"Second Chance" System?

[Ghost #9]

In my daily (hourly, random interval, etc.) brainstorming session for an upcoming project of mine, I began thinking about the fact that the storyline for this particular project is pretty high stakes. The protagonists are on the run from very early on and they are very rarely completely safe throughout the entirety of the game. The world is a hostile environment due to an ongoing conflict, and the protagonists are highly sought after targets. The point of all of this is that I began considering an idea for the possibility of encountering a bad ending fairly close to the beginning of the game. But along with that came the assumption that this would undoubtedly irk some players. I imagine that once said players are fully immersed in the game's storyline, this is something they'd know to keep an eye out for and would save accordingly. However, I don't particularly want to annoy my players with unexpectedly early defeat.

This lead to a couple of different possibilities. The first was that I could merely warn players at some point before the start of the game. A literal box of some sort that gives a brief warning to players that failure lurks around every corner and to keep their guard up. This seemed a little...I don't know. Bland? Too direct? Either way, I wasn't particularly fond of the idea.

My second consideration was much more interesting. I thought up a system in which players could essentially redo a scene. I imagined including options to turn this off completely, have it only active on the first playthrough, or to have it permanently active. It would be disable-able from the Preferences menu at any point during the game.
To go into a bit more detail, I thought perhaps there could be something like a skipable mini tutorial at the beginning of the game describing the option to activate Second Chance and what it does, as well as some other bits of gameplay (of note, this game will definitely include puzzles and might include a couple of RPG elements). Second Chance would not apply to every scene, but what would happen during those scenes in which it does apply would be that whatever options the player chose would play out to completion (i.e. an ending or other undesirable outcome), and either the scene would automatically go back to the point where the path of no return began, or the option to return would flash somewhere on the screen. This Second Chance system might also apply to plot-important puzzles (or battle scenes, if the RPG bits are ultimately included).

Now that that extensive explanation is out of the way, here are my questions:

1) If a game included a feature such as this, would you use it?
2) Does this feature seem too immersion-breaking?
3) If your answer to the above is "yes", would it make a difference if this system made some sort of sense within the plot?
4) What is your general opinion on this feature?
5) Do you think there even NEEDS to be any sort of warning or "second chance" feature just because the game might be a bit more difficult than usual?
6) Do you just prefer games that are easier or have very few or at least spread out bad endings?
7) Along the same grain as the above, do you perhaps think there just shouldn't be the possibility of getting an ending early on in the game?

There was also actually a third consideration that included something more like an "escape" system. For example, let's say the protagonist is captured in some way that would have led to a bad ending. Instead of the game ending, there could be something that the player can do to get out of the situation, whether by puzzle or battle or the right combination of button presses. My biggest problem with this is that it could become repetitive (if, for whatever reason, the player gets into bad situations often). I suppose it depends on how it's implemented, though. Any opinions on this would also be appreciated!

[RotGtIE]

This sounds like an auto-save function that creates and opens saved files for the player at the conclusion of a bad end. I see three problems with this. The first is that any player is going to manually save at every decision point anyway, making this feature redundant. The second is that not all bad ends result from the most recent decision point (Fate/Stay Night's Heaven's Feel route is an example of this), and it might complicate things to automate a system which tries to unravel the player's mistakes and bring them back to the most recent point at which they could undo those errors. The third problem is that a combination of decisions may result in a good or neutral ending, but not the best ending, and automated systems are in general pretty bad at making decisions for players when there is more than one route to take (in this case, does the automated system take the player back only far enough for them to avoid an overtly bad ending, or does it opt to revert all of their decisions which took them away from the best ending? Maybe a player doesn't want to be led away from the best ending, or maybe the player doesn't want to backtrack that far because they aren't aiming for the best ending on their first playthrough.)

If it were up to me, I would recommend focusing on the quality of the story and all of its endings, rather than on game mechanics which emphasize success and failure conditions. Bad endings are often worth reading anyway, as rather than being an outright "fail condition," they can be used to explore a part of the setting or its characters in a way which is only possible if they take a path that is ultimately undesirable for one or more parties involved, or unpleasant for the audience to witness. In Katawa Shoujo, you can actually miss some pretty powerful CGs and scenes if you only play your way through the routes that lead to good ends. In Fate/Stay Night, if you avoid every bad end, you will miss the comical Taiga Dojo scenes, and some "bad" decisions during the Fate route lead to fun and silly scenes of dialogue between Saber and Shirou, which don't necessarily lead to a bad end unless you try choosing them all.

Furthermore, if you as the writer choose to perceive bad endings or fail conditions as wholly undesirable, that may leak into your writing style and may have a negative effect on your enthusiasm for writing those scenes. Their quality may drop significantly from what they could have been, as a consequence. I would recommend approaching fail states and bad ends as opportunities to further explore and develop your story to the audience - a treat for completionists, rather than a punishment for dummies.

[Hijiri]

1) If a game included a feature such as this, would you use it?
Moreso during repeated playthroughs than my first one.

2) Does this feature seem too immersion-breaking?
Some would argue yes, but if you have plenty of dead ends then I'm sure no one will really complain.

3) If your answer to the above is "yes", would it make a difference if this system made some sort of sense within the plot?
It does. I mean, I read a VN once that had loads and loads of bad ends, but after experiencing one the game looped you back and you could try again. It made a lot of sense in the story as to why you redid choices. (Although, you needed to see the endings in order to understand the story, so there's that too).

4) What is your general opinion on this feature?
Useful when you have a lot of bad endings, but not so useful if there isn't that many and there's huge gaps between the choices made and the conlusion.

5) Do you think there even NEEDS to be any sort of warning or "second chance" feature just because the game might be a bit more difficult than usual?
I don't think its a necessity, but I'm sure casual readers would definitely appreciate some kind of system like that.

[Ghost #9]

This sounds like an auto-save function that creates and opens saved files for the player at the conclusion of a bad end. I see three problems with this. The first is that any player is going to manually save at every decision point anyway, making this feature redundant. The second is that not all bad ends result from the most recent decision point (Fate/Stay Night's Heaven's Feel route is an example of this), and it might complicate things to automate a system which tries to unravel the player's mistakes and bring them back to the most recent point at which they could undo those errors. The third problem is that a combination of decisions may result in a good or neutral ending, but not the best ending, and automated systems are in general pretty bad at making decisions for players when there is more than one route to take (in this case, does the automated system take the player back only far enough for them to avoid an overtly bad ending, or does it opt to revert all of their decisions which took them away from the best ending? Maybe a player doesn't want to be led away from the best ending, or maybe the player doesn't want to backtrack that far because they aren't aiming for the best ending on their first playthrough.)

If it were up to me, I would recommend focusing on the quality of the story and all of its endings, rather than on game mechanics which emphasize success and failure conditions. Bad endings are often worth reading anyway, as rather than being an outright "fail condition," they can be used to explore a part of the setting or its characters in a way which is only possible if they take a path that is ultimately undesirable for one or more parties involved, or unpleasant for the audience to witness. In Katawa Shoujo, you can actually miss some pretty powerful CGs and scenes if you only play your way through the routes that lead to good ends. In Fate/Stay Night, if you avoid every bad end, you will miss the comical Taiga Dojo scenes, and some "bad" decisions during the Fate route lead to fun and silly scenes of dialogue between Saber and Shirou, which don't necessarily lead to a bad end unless you try choosing them all.

Furthermore, if you as the writer choose to perceive bad endings or fail conditions as wholly undesirable, that may leak into your writing style and may have a negative effect on your enthusiasm for writing those scenes. Their quality may drop significantly from what they could have been, as a consequence. I would recommend approaching fail states and bad ends as opportunities to further explore and develop your story to the audience - a treat for completionists, rather than a punishment for dummies.

First, thank you for letting me know your opinions on the matter! It is actually incredibly helpful for my writing process to brainstorm and exchange opinions and ideas with others. I often learn something or end up coming up with an entirely new idea just by getting another person's perspective.

It's important to note that the point of this system wouldn't be to direct players to the "best" ending, nor would it cause players to miss out on interesting bits of story from any bad endings (since my idea for the system has it that they would see the ending before it reverted back to the options that led to it). I did consider that it might be somewhat redundant considering that there would be the general save system in place, but even if you save frequently you might not be able to pinpoint at what point the mistake was made (assuming there are a lot of choices). This system would specifically take players back to the "point of no return", or in other words the set of options that made it impossible to get anything but a bad ending from that point. So, none of their previous choices leading to whichever other ending would be effected.

The idea I presently have in my mind is that since the protagonists are on the run, there could be a number of choices for the player to make involving where the protagonists go or hide or who they interact with. These choices could lead to potentially dangerous encounters with the antagonists, and these encounters might involve additional choices or battles or puzzles, etc. that could lead to the protagonists' escape or capture or death. Thus, not ALL of the bad endings would involve poignant story or character development. Endings that are purely story driven, good or bad, would not have the "Second Chance" option. Er...And, by "story driven" I mean not involving the capture and escape system.

I'm considering various different ideas for how the story will play out and how to present everything, so the "second chance" system may not even have any sort of place in the ultimate product.

[Ghost #9]

1) If a game included a feature such as this, would you use it?
Moreso during repeated playthroughs than my first one.

2) Does this feature seem too immersion-breaking?
Some would argue yes, but if you have plenty of dead ends then I'm sure no one will really complain.

3) If your answer to the above is "yes", would it make a difference if this system made some sort of sense within the plot?
It does. I mean, I read a VN once that had loads and loads of bad ends, but after experiencing one the game looped you back and you could try again. It made a lot of sense in the story as to why you redid choices. (Although, you needed to see the endings in order to understand the story, so there's that too).

4) What is your general opinion on this feature?
Useful when you have a lot of bad endings, but not so useful if there isn't that many and there's huge gaps between the choices made and the conlusion.

5) Do you think there even NEEDS to be any sort of warning or "second chance" feature just because the game might be a bit more difficult than usual?
I don't think its a necessity, but I'm sure casual readers would definitely appreciate some kind of system like that.

Thank you for answering my questions! Your responses definitely make a lot of sense. Would you mind telling me the name of the VN you played that had that system? It might help me to see how other games presented something similar.

[papillon]

The first is that any player is going to manually save at every decision point anyway, making this feature redundant.

This simply isn't true, if you watch other people play games.

Many people will save at decision points IF they think that decision is dangerous. Most people will not save at every choice.

(The rest of your post is opinion so I'm not going to argue with it, just pointing out the facts above.)


Leading back to the original question, I think it depends on how it's implemented and how the game is structured.

If the thing that caused the Bad End is obvious (in retrospect) and not very far away from the actual ending, then many players will appreciate a quick way to go back and change things.

Like, if there was a minigame where you had to dodge bullets, and if you fail you get shot and die, bad end, many players will be VERY grateful for an automatic 'Try again?' option coming up. Or if the very last choice in the game led to an immediate game over, people will likely appreciate a chance to quickly back up and try the other option.

However, if the situation is more ambiguous, if it's not immediately clear what went wrong or the thing that went wrong was a long time ago? Then an automated "fix this" may be confusing or grating, unless it's carefully woven into the narrative.

(Thinking of Cartagra here...) There are a couple of Bad End routes that are *very* messed up, and take quite a while for you to know that you are absolutely on a bad end path and there is no way out. It's an emotionally grueling journey to the end. If you get through that and then a "Do over?" button comes up, it would feel flippant. It would take away from the experience.

And in some games, they might have to drop you a very long way back in order for you to fix all your mistakes.

There are some games where there is a meta-narrative, like someone is sending you into these routes over and over again to TRY to change history. In that case, it could make story sense for your meta-guide to meet you after a Bad End, console you for what you just saw, and provide pointers for what went wrong and give you a jump point to go and change it. But at that point you're talking about something becoming a major part of the narrative, not just a little anti-frustration feature.

[Ghost #9]

Leading back to the original question, I think it depends on how it's implemented and how the game is structured.

If the thing that caused the Bad End is obvious (in retrospect) and not very far away from the actual ending, then many players will appreciate a quick way to go back and change things.

Like, if there was a minigame where you had to dodge bullets, and if you fail you get shot and die, bad end, many players will be VERY grateful for an automatic 'Try again?' option coming up. Or if the very last choice in the game led to an immediate game over, people will likely appreciate a chance to quickly back up and try the other option.

However, if the situation is more ambiguous, if it's not immediately clear what went wrong or the thing that went wrong was a long time ago? Then an automated "fix this" may be confusing or grating, unless it's carefully woven into the narrative.

(Thinking of Cartagra here...) There are a couple of Bad End routes that are *very* messed up, and take quite a while for you to know that you are absolutely on a bad end path and there is no way out. It's an emotionally grueling journey to the end. If you get through that and then a "Do over?" button comes up, it would feel flippant. It would take away from the experience.

And in some games, they might have to drop you a very long way back in order for you to fix all your mistakes.

There are some games where there is a meta-narrative, like someone is sending you into these routes over and over again to TRY to change history. In that case, it could make story sense for your meta-guide to meet you after a Bad End, console you for what you just saw, and provide pointers for what went wrong and give you a jump point to go and change it. But at that point you're talking about something becoming a major part of the narrative, not just a little anti-frustration feature.

These are all very useful insights! I will check out the game you mentioned to get a clearer idea of how it handled bad endings. Actually, I'm intrigued by how you've described. Any storyline that is well-written enough to foster a genuine emotional attachment sounds like my kind of good time! I'm all for tearjerkers, horror romps, even anger-inducing characterization (as long as I'm angry on behalf of the other characters and not because the character pi**es me off unintentionally). When I play games, I always throw myself into the role of whatever protagonist I'm playing as. If I don't find myself talking to/yelling at the screen at some point, something's wrong.
(Over generalization, yay?)
This project is definitely not any sort of time-loop or reality altering tale, but that situation would definitely make sense. I will do a bit of critical thinking to determine how best to incorporate the various features described above. Whether or not they have a place in the narrative and whether or not it would truly benefit the player for them to be there. Thank you for letting me know your opinion!

[Katy133]

The Nancy Drew adventure game series does this: You can die or get fired in the games. When this happens, a screen comes up to bring you back to the point in time just before your mistake. This was meant to be an anti-frustration feature for people who didn't constantly save, or wanted to experiment with the choices more.

The original second chance screen--I LOVE how the Second Chance option is the book with skeleton hand illustrations:



The newer version of the Second Chance screen in later games:


A game that does this AND uses it to further the plot is Undertale. Undertale is a really, really fantastic game, so if you plan on playing it, DON'T read the rest of this, because this is getting into big, unmarked spoiler territory...

Undertale is an RPG game where you an choose to either kill or spare characters you come across. The game gives you check points throughout the game that you can choose to save in. If you die or close the game, you're taken back to that point in time. Some players have tried to use this to experiment with the game's choices (such as killing someone to see what happens), or to go back if they've made a mistake (if they accidentally kill someone). But here's the twist: There are characters who remember all of your previous playthroughs and choices, including the unsaved ones. These characters treat your ability to reload checkpoints as a form of time-travel and treat the player character as an anomaly in the timeline. One character in particular will taunt you for being "weak" if you kill someone by accident and reload to save them. Another character remembers all possible timelines simultaneously, and therefore knows you as both a kind-hearted pacifist AND a cold-hearted murderer. This is known as "fifth dimensional experience" and is a concept that fascinates me in storytelling.

Another example of a character with fifth dimensional experience is Griffin from MIB3. This scene from the film quickly sums up his abilities in a funny and entertaining way.

So, basically, if you include second chances, it should be for a reason, whether it's to avoid player frustration or to tell a meta story...

And remember: