Poll of the Day > What are some games with alternate win conditions?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'll count out games with only token alt-endings (the fallouts, Deus Ex and such)... I'm talking fundamental game end requirements.

For example; the True ending and various paths in Binding of Isaac

4x games are an easy answer

Chrono Trigger has many endings depending on when and how you beat the game (much more than just press a button to choose your ending color kind of thing)

Sahuagin posted...

4x games are an easy answer

Chrono Trigger has many endings depending on when and how you beat the game (much more than just press a button to choose your ending color kind of thing)

ya, I'd put chrono trigger in the token pile - even though all the endings are good, the win condition is the same in all 16 whatever endings.

As for 4x games... ... I only know a few that have a win condition other than annihilation of all enemies, the main one being the Civ series

Maniac Mansion
Dishonored

The Stanley Parable has a heck of a lot of totally different endings.

having strong deja vu here... I think we've had this conversation before

Sahuagin posted...

having strong deja vu here... I think we've had this conversation before

probably, I don't always remember the stuff

Undertale

If your opponent runs out of cards is a rule in a lot of CCGs.

Dragons dogma

In the OG Battlefront II (and I think 1) you can win by killing all the opponents or capturing all the bases

It's a tabletop game but you can always win in Warmachine/Hordes by killing your opponent's leader. Too bad, it's a fun game otherwise.

Kid Icarus
Castlevania series

Punch out some wins you get from TKO others KO

Lil_Bit83 posted...

Kid Icarus
Castlevania series

Can you explain deez ones?

The board game SolarQuest has multiple lose conditions. The game is similar in concept to Monopoly (accumulating real estate), but it has a number of additional mechanics such as gravity, orbits, laser battles, and fuel consumption. Like Monopoly, you can lose by going bankrupt, but you can also lose by becoming stranded with insufficient fuel to blast off, by drawing a Red Shift card that requires more fuel than you have, or by being blasted to atoms by an opponent.

Lokarin posted...

Can you explain deez ones?

The endings depend on how much time you take to beat the game.

Probably any game with a morality system.

Lil_Bit83 posted...

The endings depend on how much time you take to beat the game.

Lil_Bit83 posted...

Probably any game with a morality system.

Those are just alternate endings, the win condition tends to be the same - Beat Medusa (Kid Icarus) for example.

As for morality systems... it depends if it changes the win condition, sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't. Deus Ex has like 5? endings that are just "pick one" at the end, kinda like Mass Effect 3... Infernax has like 9 morality endings, but you always kill Belfegor at the end

Detroid Become Human doesn't really have a 'win' condition, but the story is heavily threaded and so is a joy to play, so it's kinda like the goodie opposite of what I mean

captpackrat posted...

The board game SolarQuest has multiple lose conditions. The game is similar in concept to Monopoly (accumulating real estate), but it has a number of additional mechanics such as gravity, orbits, laser battles, and fuel consumption. Like Monopoly, you can lose by going bankrupt, but you can also lose by becoming stranded with insufficient fuel to blast off, by drawing a Red Shift card that requires more fuel than you have, or by being blasted to atoms by an opponent.

I can't believe anyone other than me remembers Solarquest. Well done. Ganymede for the win.

wpot posted...

I can't believe anyone other than me remembers Solarquest. Well done. Ganymede for the win.

The copy I have is so old is has a moon of Uranus called 1985 U1, which was the provisional name originally given to Puck when it was first discovered. It also lists Pluto as a planet.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/2/AAQwHjAAEJdu.jpg

Actual alternate endgames?

So more like the original Drakengard? (Pretty sure that one even shifts genre in some ending paths)

Iirc in empire earth if allies weren't fixed you could win by becoming allies with everyone. Most people played with fixed allies though, so I dont know if I am remembering it right

Civilization can be won several ways

The Age of Empires franchise

captpackrat posted...

The copy I have is so old is has a moon of Uranus called 1985 U1, which was the provisional name originally given to Puck when it was first discovered. It also lists Pluto as a planet.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/2/AAQwHjAAEJdu.jpg

That looks fun. Also Pluto will always be a planet to me.

That is exactly the version I have...I'm not sure there was ever any more than the one. We played that game enough that I still have the prices for half of the moons memorized.

Revelation34 posted...

That looks fun.

It was, in its dorky sort of way.

Dynasty/Samurai Warriors. These games verbatim say the conditions for victory have changed.

Silent Hill games have a number of endings.

I think the original Kingdom Hearts has multiple endings. But the last time I played that was over twenty years ago.

Oh my God twenty years ago.

Eversion depending on how many gems you collect, the ending will change.

Papers, Please

zebatov posted...

Silent Hill games have a number of endings.

this is a great example, considering the number of hoops you have to jump through to do some of them

so besides ending ? What about winning a Boss battle ?

Lokarin posted...

Deus Ex has like 5? endings that are just "pick one" at the end, kinda like Mass Effect 3...

there's 3. in ME3 you literally just pick one. in Deus Ex 1 you at least have to take a different path and solve a different puzzle for whichever one you go for.

Lokarin posted...

What are some games with alternate win conditions?

I was going to ask whether you just meant video games or if board and card games were included, but everyone else seems to be going with the more general answer anyway.

Just specifically for games, I'll throw Shadow of Destiny (or Shadow of Memories outside of the US) into the mix. You get radically different endings based on which actions you take during the game (and which you miss), and you pretty much have to play the game multiple times and get multiple endings just to figure out what the hell was going on with the plot. And after you've done that two extra endings get unlocked that are sort of meta and bypass the plot entirely.

It's the same sort of thing Nier: Automata did later on.



Sahuagin posted...

having strong deja vu here... I think we've had this conversation before

We probably got the alternate win condition for the topic last time.



Lil_Bit83 posted...

Maniac Mansion

Fantastic game. And it was always neat that there were different ways to win depending on which kids you started with. Even if the way the game was designed meant nearly everyone was taking Bernard and Razor.



Count_Drachma posted...

If your opponent runs out of cards is a rule in a lot of CCGs.

A lot of card games also add alternate win conditions after the fact.

As an example, Legend of the Five Rings starts out with four different ways to win (Military, Honor, Dishonor, Enlightenment). But then a later set added an ending where you play all four walls of the capital city and win. And another one where you have to open (ie, play) a set number of Black Scrolls. And other one where you basically become an Oracle of the Elements.

Meanwhile, Magic: The Gathering has killing your opponents as the main win condition, but milling your opponent's deck down to nothing was a popular strategy right out of the gate (and I've had it done to me via land destruction stun-lock + milling, which is annoying as hell). And right from the very beginning it also had cards that created alternative win conditions, or just had effects like "Your opponent automatically loses the game in two turns." (Not to mention asshole combos like Lich/Mirror Universe.)

Then later sets included even more special conditions, like Coalition Victory - where if you have a Land and a creature of each color, you automatically win (and I've lost to this one as well). Or creatures that hit you with poison counters (lost to that one as well). Or creatures that effectively Deathtouch the other players (ie, if they do any successful damage, the other player instantly loses). Or stuff like Darksteel Reactor (which charges up over time, and if it hits a certain number of counters, you auto-win).

Magic is kind of crazy for that sort of thing.

And then, of course, there's Yu-Gi-Oh, and it's infamous stuff like Exodia.

Sahuagin posted...

there's 3. in ME3 you literally just pick one. in Deus Ex 1 you at least have to take a different path and solve a different puzzle for whichever one you go for.

The original DE had 3, and it really just changes how you play the final level and which boss you fight. In Invisible War there's technically 4 (5 if you count the developer room ending), which basically just comes down to you picking a side and killing everyone who isn't on it (or killing everyone). And Human Revolution has a final room with four buttons and you pick which one to press (one of three sides, or screw them all).

Actually, I've always said that Mass Effect 3 blatantly stole its ending from Deus Ex. It basically stole the "push a button at the very end" idea from Human Revolution (and later even added in a "screw everyone" option like HR had with the Extended Cut), and the choices they offer you (Destroy, Control, Synthesis) are literally the exact same choices you're offered in Deus Ex (Destroy the Internet, Control the World, Fuse with an AI).

It's not really surprising that they'd still ideas from other people who did them way better, though. Considering how much they wound up stealing from Battlestar Galactica, it's kind of obvious that they just hamhandedly took ideas from anything they liked a lot during development.

Spelunky. You have the basic ending which is just beat the Olmec, which is a good challenge for a casual, but if you are hardcore, you can aquire the book of dead in your run, which will give you access to an optional end game zone and true final boss, although it will take quite a bit of tasks for this, so is much more involved and difficult.

Also, Arcade games frequently have second loops that you can get to after beating the game with certain conditions, such as not dying or meeting a certain score threshold. These 2nd loops are harder arranges of the first and have the true final boss. Beating the 2nd loop is exponentially harder compared to beating the first, since not only do you have to master the 1st loop to get to the second consistently, but you still have to be able to beat the second. Some of these second loops are legendary for their difficulty such as Ketsui's Ura loop, which only 15 people in the world are known to have completed, since not only does it require you to no hit, no bomb your first loop, but the actual Ura loop is quite difficult, but probably not as difficult as no miss, no bombing Ketsui consistently I would imagine

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Meanwhile, Magic: The Gathering has killing your opponents as the main win condition, but milling your opponent's deck down to nothing was a popular strategy right out of the gate (and I've had it done to me via land destruction stun-lock + milling, which is annoying as hell). And right from the very beginning it also had cards that created alternative win conditions, or just had effects like "Your opponent automatically loses the game in two turns." (Not to mention asshole combos like Lich/Mirror Universe.)

Then later sets included even more special conditions, like Coalition Victory - where if you have a Land and a creature of each color, you automatically win (and I've lost to this one as well). Or creatures that hit you with poison counters (lost to that one as well). Or creatures that effectively Deathtouch the other players (ie, if they do any successful damage, the other player instantly loses). Or stuff like Darksteel Reactor (which charges up over time, and if it hits a certain number of counters, you auto-win).

Magic is kind of crazy for that sort of thing.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/1/AAQwHjAAEKIh.jpg

captpackrat posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/1/AAQwHjAAEKIh.jpg

Oh yeah, there were quite a few ante-based extra win condition cards early on (like the Amulet of Quoz).

I just didn't mention them separately because I don't think I've ever met a single human being who actually played for ante.

speaking of mtg, reminded me of this. Dug it up.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/theres-door-2013-10-31

Theres a card that thats difficult to enable, but causes target player to lose the game. But wait, lets make a deck where you strong arm your opponent to target himself with it. If he doesnt, youll force him repeatedly to consider making the correct decision to kill himself.