Game Over Theory

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Ceilick
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Game Over Theory

Post by Ceilick »

This is inspired by Levellass' recent comment that the 'game over' condition can be changed.

Here's my first question: Does the "Game Over" sequence in Keen games have any meaning or value?

It seems to me there is some value in having a game over system of some kind, that the player have a fear, or some emotional reaction, to the idea of 'losing', something stronger than just dying and being stuck on a level. A big "Game Over" image has a lot of impact, even if the player can start over or reload a saved game.

The problem is, with the way the save game feature works in all episodes of Keen, players almost never witness it. So much saving a loading is going on that the player may not even let themselves lose a life over the course of the game.

But there's one, brilliant in my opinion, instance of the game over mechanic. Keen 2. Keen flipping the Tantalus switch and immediately triggering a game over is thematic and gives the player the full impact of losing. It's unexpected, the player isn't likely to repeat it unless they're careless, and the player can load a game to before they flipped the switch, but it's there and it's immediate (unlike running out of lives).

Back to Levellass' idea, changing the conditions of the game over, here's my second question: If the game over is valuable and not dependent on player lives, what are some conditions which reflect a valuable game over?
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Gridlock
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Post by Gridlock »

Hmm. This doesn't exactly answer your post but I'll say it anyway. I can't think of any unique game over situations like in Keen 2, but I think game overs would have been justified in Keen Galaxy if the saving/loading system and lives system worked differently. If checkpoints were used frequently in levels but saving/loading was deactivated, then the player would be able to spawn from a checkpoint when they die, thus losing a life. A game-over would be a failure to complete a level, but the player would retain all world map progress. I'm sure this system would have plenty of flaws, but at least it would justify lives and game overs. If anyone figures out how to do checkpoints in Keen Vorticons, this would probably work well.
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Post by levellass »

This is how it's handled in Jazz Jackrabbit 1 (Except once you G.O. you can choose to resume... huh...)

Most 'traditional' games I saw around Keen's era tended to behave like Keen 1-3; saving was limited (Or even absent) so that while you could save your progress in limited locations you couldn't 'save scum' and play a section over and over until you beat it. You at least had to do a level perfectly before you could save again.

While this works in Keen 1-3, in Keen Galaxy it is a bit short-circuited; you can save scum and this takes from the impact of the G.O. somewhat. you really only bump into it by surprise, it took quite some time before i found Keen 5's impressive G.O.

As such a G.O. in Keen Galaxy at least needs to be far more impressive. It either has to have more visual impact (Keen 2's earth destruction sequence) or it needs to have more significance. (That is, be more accessible, in Keen 2 many would have come across this when innocently flicking that Tantalus switch for the first time, and later, by accident.) Keen 2 does both of these.

Biomenace is another interesting example in that it is one of the first games I remember with a 'bad ending'; if you didn't place the bomb the ending shows you eventually died and everyone lost out.

As such I think In Keen it would be nice to have an 'instant' G.O. that was avoidable, but still a threat.

Keen 2 and 5 also have multiple endings, which is also exploitable; a Keen 5 mod could easily demand the player do something to get a good end (Fail to end the game with Keen's ship unlocked, he's stuck on an exploding station. Fail to exit with enough ammo for Keen to fight his way out, or without defeating the secret boss level...)

In theory it's possible to make multiple endings for other Keen's too, if you have a good enough codemaster on your payroll, it would be interesting to see.
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

The Myst series is worth a look in this regard. There are all sorts of endings. The first game has a classic ending where you can enter the D'ni linking book too early and get trapped forever with Atrus. Awkward... Or (IIRK--it's been liek a decade since I played that :00) you can link into his sons' prison books and grant their escape.

I like the idea of a game having the possibility of a game over despite having infinite lives. Definitely worth playing with. Or even just different endings with varying degrees of success/morality, as with Myst III. So you can technically complete the game, but the resulting story line makes you look like a jerk.
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ckguy
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Post by ckguy »

The thing in Keen 5 with the Korath III fuse could theoretically be used to create two very different endings, though in the game the destroyed-the-fuse ending is sort of a 'joke'/'easter egg' ending. ('Double parking'. What.) I'm envisioning some sort of Keen 5 mod where maybe getting to the Korath III fuse is as hard as or harder than getting to the QED machine. Maybe the fuse is for the backup system, and if you explode the QED machine without breaking the fuse, it automatically triggers a band ending, and Mortimer rigs Keen in a Clockwork Orange chair and makes him watch My Little Ponies forever, or whatever. I don't really know where I'm going with this. Um.

But anyway in my Keen 5 levelpack, I had started to implement endings for having destroyed and not having destroyed the fuse, endings that differed from one another in a non-trivial way. What I have so far of these two endings can be seen in the latest released version - from September 2007 :-0.

I also enjoy things like in Portal where you've had this whole structure of the number of testchambers left, etc., so you feel like you know exactly how far through the game you are, and all of a sudden Surprise there is like a whole second half of the game. This might be kind of hard to pull off, patching-wise, since everyone knows about how many levels are in Keen mods, and knows about what the finishing requirements are. But anything like this would be interesting to see played out, I think.

Anyway, this was a bit of an incoherent ramble, and maybe not right on-topic. But I just feel like if the whole game seems like it's leading up to a certain endpoint, and the obvious action at that point brings about a surprise bad ending, and there is still a ways to go in the game to get to the happy ending, is interesting. It's been said a zillion times by other people on these forums, but losing all of your lives causing and endgame is not a very harsh penalty really. (Bring on the infinite lives, lose-your-score-for-that-level-if-you-die patch, etc. etc.)
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Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

Let's refocus here: the subject is how to make the midgame "Game Over" relevant in the face of save scumming and potentially in the face of infinite lives. All these ideas about alternate paths to the endgame, or alternate endgames, while interesting, deserve their own topic.
Gridlock wrote:If checkpoints were used frequently in levels but saving/loading was deactivated, then the player would be able to spawn from a checkpoint when they die, thus losing a life. A game-over would be a failure to complete a level, but the player would retain all world map progress. I'm sure this system would have plenty of flaws, but at least it would justify lives and game overs. If anyone figures out how to do checkpoints in Keen Vorticons, this would probably work well.
I've had a couple of ideas regarding defeating save scumming:

1. If check points are used, Keen could lose a life every time he returns to a checkpoint, and on game over, perhaps the player can load their progress on the world map up just prior to the level they got the game over in.

2. If every time a player loads their game, the lives counter carries over and loses 1 for every time a save is loaded.

3. If the player is limited to a certain number of save slots that cannot (easily) be overwritten.
Levellass wrote:Most 'traditional' games I saw around Keen's era tended to behave like Keen 1-3; saving was limited (Or even absent) so that while you could save your progress in limited locations you couldn't 'save scum' and play a section over and over until you beat it. You at least had to do a level perfectly before you could save again.
This doesn't necessarily prevent save scumming, just limits it. Players can still load their game each time they die and restart a level, preventing a game over from ever occurring.
Levellass wrote:It either has to have more visual impact (Keen 2's earth destruction sequence) or it needs to have more significance. (That is, be more accessible, in Keen 2 many would have come across this when innocently flicking that Tantalus switch for the first time, and later, by accident.) Keen 2 does both of these.
While visual impact is motivation for getting a game over, and will have importance depending on the frequency of game overs, I don't think having an impressive one is sufficient for our goals. Accessibility is key, and the current 'run out of lives' scheme just isn't very accessible, particularly with a save system which we don't necessarily want to remove. Being able to save your game is good! So we need to rethink how lives are related to the game over and whether they should be at all and opt for infinite lives.
Levellass wrote:As such I think In Keen it would be nice to have an 'instant' G.O. that was avoidable, but still a threat.
Well put, this is exactly what I was trying to get at.
CommanderSpleen wrote:I like the idea of a game having the possibility of a game over despite having infinite lives. Definitely worth playing with.
This is how I'm thinking as well, at least in terms of Keen Vorticons.

So what avoidable, but still threatening conditions for this can we brainstorm? Lets assume Keen has infinite lives and the ability to save.

Some ideas:

Keen 1: if Keen misses one of the ship parts in a level and exits that level, instant Game Over

Keen 1-6: if Keen doesn't exit the level with all four keys, instant Game Over

Keen 1: if keen misses the pogo item and exits the level, instant Game Over

Keen 3: if Keen exits a level without Ankh Power (or vice verse), Instant Game Over

Keen 1: If keen misses the yorp message and exits the level, instant game over

Keen 1: If keen gets the yorp message, instant game over

Keen 1-6: If Keen doesn't have enough ammo or points when exiting a level, game over
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Post by levellass »

While visual impact is motivation for getting a game over, and will have importance depending on the frequency of game overs, I don't think having an impressive one is sufficient for our goals. Accessibility is key, and the current 'run out of lives' scheme just isn't very accessible, particularly with a save system which we don't necessarily want to remove. Being able to save your game is good! So we need to rethink how lives are related to the game over and whether they should be at all and opt for infinite lives.
I wasn't saying visual impact should be the ONLY criteria, but it helps. (I remember here an ad for Crash bandicoot asked 'How many ways can you die?') The Keen 5 G.O. was indeed awesome as was Keen 2's, and that counts for something. However I think K2's had more impact, because it was more accessible.

he thing in Keen 5 with the Korath III fuse could theoretically be used to create two very different endings, though in the game the destroyed-the-fuse ending is sort of a 'joke'/'easter egg' ending.
We can change the criteria, it needn't be the fuse but something more mundane, as stated above. Or something more obvious. The idea would be to move the two other endings of Keen5 (And we can make more endings should we wish.) from easter eggs to something you're likely to encounter.

The easiest thing would be multiple end texts; it's almost trivial to replace other game texts with new ending texts triggered by different levels being done (Or in different ways, like fuses.)

I'm thinking something like four fuse levels. Keen gets 1. bad end Mort kills him. Gets 2, the ship is crippled and Keen gets away, but Mort will still win in the end. Three, Keen wins. Four Keen escape the exploding ship just, and is hailed as a daring hero.
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

Could also do something like the oxygen pump in Crystal Caves. Similar concept to the tantalus lever, except you have to shoot something instead of flick a switch. It needn't even be a game over as such, just an interesting animation.
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Post by lemm »

A big, "Game Over" message is particularly taunting if you've been replaying the same level for the last half hour.


I guess it doesn't serve any practical purpose in terms of game play, but if the game just spontaneously flipped to the watch or the high scores after you expended your last life, wouldn't the transition seem rather abrupt, like something was missing?
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