[POLL] GENERAL: NEED ADVICE ON HOW TO HANDLE A COLLECTION MENU.

The horror game I've been making has 35 (that number keeps changing) collectible Bad Ends. You get these when you die and receive a death scene. In the options it can be set to Always Skip, Never Skip, or Only Skip if Seen Before. You also have a gallery menu where you can re-watch them if you so wish. These death scenes are brutally violent or just ultra dark in nature. I'm really trying my hardest with them.

Although they're untitled when you get them, in the gallery menu they need to have titles and will be greyed out until obtained. And I'm stumped on what style to go with for naming them. Here are my ideas:

1) Make them funny. The drawback to this is that while the game does have some comedy it's not in any of the dangerous areas and with how brutal some of these deaths are it feels odd to joke about them with funny titles. The plus side is that it's a bonus menu so you won't be seeing it alongside any of the areas in the main game.

2) Name them what they are. The drawback is that "Fell off a ledge" "Burned alive" etc just feels kind of bland and unrewarding. The plus is that it can help people remember what ones they've got and haven't gotten.

3) Name them hints on how to get them. The drawback to this is that the game already has a system for hints on how to AVOID dying. So naturally doing the opposite will get you killed, making these hints moot. The plus side is it will help people easier track any deaths they've missed.

4) Name them after horror and ultraviolent movies/games/serial killers/etc that relate to the Bad End in some way. The drawback is that referencing out-of-game media or events might make me sound like one of those pop culture goons who can't talk without referencing some movie or game. The plus side is people will look up the references they don't get and will learn something new, which I'm all for.

Thanks to everyone who votes and to anyone who comments.

author=psy_wombats
...In Sound of Drop for example, the endings are named junk like "The Madness that Follows Indiscretion" (player makes a choice to trust someone they shouldn't) or "A Coward's End" (player ran away instead of facing danger) etc. The idea is that they serve as a vague hint, but are poetic enough where they don't completely devalue death when they're actually achieved.

Thanks for the input. I have some further questions though because what you say sounds closer to #3 to me.

I know it's a VN so likely not but did Sound of Drop already have a hint system other than this? Because that's what would make this redundant in my case. Basically, did you have any way to know that running away from danger would give you a Bad End before getting to that scene? Because in my game the player would.

That's why I've struggled with this so much. Each option is good in it's own way but has something major that shoots it down.

In my case, the save points are a character who appears in "safe rooms" (rooms with no chance of death kind of like in earlier Resident Evil games) and when you talk to him you have the option to save and/or ask him what he knows about the next area. His hints on how to survive are written in such a way that (hopefully) the player can connect the dots when they see something that reminds them of what he said. So knowing how to survive, it's easy to know how to die.

Having a feature like that kind of negates the purpose of Bad End names as hints.

Thanks, everyone for the input.

author=Kylaila
Oh, a system where you don't unlock pics for endings by getting endings?

There's only one actual ending and all the Bad Ends come from dying. It'd be cool if I could get some skilled horror artist to get me some death CGs but I'm starting small. This will be my first public RM release so I don't want to over-extend. I focus on good writing and completely bug-free gameplay. If things work out that I get the money for 35 that number keeps changing nice CGs then I'll be happy but if not then *shrug*.

author=Mirak
You could submit a walkthrough at a later point guiding people through all endings if you're worried players might skip endings due to not finding them.

Yeah I'll be submitting a tiered walkthrough (as well as packaging one with the game) anyway for the puzzles just in case the in-game hints aren't good enough. I might as well add where all you can die too. Good point.

author=Marrend
I'm tending toward naming the ends after what occurs in them. Though, the question that occurs to me is if there is some in-game benefit from unlocking/seeing all the endings? I mean, outside of learning what not to do in the situations where they occur, hints notwithstanding.

Thanks for casting. As for your question they are for the collectors. The Bad Ends are their own scenes (games like Corpse Party and some old point-n-click adventure games did this) so for people in the target audience there is entertainment to be had by getting them all to see how far the violence/dark envelope gets pushed (I've already learned what the limit will be in regards to what this site allows so there's no problem there). But currently I don't have any particular reward for getting all of them. I do want one and have thought of several things but they all got worked into the main game anyway. For example there is a Developer's Room (jukebox, character notes, dev notes, etc) but that gets unlocked just from beating the game. There are a few optional scenes for doing things a certain way but the story still stays the same without them. The story doesn't have room for a "true ending" beyond just the one you'll get by clearing the game. There are no unlockable gameplay features that aren't already there (you can run and text skip right from the start and those are the two features I usually wish games had). Any combat is more like puzzles so getting some ultimate weapon won't really help.

I've discussed this a lot with people who are helping me and have knowledge of how the game works and, although I don't care about achievements myself, lots of people really enjoy collecting everything. Combine those people with the ones who'd want to see all the deaths and I'm ok with the collection being for collection sake unless I get some epiphany.