm not absolutely against them, but as always, you should know what you're doing and why.

[Anian]

To date I don't think anyone has done multiple endings properly, the main problem is that the game always tells you there will be multiple endings so you're worried about what you're going to get the entire time of playing. If you're going for a moral choice system to decide the endings do it right, just put it in based on what the player chooses to say, never tell the player he's choosing right or wrong. As Trapezoid said the ending has to actually feel like the only ending. Heavy Rain did multiple endings really well, but it still had the thing of, you knew there were multiple endings, they didn't tell you if the choices you make were going to be right or wrong like Mass Effect, but you still worried about what you were doing.

Indeed.
Personally hate multiple endings...makes me feel like I didn't see all I could.

It's how you put it in. Say you integrate a system which, if you decide to solve puzzles the violent way (you brake a lock instead of "borrowing" a key, you  threaten a person instead of pleading/doing them a favour etc.), you get a certain number of points in a certain category. If you've chosen the "violent way" of solving puzzles (or it outweighs the non-violent times you solved a puzzle), when in the ending puzzle you have in your inventory a gun or a knife you can use them on the bad guy to wound/kill/hurt. On the other hand, if you've chosen the less violent way of solving puzzles, you won't be able to use the gun to kill, you have talk your way out or get into a fist fight. That might cause the death of the love interest of something, if you fail, but it might not.
That's like 3 different endings with a gameplay that player customed to his playstyle without even knowing it. It doesn't have to be a major issue, maybe a 20-30% of the puzzles can be solved in two different ways, that's probably enough.

I hate the the Blade Runner approach to endings because a bit too much depended on certain actions and I really had no idea of what I was actually doing (like what choices you did to make yourself a replicant, that's really on the whim of the game makers). It really should be a proper reflection of players actions where their personality/gameplay is reflected.

[Janos Ekdahl]

I feel that multiple endings as a concept is not inherently flawed, by they are impossible to execute well in a mainstream title.

• The worst offender is probably the good/bad system, which basically lumps every choice you make into a counter and never makes you feel as if any of them actually make a difference. With systems like this, you might as well save the effort and put a screen before the opening asking "Are you a neo-nazi or a christ-worshipper today?" for all the thought any of the audience actually puts into the decisions.
• The second worst are the endings where the outcome hinges on  one choice made (JC WHICH ONE OF US DO YOU LIKE MORE), making it feel as if everything you did in the game was pointless when the only influence you have on the story is in one section.
• the most aggravating though, is the one where you only get the super special "WINRAR" ending if you locate the 43 invisible screenwriter portraits hidden throughout the game, color-coded each of them based on the frequency of each color in the flags of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, take the 8th letter of the 3rd sentence in each paragraph of the walkthrough, read them backwards 3 times, and sacrifice a well-to-do family in tribute to the outer god Nyarlathotep.

    My advice is that if you want to put multiple endings in a game, NEVER make any one of them objectively better than the other. I would like to, daft as the analogy may seem, compare the philosophy of film to that of interactive media. To use an example, in ROTK, the ending is just another of those stereotypical "heroes win, villains lose, everyone is happy" affairs, which I always thought was a bit insulting to the audience after the gritty and melancholic tone established gradually over time. This, however, is a biased, subjective opinion. However, If you want to translate a story like this into game form, do not put a "good ending, bad ending" system in to give the game variety. Something like this would need a linear storyline, and giving the player choice is just going to make them want to get all the "right decisions," instead of the ones they actually want to make. How many people do you really think finished the final mission of ME2 and went "well, that was awfully tragic. Best not to save scum so I can preserve the integrity of my individual experience!"
    If you do want to include some depressing endings in your game because you feel it would better fit the overall tone, be careful to make them all equally (un)satisfying, and be extra careful to not make it seem as if any choices seem "better" than others. The mood could also benefit from having multiple choices all leading to similar outcomes, adding a feeling of helplessness and depressed contentment. In "Bicycle Thieves," a man losing his means of work exhausts every possible option in the pursuit of a already meager salvation that, as the film goes on, becomes increasingly clear is now unattainable. Still you follow his journey, hoping that any sort of positive outcome might come against all logic or reality of the universe, until the film ends predictably with all of the man's efforts in vain. A game could take the concept of Italian Neorealism and make it even more powerful, by putting you in the shoes of someone less fortunate so you may experience the monotony and lack of control anyone has over any of their day-to-day lives, despite all efforts to improve their situation. At this point in time, though, I feel games should focus on making more thought-provoking and meaningful experiences before they even attempt to again try to insert nonlinearity and other such unique concepts into games.

[Armageddon]

The best multiple ending game ever? Braid, because the endings actually said something about what you did and there were no moral choices involved.

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

Multiple endings always make me glad.
replayed Monkey Island I don't know how many times, sometimes just to get the slightly different endings (I wonder what happens if I don't sink the ship??). Radiant, I really like how Tale of Two Kingdoms worked, was totaly impressed.. the multiple solutions to puzzles was the very well pulled off, the side stories and multiple endings that hinged on those puzzles made it a great game! the early endings were made it pretty clear that I had lost (or not won I guess) so I kept playing to get the real victory.. Even adventure gamers want to win, don't be so cynical guys.

[Charity]

Hope it's not too late to post in this thread.

In my experience a lot of endings in games feel a bit lackluster.  Maybe I "spoiled" myself as a teenager playing triple A JRPGs with their flashy three hour boss battles followed by 40 minutes of FMVs and dialogue showcasing the fates of everyone and their mom, as it were.  Not that I want that for Adventure Games (or RPGs for that matter, although sometimes it worked pretty well).  Too many games, though--especially Indie adventures--end rather abruptly.  A tiny bit of post-climactic dialogue, some narration summarizing the fates of the characters, maybe a little slideshow if we are lucky.  Sometimes this is what is called for.  Adventure games tend to be fairly short with small casts, and don't necessarily call for a lot of denouement (i.e. winding down).  Still I think endings are important.  It's what you are leaving the player with, after all.  I'd like to see them treated with as much care and enthusiasm as any other key element.  I don't like parroting the "show don't tell" mantra, but I think it's relevant here.  Give us some more scenes.  Maybe some playable bits, even.

In my experience games (especially Indie games) with multiple endings tend also to be the games whose endings are the most spartan.  Obviously, there's a good reason for this.  Optional content is more work and well integrated optional content with real consequences is A LOT more work.  The result is that multiple endings tend to detract from each other, unless people are willing and able to put in a lot of extra hours.

I loved the Vacuum, and I think it's a great example of nonlinearity done right on a budget, but it definitely suffers from this.  So do Ben Jordan, A Tale of Two Kingdoms, and Primordia, in my opinion.  It happens in commercial games, too.  I was underwhelmed with Indigo Prophecy's endings, relative to the spectacle that was the rest of the game.

(I actually think it sort of worked in Resonance, though.)

I think in many ways multiple endings actually work better when they are an afterthought.  A game with one satisfying ending can become a game with one satisfying ending PLUS a few frivolous nods to optional puzzle solutions (like Secret of Monkey Island) or a game with one satisfying ending PLUS a few "failure," "what if," or "opt-out-early" endings for kicks.  I rarely feel like these really detract from the overall experience (although arguably the climax may not be the best place for them).  It's sort of like playing King's Quest games to collect the cute death animations.  I felt like the JRPG Chrono Trigger accomplished this fairly successfully (on replaying, you could challenge the main boss at different points in the story for a number of brief, sort of quirky endings that fit loosely with the game's time travel theme, but there was one really complete ending that you got for playing the whole story plus the major end-game sidequests, though it had some variations as well).

Obviously neither of those fulfills the full promise of a game with "multiple endings" or "real consequences for your choices."  For creators of those types of games, I recognize the choice between somewhat lackluster endings or putting in exponentially more work on an already complex product is not an easy one, and I certainly don't want to see these works disappear from the indie adventure scene.  But for games with a strong, more or less linear story focus, I think extra endings should be developed only inasmuch as they do not detract from the main ending.

[MiteWiseacreLives!]

And WOW, Bump. I thought I killed this thread with boring posting a month ago!

[Blackthorne]

Best multiple ending ever?  Space Quest II!  Just type cheat!


Bt