What I mean by this, is instead of when you fail and are met with a game over, the game finds some way to keep it going. Instead of being forced to reset to a previous save or an autosave checkpoint, the game’s story continues in an interesting path. Are there any games like this?
Asking because in IRL TTRPG’s, a lot of DM’s will find reasons to keep the story going, no matter how ludicrous because I mean… that’s why you’re there. Do games do this? What are some that do?
Atrio: The Dark Wild - has you control a clone with a limited life span. When you die and resume from a new clone, the old clone corpse is lying around and you can harvest it for parts necessary to continue the story.
Sifu - when you “die” your character ages and gets stronger before trying again.
Karateka - plays a lot like a regular game with lives, but it’s not the same life. Every time you have to resume from a new life, it’s a different person attempting to get to the end.
Shadow of Mordor - when you are killed by an orc, you resurrect from a spirit. The orc, however, gets high-fives from all his mates and gets promoted, plus some new skills. Next time you see him he will call you out.
Hades - the entire story is based around you repeatedly failing and dying.
Super Meat Boy - well basically you die and restart, but when you finally beat the level, you get an instant replay with all your failed attempts simultaneously playing on top of it. The effect is more glorious the more you struggled to beat the level.
Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system is fantastic, and also a shame they copyrighted it, not allowing others using it…
A DC game with the system would be interesting. Not necessarily Batman, but on the street level of Batman. You start with a bunch of known villains and random thugs and as you progress and take out the known fixed villains, you get to see the progress of your own rogues gallery. That would be amazing. You see a villain at the end of the game and know their origin story, which you may have been part of, you know where they earned scars, where they got equipment and what drives them.
You know that’s not Evil McDouchebag that someone directly wrote. That’s the Evil McDouchebag that naturally occured and was forged in your play through.
(I specifically mention DC because WB has the licence, so what’s keeping them)
edit:
Just saw that Monolith is actually working on a Wonder Woman game. Not quite street level, but otherwise I kinda might get my wish.
That sounds fantastic. I would also rather start as a grunt that knows some martial arts or is good with gadgets and have a rockman/megaman mechanic that let’s you learn/open the skill tree from the enemies you defeat.
That would mean that going for a big baddie can give you a big reward, but you’re also risking making it stronger.
Plus it would give a boon to strategize lining oponents as you see what skills you need for defeating bigger enemies.
Getting over it?
There’s a PC game called Ctrl Alt Ego (Steam link) where you play as a disembodied conscience that can project itself into - and control - different entities in the game.
When your current host is destroyed you just become disembodied again and can project yourself into another nearby entity (even the enemy that destroyed your host, in some circumstances). It’s quite a unique concept and almost completely removes the need to quick save/quick load.
If you’re into Immersive Sim games then I would highly recommend it - Stands alongside Prey and System Shock 2 IMO.
Hylics and Cruelty Squad both spin death.
In Hylics 1 & 2, dying causes you to wake up in the afterlife where you can take the chunks of meat you get from enemies and put it into a meat grinder to increase your max HP.
In Cruelty Squad dying is just a consequence of living. It happens sometimes. Dying severs your divine light, making the game easier but closing some paths to you. Additionally, if you die too often, you’ll find power in misery, making the game easier again and allowing you to consume bodies to restore 1hp each. This is particularly advantageous because eating bodies dismembers the corpse, allowing you to harvest its organs without having to chase them around (most other ways of gibbing corpses tends to send organs flying). Additionally, you can get death surgery, allowing you to pass through some areas and use a few weapons that were previously too dangerous for you to access. Death surgery also allows you to wall jump.
This cruelty squad game sounds more and more my style the more I hear about it.
It’s amazing. It’s horrifying. It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. It’s one of the most visually and aurally offensive games I’ve ever seen. It’s an immersive sim with stellar gameplay and a nihilistic narrative wrapped in a shitpost and drizzled with a bad acid trip.
It’s set in an anarcho-captialist future that’s become overrun with hedgefund managers, cryptobros and techbros. Morals don’t exist, biotech is out of control, death is a novelty, and there are no good people. You’re a hitman in a gig economy and there’s no penalty for collateral damage, so feel free to fill a cruise ship with acid gas to get your target because somehow they have the ability to put everyone’s jellied remains back together so it doesn’t really matter if they die. Besides, they have all probably done things that’d make Hitler or Stalin queasy, so don’t feel guilty about the medical bill you effectively forced on them. The only reason why they’re not targets is because you’re not being paid to murder them.
If you get into it, make sure you read the mission briefings, try to talk to NPCs before killing or scaring them. Most of the weapons are real-world cancelled experimental weapon prototypes (like the H&K G11), weapons that’d be considered a war crime (like the acid gas grenade launcher or bolt acr that shits out enough radiation to liquify people in real time) or weapons so horrifically bad that they’re borderline useless (the zipgun). Additionally, both the Unibomber’s shack and bin Laden’s compound exist in game.
I love that game. I think it’s the only game that presents dissociation and “functional depression” if that is even a phrase. There is a feeling of an unreliable narrator, but not to the extent of outright lies or hallucinations. Just everything looks out of place, disgusting, ugly and stupid.
Playing the game I feel like I am pretending to be functional in a world I despise, among people I find disgusting or irrelevant.
It’s something.
Death stranding
