It’s been a long time since I’ve done a Blogs of the Round Table post. This month’s topic is dénouements:

How can the denouement be incorporated into gameplay? In literary forms, it is most often the events that take place after the plot’s climax that form your lasting opinion of the story. A well constructed denouement acts almost as a payoff, where protagonists and antagonists alike realize and adjust to the consequences of their actions. Serial media often ignored the denouement in favor of the cliffhanger, in order to entice viewers to return. Television has further diluted the denouement by turning it into a quick resolution that tidily fits into the time after the final commercial break.

But the denouement is most neglected in video games where it is often relegated to a short congratulatory cut scene, or at most–a slide show of consequences. This month’s topic challenges you to explore how the denouement can be expressed as gameplay.

Now, as many of you no doubt know, I’m a big proponent of interactively exploring the consequences of one’s actions. I’ve even written an entire game around that subject! That said, the mention of a lack of a dénouement was what piqued my interest about this topic the most; in fact, it reminded me of a post I wrote two years ago on unresolved endings, particularly as they pertain to slice-of-life stories.

But wait! There’s more…