> Of course, you wouldn't want to make a "losing" ending short and unsatisfying; it should have the same buildup and climactic energy given to its tragedy as a traditional win has for its positive ending. I'm not really even sure I'd want to implement this feature into the game design on which I'm currently working, but I might play with it in the future, or someone else might incorporate the idea into their own design. I'd just like to get Sam's feedback, since he might want to suggest some guidelines for using a "player loses" ending that would help to avoid an unsatisfactory playing experience.

My thoughts on multiple endings: there is a major problem in that you have no control over where you save. In a traditional game with more than one ending, I find myself playing from several saved games, thus allowing me to see the various endings with a minimal amount of replaying parts. With AGL, you don't have that luxury. If you were you going to have a "bad" or "tragic" ending, it would be sort of upsetting because it would mean playing through the game again up to the point where the path of play branches into more than one ending.

I just thought of a possible way around this dillema. Just use the lose feature creatively. Let's say you had five different endings. Now, instead of having there be one "good" ending, let all five of them be different in style, so there's no one right conclusion. Instead of using the win command for any of these, use lose. It displays a long, drawn out and satisfying conclusion, along with the ability to undo that last move. However, upon getting any ending, there is a global variable that gets incremented by one. And at every place that features one of your endings, there is a conditional that checks the global variable. If it shows that the variable is at a number so that every other ending has been seen, it then goes to win.

That was all very confusing. Let me show you a few examples. First, check out a possible snippet of code from one of the endings (the underscores represent tabs, this message board does not allow for spacing):

* end Get one of the Endings
______ v 1 + 1
______ c v1=5
____________ p "Here is the ending."
____________ w
_____ p "This is the same ending."
_____ l

See how that works? It gives the player the option of seeing all five of your endings, and then after he/she has seen the last one, they go to the Hall of Fame. Might be an idea. Of course, this means that you have to write a game that allows it to be finished multiple ways, while still being able to go back and finish it another way. Eck, I can't explain it too well again. It'll work best with an example. Here's a possible game scenario:

The goal is to get treasure. Your ending depends on what sort of treasure you get. There are maybe four or five big jewels, but you can only take one of them, and each one comes with a different ending. The Ruby of Eternal Flame is gotten by journeying through a fiery dungeon, and upon taking it you turn into a fire elemental. Or the Cursed Diamond of Al'Serat is buried deep within a tomb, and when you get that you become a powerful Necromancer. The important thing to note is that each ending is not decided until one final action; you can go through the fire dungeon up to the treasure chest, and then go back and explore the tomb. And if you do take the ruby, you can undo the move and go for a different jewel. The game ends once you have seen each ending (and gotten each jewel, although you didn't _really_ get any but one).

Sort of a weird concept, but I'm sort of against the idea of having to start a whole new game to see the other endings. I dunno...


>
> Is anyone else out there working on AGL game designs? Any tasty hints or other morsels you'd care to drop here in the Forum, triggering a Pavlovian response from the AGL enthusiasts? :-)
>
> Iss

One bit about my game: StinkWorks Swamp.