[zerocrates]

Others have mentioned that LucasArts games in general avoided deaths and failstates, but just frequent death wasn't the real issue with the Sierra model in my mind. An immediate "Game Over" is not a huge deal, you just lose progress back to your last save (or less in today's checkpointed and autosaved games). It's like choosing the path with the deadly spiked pit in a choose-your-own-adventure book, and just flipping back to go the other way.

The much bigger problem comes when you can make the game unwinnable, but not actually lose right away (well, you've lost, you just don't know it yet). You merrily continue on for hours until much later you realize (if you do realize) that your mistake those many hours ago doomed you, and you need to go all the way back to a save from before then. Killing the player character right away (or at least soon) would be a much more merciful outcome than letting them blindly proceed down a path to nowhere.

I assume the dual intent of such dead ends were to make things seem more "realistic," as real-world errors are often permanent and aren't always immediately apparent, and also to extend the playtime.

Sudden brutal deaths are still a staple of many games and genres (even the new "modernized" King's Quest), but the silently-unwinnable state has happily fallen more or less totally out of fashion.

[Reedx]

I think the fail states in Sierra's games were actually part of the fun. Just because of the variety and how tongue-in-cheek many of them were. It was amusing and sort of an easter egg hunt to find all the ways you could die.

> The much bigger problem comes when you can make the game unwinnable, but not actually lose right away

Yeah, that sort of thing instilled a life-long habit of constantly saving my progress and having saves that go back many hours. I specifically blame King's Quest II for that. There was a bridge that you could only cross a handful of times and then it collapsed. If it collapsed too early in the game, you are screwed and need a save prior to crossing it unnecessarily.

[DrStalker]

I remember in one of the Kings Quests games you could throw either a shoe or a stick at a dog chasing a bird; both awarded you points, but one led to not being able to complete the game.

In addition at the very end the bad guy casts a spell at you, and the bird flies into the way and you don't die... if you didn't save that bird 4 hours earlier you have no way to possibly know that is why you are doomed to failure in the final fight.

It felt like shitty game design at the time, and by today's standards it would be completely unacceptable to most players.

[Razengan]

I think those kind of stretched consequences could work well with a time-travel gimmick in a modern game.

[Razengan]

That "Dead End Dread" had a more sinister form, where you weren't sure whether the lack of progress was due to an unwinnable state, or a bug, which caused me to look up walkthroughs and cheat despite having the best intentions not to (I swear!)

[sevensor]

Prompted by this comment, I went and looked up Conquests of Camelot. Turns out I missed about a third of the game. Always wondered why the ending was so unsatisfactory! If only I'd had internet access in 1992.

[shmerl]

> I assume the dual intent of such dead ends were to make things seem more "realistic," as real-world errors are often permanent and aren't always immediately apparent, and also to extend the playtime.

Yeah, I'd consider it a design flaw of the game, if it would reach a dead end that way. A better solution would be to turn mistakes in consequences of the story itself. I.e. not mechanically being stuck on something, but the plot taking a different turn, environment changing in different fashion and so on. I.e. reactivity of the game should reflect those choices and mistakes in more organic fashion. Even better, the game could provide alternative solutions to problems, allowing to work around previous missteps even at later stages (but may be requiring more effort and time).

[rangibaby]

Also a good reason to call their helpline ;-)

[mmastrac]

"Save often, restore a lot"