Ren'Py Controversial Endings

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Hidalgo Liguini Calamari

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Jul 19, 2018
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Hey guys, last week I posted the first ever discussion thread ( Is the World Ready for Snuff/Guro?). The responses were great! Thank you all who participated in the brilliant discussion. Now for this week's topic. As always, let"s have fun, there's no need to insult someone if you don't agree with what they said, and as always, make your voice be heard.
Games like "Acting Lessons" and "My Girlfriend"s Amnesia" have become instant favorites in the adult ren'py community. If you haven't played them, may I suggest you find them and do. Their story will leave you impressed (imo). However, these games also have caused a polarization among it's players for the simple reason of their endings. Some have said the devs were innovative with these endings. Others have felt let down. My question this week is the following... Do you feel the storytelling suffers in games with controversial endings? Have at it!
 
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Hidalgo Liguini Calamari

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Jul 19, 2018
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Retro said:
Storytelling suffers from bad writing, not controversial endings.
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I totally agree with you. You must have a solid story in order to sell any ending. Have you ever come across a really good story right up till the end and asked yourself.."well, I don't agree with the way it was ended." or to quote Deadpool, "Well, that's just lazy writing."
 
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zeraligator

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May 25, 2018
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I am not entirely certain what you mean by controversial. If you simply mean an ending that people disagree over, I think the discussion it spawns can add to the story and the meaning the player(s) give/take from it. Though if the players mostly dislike or disagree with the ending chosen by the creator, it often causes players to feel unfulfilled or dissatisfied.
 
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Hidalgo Liguini Calamari

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Jul 19, 2018
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zeraligator said:
I am not entirely certain what you mean by controversial. If you simply mean an ending that people disagree over, I think the discussion it spawns can add to the story and the meaning the player(s) give/take from it. Though if the players mostly dislike or disagree with the ending chosen by the creator, it often causes players to feel unfulfilled or dissatisfied.
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Exactly what I meant. Thanks for your input. The controversial aspect would be that players disagree in the sense of feeling dissatisfied.
 
Avaron1974

Avaron1974

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Aug 22, 2018
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Not at all, controversial endings can work really well IF done right.

If you read, say, the complaints towards a certain house fire it didn't annoy everyone because it was controversial nor did it annoy everyone because it caused a choice some didn't want to make, it annoyed some of us because it wasn't handled well at all.

Things like that differ for everyone but leading up to that scene we had armed robbery, domestic abuse, flashbacks for the ex cheating, the ex blackmailing, physical violence, best friends cancer, friends passing on friends lovers, an arrest and what was led to look like an attempted rape.

The fire there fell flat for me because I was burnt out on drama. I had no fucks left to give by then, the pacing was terrible. If it had been left for 2 more updates minimum. Built up that trio a bit more with no more bloody drama then it would have worked perfectly.

Drama is like food. If you stuff your face too quickly you get bloated and that's what happened to me with that game.

It didn't suffer for the controversy it suffered from an over abundance of drama in too short a space.

Other than that you have some writers try and push drama for the sake of drama.

Some games have good writing, some games have great writing ... others not so much. Most people didn't mind AL's drama because it's pretty well written.

It's not the controversy that makes games suffer, it's how that controversy is handled.

I mean, damn, you mention My Girlfriends Amnesia yet the best ending there is to cheat on the girlfriend with the sister. Even with the gentleman ending DLC the sister is still the sweetest ending.

You also get games with no controversy at all like Triangle and that had one of the best endings i've seen in a long time. I legit cried because i'm a soppy tart.

Good devs can make anything work. Great devs can take a character people love, have her shot through the throat, watch a tear jerker of a death scene and have players beg for more.

It's all in the writing.
 
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Hidalgo Liguini Calamari

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Jul 19, 2018
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Avaron1974 said:
Not at all, controversial endings can work really well IF done right.

If you read, say, the complaints towards a certain house fire it didn't annoy everyone because it was controversial nor did it annoy everyone because it caused a choice some didn't want to make, it annoyed some of us because it wasn't handled well at all.

Things like that differ for everyone but leading up to that scene we had armed robbery, domestic abuse, flashbacks for the ex cheating, the ex blackmailing, physical violence, best friends cancer, friends passing on friends lovers, an arrest and what was led to look like an attempted rape.

The fire there fell flat for me because I was burnt out on drama. I had no fucks left to give by then, the pacing was terrible. If it had been left for 2 more updates minimum. Built up that trio a bit more with no more bloody drama then it would have worked perfectly.

Drama is like food. If you stuff your face too quickly you get bloated and that's what happened to me with that game.

It didn't suffer for the controversy it suffered from an over abundance of drama in too short a space.

Other than that you have some writers try and push drama for the sake of drama.

Some games have good writing, some games have great writing ... others not so much. Most people didn't mind AL's drama because it's pretty well written.

It's not the controversy that makes games suffer, it's how that controversy is handled.

I mean, damn, you mention My Girlfriends Amnesia yet the best ending there is to cheat on the girlfriend with the sister. Even with the gentleman ending DLC the sister is still the sweetest ending.

You also get games with no controversy at all like Triangle and that had one of the best endings i've seen in a long time. I legit cried because i'm a soppy tart.

Good devs can make anything work. Great devs can take a character people love, have her shot through the throat, watch a tear jerker of a death scene and have players beg for more.

It's all in the writing.
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Epic reply! Truly love the points you made. Thank you so much.
 
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zeraligator

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May 25, 2018
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Hidalgo Liguini Calamari said:
Exactly what I meant. Thanks for your input. The controversial aspect would be that players disagree in the sense of feeling dissatisfied.
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I feel it is up to the creator to decide how a story ends, be it game, book, movie or otherwise, but creators should still understand what their fans(?) want and that they should understand that their creative view or vision might not be apparent or liked by others.
This kind of reminds me of Jim Henson (the creator of the Muppets) and his attempts to create artistically experimental movies which, to his surprise, failed to turn a profit as both reviewers and movie goers neither understood nor cared for unconventional/experimental movie making. I feel bad for Henson because he simply wanted to try new ways of making movies but I also feel that he was out of touch with what audiences wanted.
 
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Rastafoo

Rastafoo

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Jun 6, 2018
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You need to read through the game thread for NTRPG 2. That game had a controversial and sad ending - and its a classic! :D
 
Deleted member 229118

Deleted member 229118

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From my understanding of the good ending of My Girlfriend"s Amnesia was pretty much despite because it basicly undid all the players hard work to stay loyal to there girlfriend and help her recover.
Also no ending where you have both sisters(i mean she fell for the lesbian sister crap, it shoudnt be that hard to create a two girlfriends crap).

I woudnt call that a controversial ending as i would call it a bad one.
The ending pretty much is her crashing and losing her memory again.

People dont like being cheated out of there good guy gets the girl ending.

Controversial ending's are in my experiance are useally bad ending's protected by people who refuse to see them being bad as that would be admiting they thing they liked was wrong.
Fanboyism is a real problem in all espects of life.

That said there are some shows i like that others call bad.
So just because something is bad doesnt mean you cant like it.
 
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Avaron1974

Avaron1974

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Aug 22, 2018
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Malaficus said:
From my understanding of the good ending of My Girlfriend"s Amnesia was pretty much despite because it basicly undid all the players hard work to stay loyal to there girlfriend and help her recover.
Also no ending where you have both sisters(i mean she fell for the lesbian sister crap, it shoudnt be that hard to create a two girlfriends crap).

I woudnt call that a controversial ending as i would call it a bad one.
The ending pretty much is her crashing and losing her memory again.
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The ending was expanded on.

As for an ending with the 2 sisters, did you read the story going on?

The sister caused the accident and it was recorded so the girlfriend new what happened.
 
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Hidalgo Liguini Calamari

Newbie
Jul 19, 2018
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Malaficus said:
From my understanding of the good ending of My Girlfriend"s Amnesia was pretty much despite because it basicly undid all the players hard work to stay loyal to there girlfriend and help her recover.
Also no ending where you have both sisters(i mean she fell for the lesbian sister crap, it shoudnt be that hard to create a two girlfriends crap).

I woudnt call that a controversial ending as i would call it a bad one.
The ending pretty much is her crashing and losing her memory again.

People dont like being cheated out of there good guy gets the girl ending.

Controversial ending's are in my experiance are useally bad ending's protected by people who refuse to see them being bad as that would be admiting they thing they liked was wrong.
Fanboyism is a real problem in all espects of life.

That said there are some shows i like that others call bad.
So just because something is bad doesnt mean you cant like it.
Click to expand...
I liked that you said that just because it's bad doesn't mean you can't like it. That is very true with games like these.
 
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