What do you want to see in an AGS game?

[Andail]

Well said, Progzmax. Today's society in large equals happy with good. If the ending isn't cheerful, people seem to feel fleeced of their money, as if they paid for the happiness.

[ManicMatt]

It's called CLOSURE!

I'm not ashamed to admit I want a happy ending of some kind with most games! Because not only do I want to feel like all my hard work was rewarded with a good ending, but because to end on a sad note makes me feel annoyed! If I had got a sad ending because during the game I had made awful decisions I can live with that, and play the game again. But if it's like that PSone game Apocolypse with Bruce Willis where at the end he gets taken over by the devil and becomes evil and it ends like that, and it's the ONLY ending, well that just takes the piss.

[Erenan]

C'est la vie, man. But I'm sorry games treat you so poorly sometimes. :'(

[LimpingFish]

Happy ending or not doesn't really enter into the equation for me. I simply want an ending. Period.

Too many games leave the door open for a sequel, which is fine if the sequel actually gets made. Beyond Good and Evil, I'm looking in your direction!

Too many games simply have a "Player crawls out of the hole/temple/mansion into the glory of the morning sun!" type deal, followed by the credits. That's an ending, sure, but it's not very satisfying after all the effort it took to get there.

With episodic gaming, endings have mostly become vague cliffhangers. Which, again, is fine if they get the chance to be resolved.

I too like closure. For this reason all Resident Evil endings suck, being as they are a mix of cliffhanger and "morning sun" rehashes.

MGS 2 doesn't so much end as just stop. MGS 3 does a better job, although since the upcoming Portable Ops seems to continue past this ending, it's slightly undermined.

Some games have a "Here we go again!" last minute double ending. The story ends, but, oh no, they missed some dude from the first level and here he comes! Credits!

Most games seem to just run out of story.

CREDITS!

[blueskirt]

I tend to value cheerful endings just a tiny little bit more than negative ones because I'm from a culture that lost all its wars, failed most of its revolutions and tend to produce castrating stories with a big dose of despair and defeatism in them, sometimes I'm tired of watching movies made here where the heroes end up executed and the innocents turned into martyr.

However a mediocre good ending can be as much of a failure as a mediocre bad ending. Good or bad outcome, endings are better if they are funny or emotionnal, if they make you think, if they fit, if they are well narrated and well told, if they are not rushed, if they have a twist or something you did not expect, or simply if there is something that make you say "cooooOOOOOOooool.". I guess that's why I personally prefered the good ending of Mind's Eye over the bad ending.

[Babar]

I don't think I said that I wanted a happy ending, but as ManicMatt, it's about closure. A sad, bittersweet, whatever ending is great, as long as it's an ENDING. I'm not too sure about the "Type of ending=How much effort you put into the game" theory. I admit, I'm not all that great at solving most adventure game puzzles, but I'd rather be given the chance to achieve the complete ending than to unknowingly be put down the lesser path. That's like some sort of purposely designed walking dead. In my eyes, a more preferrable "punishment" (because that's what it seems to me) for lack of effort on the part of the player would be to kill of the player directly (or a few scenes ahead).

[Ali]

*Ali sidesteps the 'happy endings' debate and cuts in*

What I'm looking for is just some idea of what sort of adventure game you like.

I'd be careful asking this question. If I'd asked the forums, "Do you want yet ANOTHER pirate game, this time about my girlfriend" I would have got a resounding, "No, do something more original, you hairy moron."

I made Nelly Cootalot (see signature) because I knew that the person I made it for would like it, and some AGSers have enjoyed it too. If I asked the forums now what my next game should be, I reckon at least a few people would suggest another Nelly game, when I might be saying to myself, "No, do something more original, you hairy moron."

As someone who's only made one short game, I'm by no means an authority on this sort of thing. I just felt it was worth underlining the argument that you should make a game that you want, inspired by your influences.

But, to answer your question, I like the kind where you have to combine hundreds of zany items in your inventory, and you have to solve puzzles without knowing why.

[m0ds]

you have to combine hundreds of zany items in your inventory, and you have to solve puzzles without knowing why.

Sounds like my experience with Myst

Happy endings sell & will always be the favoured majority, and hopefully so, too! It'd be a pretty depressing world if all the media focussed on defeat & gloom. But the fact happy-endings saturate it all means when a good game or movie with a negative ending comes out, it really has an impact. Plus it just makes sense in most cases. A dark ending to Nelly Cootalot would have been incredibly head-fudging! It has closure too, which I think is great for any game or film because it allows a sequel to take a completely new direction if necessary I do though want to know if Noctropolis has a happy ending or a bad/dark ending, because it's a pretty weird dark game!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Play Noctropolis and find out!

Also:

but I'd rather be given the chance to achieve the complete ending than to unknowingly be put down the lesser path.

Who is to say the negative ending is the 'lesser' path, though?

[Erenan]

If the negative ending leaves the player worse off than the positive ending, then won't the player feel as though he has failed in some way? The player might feel as though he lost. What Babar appears to me to be saying is that the positive ending is better for the player (or player character), not necessarily better in terms of artistic quality.

[InCreator]

What do you want to see in an AGS game?

Quality.

Scratch those 100 quick-mspaint-horror-backgrounds and make 10 seriously-tried-hard ones.
Delay with fame another week/month and beta test it through and through.
If you can't get some people to make professional speech, skip it.

And so on. The worst thing about AGS games - especially if you're making some yourself - is to see how someone half-assed a game, and wasted really good idea, puzzles and story.

[Tartalo]

I just found this article about multilinearity by Emily Short:
http://emshort.wordpress.com/writing-if/my-articles/multilinear-if-older/
I think you will find most of the blog quite interesting.

If you don't know Emily's work and want to, I recommend the game City of Secrets

Edit:
Another interesting article about adventure creation, by Graham Nelson:
http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/info/Craft.Of.Adventure.txt

Graham Nelson is the author of Inform (So to say, THE text adventure making tool) and games like Curses! and Jigsaw