In table top rpgs you will often have wordage for the gm to consider the option of failure to do something as an opportunity for different things to occur. For example, a party wipe leading instead of death and creating new characters, rather being captured and thrown into a dungeon and needing to plot an escape. Something like baulder's gate 3 I think does this kind of thing well. You can fail many actions, quests etc. It doesn't lead to game over and reload it just leads to a different game state. Of course this requires a pretty dedicated team to pull off. Mass effect tried to do something like this, and only had middling success on the whole.
4 That hanachirasu game sounds pretty interesting in that regard. making the choice deliberate on the player to pursue revenge is something that could really only be explored as a game. And that is I think where the core of this feeling of not being able to fail in games being kinda shitty stems. Why play a game where all the outcomes are predetermined?
Yes, there is something satisfying about accomplishing a challenge, games like souls/eldenring/sekiro have that mechanical progression the player goes through, in this case having bad ends might be a bad move, but maybe not? The soul games specifically have this idea of undeath and loops, so being dragged to some pit you have to crawl out of and a gauntlet you have to pass to return to where you were could work, but most people would probably find that annoying. Then again the mechanical progression is undercut by the leveling systems and the op loot drops found through exploring so why not have death literally be a power up. Those who die the most in such games and just want to see it can by dieing enough to be strong enough to win, without skill. Those who want to flex would need to prove their worth with no death runs. Also exploring a world and learning a story piece by piece can be fun in and of itself, but then why bother with a failure state at all, outer wilds for instance goes this route and does it very well imo.
When a game is a better experience as a supercut on youtube, then something has gone wrong. Interactivity needs consequences to be meaningful and not all consequences can be good, and games must be interactive. "light needs the dark"
Yes, there is something satisfying about accomplishing a challenge, games like souls/eldenring/sekiro have that mechanical progression the player goes through, in this case having bad ends might be a bad move, but maybe not? The soul games specifically have this idea of undeath and loops, so being dragged to some pit you have to crawl out of and a gauntlet you have to pass to return to where you were could work, but most people would probably find that annoying. Then again the mechanical progression is undercut by the leveling systems and the op loot drops found through exploring so why not have death literally be a power up. Those who die the most in such games and just want to see it can by dieing enough to be strong enough to win, without skill. Those who want to flex would need to prove their worth with no death runs.
Also exploring a world and learning a story piece by piece can be fun in and of itself, but then why bother with a failure state at all, outer wilds for instance goes this route and does it very well imo.
When a game is a better experience as a supercut on youtube, then something has gone wrong. Interactivity needs consequences to be meaningful and not all consequences can be good, and games must be interactive. "light needs the dark"