ABSTRACT
In the design of any Short Sim, it is critical to stick the landing. Endings——successes, failures, or mixed—should include combinations of the following elements. In good sims, the ending narratives provide the under-appreciated information of “what success looks like,” and “what failure looks like.” In sims developing comfort in linear processes, a player mistake may simply get a short notice, with the chance to make the specific decision over again. Players then do a variation of “rewind” and try again. In these sims, mini-failures may always be just one click away. In broader, more complex systems-based sims, explicit failures may require restarting the entire experience. With this higher-stakes approach, failures often should require multiple bad moves, or one extra bad move.
