http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBcrTucxiRc&mode=related&search=

One thing about endings in this game is that I’m trying less for a success/failure approach and more for a neutral approach. I find a few reasonable points in the story where the game could potentially end (although there aren’t actually that many of them, since the game’s pretty short in and of itself) and explore what could potentially happen in such an ending, given the player’s choices. I’m attempting to stay away from implying moral judgements on such endings, though I’m sure that players themselves may like some outcomes better than others. When exploring ethics in an interactive form, I’ve learned that it’s more effective to allow for the player to make his or her own judgements and reflect on them rather than present a certain viewpoint as right or wrong as you would in a non-interactive storytelling medium.

Of course, whether I end up succeeding in this goal is a different story.

Great article again. I especially liked the stuff about the design document. Something I haven’t been great at. On the one hand, spending all that time ‘engineering’ a game/novel/whatever kind of takes the art/fun out of it. Like you say, it doesn’t leave much room for improvisation. Once I have the outline together I’d lose interest in actually WRITING the novel, etc… On the other hand, it really helps organize all that right brain activity. I think 3 pages is a great length. Good enough to be organized, but to leave room for all the fun stuff to go into the game.

I REALLY like the idea how the game can end (positively – a real ending) at several points in the game, but you can choose to go on. That’s kind of like combining the best of both worlds in the way that Sierra did things (dying was part of the fun, but a game ending failure) and Lucasarts (where you couldn’t die).

Looking forward to the next bit – and the game!