So, I'm making a game.

[SonicWaffle]

Anyway, I bring it up because I want to do something like that. How would you react if the main character suddenly dies 40-70% of the way through the game, and the focus then shifts to an ally or someone else entirely?

Personally, not well. Remember how much everyone hated being stuck with that bag-of-dicks Haytham in Assassin's Creed 3?

If you're going to have a decoy protagonist, ensure that you kill them off very quickly and get to the real meat of the experience.

 

[Cheesepower5]

That remind me some kind of manga I read just for curiosity:

Always in this kind of manga, all the main characters die in a very, very gruesome ways to the point od sickness.....

This kind of game you want to create? Gruesome and sadistic?

Was the manga Akame ga Kiru? [http://www.mangahere.com/manga/akame_ga_kiru/] Because if so, yes. If not, then probably not.

Edit: To clarify...not gruesome and sadistic in itself. More of a...realistic take on high fantasy. If you read the manga I linked, you'll understand.

I will check the manga when I leave my workplace.
However I see now what do you mean. I played a similar game like this, but by saying the name of the game, it is spoiling the plot twist of the game......
I only can say, it is not always the thing as you see with your own eyes.......

OK, I'll bite... What game? Put it in a spoiler tag or PM me, I'm dying to know.

 

[SweetShark]

That remind me some kind of manga I read just for curiosity:

Always in this kind of manga, all the main characters die in a very, very gruesome ways to the point od sickness.....

This kind of game you want to create? Gruesome and sadistic?

Was the manga Akame ga Kiru? [http://www.mangahere.com/manga/akame_ga_kiru/] Because if so, yes. If not, then probably not.

Edit: To clarify...not gruesome and sadistic in itself. More of a...realistic take on high fantasy. If you read the manga I linked, you'll understand.

I will check the manga when I leave my workplace.
However I see now what do you mean. I played a similar game like this, but by saying the name of the game, it is spoiling the plot twist of the game......
I only can say, it is not always the thing as you see with your own eyes.......

OK, I'll bite... What game? Put it in a spoiler tag or PM me, I'm dying to know.

Well then, for those they want to see the game, they shall pen this spoiler:

Spoiler

Theresia: Dear Emile

The whole game you have a little girl trying literally to survive the traps of your beloved "mother". Reason? Your mother can show her love to you only this way because herself is a sadistic soldier of war making prisoners to suffer by her torture tools..........did I told you you were prisoner of her all the time and you were feeling really gggooooooddd about that? Oh yeah, you feel right home to be in your sh*ts and blood in a prison cell.......also THE ending....by seeing the ending you can clearly see you are NOT a hero at all in the game.............You are a terrible, terrible person because you love your mother........your beloving mother...........you love her so much.....

But I digress......the game itself is sadistic to YOU.....to the player I mean.......it is very demanding and must be cool by playing, because at some point I wanted to throw my NDS to my back wall of my room screaming in agony for playing this f*cking stupid game!!!
But I digress....again....the story only for that was really something unique.

So.....yeah, you get the idea........

 

[Mikejames]

I prefer the storytelling mentality that "Anyone CAN die," over, "Everyone SHOULD die."

If you don't kill anyone there can be a sense that there's no actual danger, but if you do the polar opposite, not hesitating to consistently kill off major characters and making it cruel just for the sake of it, then there's no real depth to their deaths. It's kind of like comparing the first seasons of Telltale's Walking Dead and AMC's Walking Dead.
Starting out, AMC's Walking Dead had a prolonged death scene every episode for characters I couldn't even remember. While Telltale's Walking Dead had the potential fear of anyone dieing, but also enough hope for me to want to believe that the characters I grew to care about could survive. This gave Telltale's version weight, and actual suspense.

That remind me some kind of manga I read just for curiosity:

Always in this kind of manga, all the main characters die in a very, very gruesome ways to the point od sickness.....

This kind of game you want to create? Gruesome and sadistic?

...Battle Royale?

 

[thejackyl]

Depending on the game type, I would avoid killing of the main character.

If it's an ARPG where you control only one character killing them off will probably piss off a lot of players. If it's a JRPG, and you have the ability to control multiple characters, killing off one won't have the same impact. Yes, people were ticked about a certain death in FF7, and it might have had less of an impact since I had it spoiled and NEVER used her in battle once I got my 4th character.

You still have to be careful about how you foreshadow it. You need to do so a little bit, but not have the game scream out "YOU WILL PERMANENTLY DIE IN GAME" to the player.

 

[SweetShark]

I prefer the storytelling mentality that "Anyone CAN die," over, "Everyone SHOULD die."

If you don't kill anyone there can be a sense that there's no actual danger, but if you do the polar opposite, not hesitating to consistently kill off major characters and making it cruel just for the sake of it, then there's no real depth to their deaths. It's kind of like comparing the first seasons of Telltale's Walking Dead and AMC's Walking Dead.
Starting out, AMC's Walking Dead had a prolonged death scene every episode for characters I couldn't even remember. While Telltale's Walking Dead had the potential fear of anyone dieing, but also enough hope for me to want to believe that the characters I grew to care about could survive. This gave Telltale's version weight, and actual suspense.

That remind me some kind of manga I read just for curiosity:

Always in this kind of manga, all the main characters die in a very, very gruesome ways to the point od sickness.....

This kind of game you want to create? Gruesome and sadistic?

...Battle Royale?

No......MORE GRUESOME!!!!

 

[Full]

snip

Spoiler

Chrono Trigger

Again, don't remember the scene too well, but I remember that happened in that game.

Yeah but he comes back again. That's actually a standard JRPG trope; you often lose the main character for a certain point. Same thing happens in FF6, FF7, Xenogears, many more.

There's also that thing in FF5 where

Spoiler

beardy guy

gets killed but you get an identical character to finish the game with.

Well, I'm aware it was/is kind of a trope, but that specific one just always pops into my head whenever I think of something like that.

 

[Mikejames]

No......MORE GRUESOME!!!!

...But Gantz's quality really picked up if you gave it the chance.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Is it a good idea?

Depends on how well it gels with the themes and tone of the game. In Game of Thrones, killing off main characters left right and centre works extremely well, because the whole point of the books/shows is to brutally deconstruct the fantasy genre. Notice that Sansa really believes in all the handsome prince and honourable knight stuff, and she's presented as extremely naive... and the whole shock ending of the first book? Yeah, that's to hammer home the idea that nobility and honour are absolutely no shield against crafty buggers with no morals.

I'd encourage you to attempt a deconstruction of whatever genre you're going for, but be aware that it'll draw comparisons to Specs Ops and COD4 if it's military-ish.

Also be aware that we won't care if the PC dies unless we actually care about the PC, so the writing will have to be extremely good for it to have an impact. You'll find it hard to pull off with a Mary Sue or cliche stock character.

 

[blazearmoru]

I was working on a similar thing and what I personally felt was that

1. It would cause the audience to review main character related things in the storyline.
2. It would bring significance to the relationship between the old and new main characters.
3. Connections will be attemped to be made so if there's a message you want to send, that's a good place.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Psycho but for games?

Sound pretty cool!

 

[SweetShark]

No......MORE GRUESOME!!!!

...But Gantz's quality really picked up if you gave it the chance.

............NNnnnnnnnoooooooooooooppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....MORE GRUESOME!!!
Ok, you know what? I will tell a scene of the manga I remember:

Spoiler: sick details inside

There is a futa-girl in a kitchen trying to serve some costumers while in the same time holding between her legs a COLOSSUS D*CK!!!!!
At some point the old lady saw it didn't had enough meat to feed the other remaining costumers.......so the old lady decided to cut off the futa-girl's D*CK into little pieces to feed them.............as slow as possible so the reader can see full detail...................I get sick and never read the cooking part of the D*CK MEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Blehxxxxx....

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Spoiler: Spoiler for a certain game where you are a detective

i.e. LA Noire, which has the main character disappear about 80% in to the story and never return except at the end, where he dies. It was kind of a kick in the balls, because you've been following Cole's story (the main character) all this time, and then right as things start gearing up for the third act, some other character takes over. Not only does he steal the spotlight, but he steals Cole's girlfriend and defeats the main bad guy that Cole has been clashing against all this time. And Cole's story receives almost no closure (aside from his death).

Although it was unexpected (which is cool in this era of clichéd video game plots), because you had spent so long with the character, watching his character arc unfold, the sudden shift away from his POV was pretty unsatisfying. His story just sort of drops off, and all his character development over 80% of the game goes to waste.

So I think if you do plan to kill off the main character, you should at least complete their arc first. Like, the team completes their first mission and they're congratulating each other and it looks like everything's going to be okay; the main character has finally found his place in the world. And then boom, an explosion goes off and kills him. At least then, the player isn't left hanging.

 

[Warachia]

Let's look at this from a gameplay perspective, what genre is your game? Because if you plan on killing more than the characters in the first group you might have just screwed over somebody who relied on that character if it's an RPG, if it isn't an RPG and focuses solely on the main characters point of view, suddenly switching to somebody else will feel weird and alien. The longer we spend with somebody the less we want to play as somebody else, even if they play the same, though according to you though at least they did something before they died, so I don't think it would be so bad, as long as who you are playing as accomplishes something and actually does stuff before they died feel free to switch characters, Eternal Darkness did this really well.

 

[ninjapenguin1414]

No......MORE GRUESOME!!!!

...But Gantz's quality really picked up if you gave it the chance.

............NNnnnnnnnoooooooooooooppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....MORE GRUESOME!!!
Ok, you know what? I will tell a scene of the manga I remember:

Spoiler: sick details inside

There is a futa-girl in a kitchen trying to serve some costumers while in the same time holding between her legs a COLOSSUS D*CK!!!!!
At some point the old lady saw it didn't had enough meat to feed the other remaining costumers.......so the old lady decided to cut off the futa-girl's D*CK into little pieces to feed them.............as slow as possible so the reader can see full detail...................I get sick and never read the cooking part of the D*CK MEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Blehxxxxx....

That's actually the most fucked up thing I've ever heard and I've seen/read some really fucked up stuff. What the hell manga is this?
Edit: So I can avoid it like the plague.

 

[Artemis923]

Oh, I thought this was going to be about programming and stuffs. I'm a sad programming panda.

Character deaths only matter if your characters are meaningful and will stir enough of a reaction in your audience. They have to be more than just "I'm the guy who uses two swords", or "I'm the anti-hero that finds himself fighting the good fight". The more your characters feel living and breathing, the more attached to them people will be {like the Starks, although personally I hate the lot of the buggers aside from Arya and Ned}.

GRRM kills his characters because nobody is safe in Westeros {except for Jon fucking Snow; "FOR THE WATCH" my big, fat ass. Fuck you, Snow.}

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Anyway, I bring it up because I want to do something like that. How would you react if the main character suddenly dies 40-70% of the way through the game, and the focus then shifts to an ally or someone else entirely? If it's someone else entirely, then it's likely that most of the original party will have died in this event (But one of them will have become a traitor to save themselves and show up as an antagonist later).

LA Noire did it and it was annoying as fuck. I wanted to play as Cole, not some home insurance salesman that hasn't gotten over his grudges from the war. You've got to do it right OP, make sure you make it worthwhile.

You got any screens or are you in pre-production?

 

[Mikejames]

Ok, you know what? I will tell a scene of the manga I remember:
*......snip*

Mate... I didn't have to read half of that to know that you didn't see a manga so much as you saw a torture porno...
Now I implore you to never inflict anyone with these thoughts ever again.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Let's look at this from a gameplay perspective, what genre is your game? Because if you plan on killing more than the characters in the first group you might have just screwed over somebody who relied on that character if it's an RPG, if it isn't an RPG and focuses solely on the main characters point of view, suddenly switching to somebody else will feel weird and alien. The longer we spend with somebody the less we want to play as somebody else, even if they play the same, though according to you though at least they did something before they died, so I don't think it would be so bad, as long as who you are playing as accomplishes something and actually does stuff before they died feel free to switch characters, Eternal Darkness did this really well.

JRPG. Because I can't do a legit battle system, so welcome to Etrian Odyssey!

Your post made me wonder though...as Mira is supposed to be a ninja in training (to justify her being in relative seclusion for most of her life, and can be introduced to the concepts and races of the world to avoid the 'I'M SURE YOU KNOW THIS, BUT...' trope. It also ties in better with the whole deconstruction concept. Anyway, if a massive army shows up to take down the rebels. It's too much for the rebels to handle, but they're willing to fight to the last man anyway. So Mira sneaks in by herself and attempts to assassinate the enemy Commander. She either succeeds but is killed by him before he succumbs to his injuries, or she injures him/cracks his armor/just weakens him in some way so that the newcomer can finish him off for good.

Anyway, I bring it up because I want to do something like that. How would you react if the main character suddenly dies 40-70% of the way through the game, and the focus then shifts to an ally or someone else entirely? If it's someone else entirely, then it's likely that most of the original party will have died in this event (But one of them will have become a traitor to save themselves and show up as an antagonist later).

LA Noire did it and it was annoying as fuck. I wanted to play as Cole, not some home insurance salesman that hasn't gotten over his grudges from the war. You've got to do it right OP, make sure you make it worthwhile.

You got any screens or are you in pre-production?

Well, I've shifted gears to the 'Demon Path'-type game for the moment, so I can relearn scripting. I have several years of game design experience working with BYOND...but BYOND isn't exactly big leagues, yanno? So don't go expecting anything brain-meltingly great from me. The gameplay will be pretty barebones, and so, as a writer, I hope to hold it together with a compelling narrative. Which is exactly the opposite of how I feel video games should be (Gameplay should be paramount and can support terrible story), but eh. I can only work with what I got.

Edit: I may consider ARPG. Depends on how hard it is.

 

[TheRookie8]

If your game leans towards dark subject matter with the express intent of being dark, then killing a main character is certainly a way to go about it. But the question becomes, are you killing a character for story purposes, or is it a gameplay mechanic?

In Fire Emblem, for instance, when a party member died, their death was permanent, and the story moved on and was affected by their death. Recent RPG's have emulated this technique (notably within the BioWare franchises).

Or you could go further, having the character's death be the main aspect of the story...like perhaps the character stumbles upon their rotting corpse periodically because he was killed repeatedly and is perpetuating a cycle of rebirth (y'know, like respawn!)

Better yet, with each death the character is reincarnated, or takes control of another party member (essentially creating a phantom party member).

However, if you are simply killing the character because they've become "too good", one must be careful to do this for a reason, or else you risk alienating the players.

Another danger is that the next person to replace the former main character may not be as endearing as the previous one. An example would be Sora, from Kingdom Hearts 2 (who I am convinced is a moron and yet everyone seems to count on), whereas Roxas seemed infinitely more capable (and yet still a moron of a different flavor...sea salt flavor, to be precise).

But...this is your game. You want to off your character, you have that creative liberty.