Board Thread:New Ideas!/@comment-184.187.170.57-20140523040950/@comment-4540193-20140523090853

Ever heard of Project Zomboid? At the start it tells you "This is the story of how I died", but that doesn't mean you play as a zombie at all. The point of the message is to tell players they can't win, since death is the only ending, meaning you are destined to either die or quit the game and not play. MGS2 did a similar thing with the final boss, saying the only way to not work with the Patriots is to either die or quit the game, since the final boss is actually trying to overthrow them. It's this idea of pointless effort to survive when there is no end. This is an effective method of Game Theory, similar to what Minecraft tried to do, until they made a canon ending. Don't Starve does the same, but it makes it more interesting with the Teleportato and Adventure Mode. Technically, you could make a scenario where Maxwell and the player have a trade between who sits in the chair and who gets to run around and then return to let the other have a turn. Or, you could turn off the grammaphone and die, giving some idea of success in aiding Maxwell. You could survive until you perfect a form of renewable indefinite farming and resource supply, so you can live in a content world. Or, you die and end the cycle. This is the nature of rougelike survival games, which is why some people complained about the quest system and the upcoming Multiplayer. Being alone and removing any objective with a winstate makes atmosphere and tone. The music and the design during Winter shows this off the most imho, but the simple idea of no ending is enough to put the player into a mindset which the developers intended. If you want another example of this, the ending of Mark of the Ninja is a similar case.

That's why Don't Starve has no need or plans to put in objective endings or winstates.

Either that or they are too busy updating Chester to have custom colours and names.