What's up, RMers?

[DerVVulfman]

Well, open-ended may be where your game may have a main quest, but the player has the options to perform mini-quests here and there that have nothing to do with the actual game. Fine for those that want to power-game and do some crunching. Your typical 'Go to the Hunting lodge after bagging 15 rabbit pelts' thing. Hehehe. I've known some guys to just go fishing in minecraft.

As to flowcharting, it is something I learned in middleschool for computer programming. A cheap version looks like this:

Goofy Flowchart

Simplistic version, I grant you. But if you have multiple endings, you would show in your game's flowchart.....

Ascii Flowchart

Code:

+--------------+
| GAME CONTENT |
+--------------+
       |
       |
      / \
    /     \                +----------------+
  / Killed  \__Yes_________| Redemption Arc |
  \ Fred ?  /              +----------------+
    \     /                        |
      \ /                          |
       | No                       / \
       |                        /     \             +----------------+
+---------------+             /  Found  \___Yes_____| Member added:  |
| Disable end 4 |             \ Lisa ?  /           | Lisa           |
| Member added: |               \     /             | Use Ending 4   |
| Fred          |                 \ /               +----------------+
| Miniquest Sw: |                  | No                     |
| 16: Artichoke |                  |                        |
+---------------+          +--------------+                 |
       |                   | Lose House.  |                 |
       |                   | Disable ends |                 |
       |                   | (1,4,6,8)    |                 |
       |                   +--------------+                 |
       + -----------------------> | <-----------------------+
                           +--------------+
                           | GAME CONTENT |
                           +--------------+
                                  |
                                  |

With this example, I show how you branch off to one mini-story if you kill off a guy named Fred. If you do, you branch to a story called the 'Redemption Arc' where you either find an attorney named Lisa who joins your party and unlocks ending #4, or you don't and not be able to achieve endings 1,4,6 and 8. But if you do not kill Fred, Fred joins your party and a miniquest gets unlocked. And a flowchart such as this would likely be in the back pages as an appendix of sorts.

Your main quest will be one continuous script. But you will likely have separate chapters just to cover mini-quests like this... Not long, probably two or three pages max. UNLESS... you go whole hog on some things. For example, they must have written a few dozen pages just to find Wutai Village for the hidden Yuffie character in Final Fantasy VII, and unlocked a Yuffie ending. Mebby not so much for finding Vincent. But the rest of Final Fantasy VII didn't deviate that much. Do NOT level Aeris!!!!!