Denouement

I've often wondered why video game endings are typically terrible or at least not satisfying.  In some older games it was obvious - Rampage's ending was a single Congratulation, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 gave you a Game Over screen after the credits.  For some reason it didn't hit me until a couple days ago that it's because video game endings are almost always lacking a denouement.

If you're not familiar with this concept, there is a typical flow stories should follow that can be summed up with something called Freytag's pyramid (or Freytag's triangle).  To sum it up briefly, the story should start (exposition), build action (rising action) up to a high point (climax) and then fall back down (falling action) and close up everything nicely (denouement).

Freytag's Pyramid

I think video games tend to fall apart after the climax.  Everything leads up to a final boss battle or big confrontation.  You defeat said boss and the story gets wrapped up super quickly and then credits roll.  The video game endings I like the best are the ones where you get to see how the world changed because of your actions, what your crew is up to afterwards, and how life returns back to normal.  This (I believe) is the denouement of the story.  Very few games (that I can remember) even give the players the resolution.  Those that do typically do it in a credits roll or through a cinematic at the end.  But how is that different from a book or movie?  Video games have one special thing they can do that no other medium can do: be interactive.  Why not let the player explore the world after saving it?  Let them revisit old towns and see how they are rebuilding it and how their actions changed things.  If the player doesn't care, make it obvious how to trigger the conclusion of the story (a.k.a. the credits roll) so they can just skip to that point.  Obviously, this would be a bit trickier to pull off if your main character died, but that can be worked around.

When thinking about this for video games, I also started to ponder how a denouement would work for board games.  Typically, someone flips a card, rolls a die, or moves a token and declares victory and that's that.  I guess the falling action takes place during the cleanup (or setup of the next game) while people discuss what they could've done better or how they should have won.  In other games the falling action is playing for second, third, fourth, etc. place.  If you want your board game to tell a story, you should definitely keep this triangle in mind.