About: It's a Wonderful Failure   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

Most game developers are comfortable with just giving players a generic Game Over screen to inform them that they lost. However, some particularly cruel game developers aren't satisfied with just telling them how badly they lost -- they have to show that the player failed them through an alternate Downer Ending in which players are forced to endure the terrible fate that awaits the characters they were supposed to be helping. They didn't just get a Game Over where they can reload and everything's fine - they FAILED. They failed and now they will live just long enough to see the Big Bad claim victory and to see the END OF THEIR CIVILIZATION. This has the effect of getting players so upset that they are inclined to Set Right What Once Went Wrong and retry the game.

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  • It's a Wonderful Failure
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  • Most game developers are comfortable with just giving players a generic Game Over screen to inform them that they lost. However, some particularly cruel game developers aren't satisfied with just telling them how badly they lost -- they have to show that the player failed them through an alternate Downer Ending in which players are forced to endure the terrible fate that awaits the characters they were supposed to be helping. They didn't just get a Game Over where they can reload and everything's fine - they FAILED. They failed and now they will live just long enough to see the Big Bad claim victory and to see the END OF THEIR CIVILIZATION. This has the effect of getting players so upset that they are inclined to Set Right What Once Went Wrong and retry the game.
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abstract
  • Most game developers are comfortable with just giving players a generic Game Over screen to inform them that they lost. However, some particularly cruel game developers aren't satisfied with just telling them how badly they lost -- they have to show that the player failed them through an alternate Downer Ending in which players are forced to endure the terrible fate that awaits the characters they were supposed to be helping. They didn't just get a Game Over where they can reload and everything's fine - they FAILED. They failed and now they will live just long enough to see the Big Bad claim victory and to see the END OF THEIR CIVILIZATION. This has the effect of getting players so upset that they are inclined to Set Right What Once Went Wrong and retry the game. Tends to be a source of Nightmare Fuel or tears, especially for younger gamers, and thus a very strong incentive to not die. May however be very annoying when the game is hard and requires the player to try and fail over and over. Sub-Trope of Nonstandard Game Over. Compare Have a Nice Death and Shoot the Shaggy Dog. Not to be confused with Fission Mailed, which is non-sarcastically wonderful. This is for game overs, for just dying see The Many Deaths of You. This is a death trope. Expect lots of marked and unmarked spoilers ahead. May or may not be related to It's a Wonderful Plot. Examples of It's a Wonderful Failure include:
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