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.
That would be a dream too.
Not just enemies emerging dynamically, but your hero developing too.