At the end of Maniac Mansion you get the Purple Tentacle to leave, and then you watch a sequence that doesn’t otherwise depend on what you did in the game… you may have killed the hamster and you may not have, you may have taken Razor and Bernard and you may have taken completely different people, etc. That’s sort of what I mean.

How you interpret an ending is different from what the ending IS. You can talk about the ending of ANY book or movie as much as you like, and come away with it with different interpretations. That’s fine. However, what words are being used in the last pages of the book or what video and audio is being played in the last few minutes of the movie doesn’t change. It’s there, fixed. It’s capable of being interpreted different ways, though.

FF7 has one fixed ending that was programmed into it. Anything prior to the ending (which characters you took, etc.) are the permutations in the game prior to the ending. The ending itself is a fixed sequence of stuff. The same actions are taken and the same words spoken and all that. How you interpret those actions and words is a separate personal matter that doesn’t magically change the FMV file on the CD.

Chrono Trigger’s different endings are *different* endings with measurably different things happening, ranging from “But the future refused to change” to some nice stuff to lots of nice stuff like Chrono and Marle tying the knot, etc. etc.

However, FF7 has ONE fixed ending sequence it goes through, just as the last pages of a book never change. You can interpret it in multiple ways if you like, but FF7’s ending is one ending just as a book’s ending is one ending.

Having one ending isn’t a knock against FF7. It’s just a fact. Most games just have one ending. King’s Quest 6 has multiple endings, but King’s Quest 1-5 did not. King’s Quest 7 only did in the sense of having a good ending and a bad ending. Space Quest 1 had two endings but Space Quest 2 and 3 both had only one. Every Legend of Zelda game I’ve played (which, granted, isn’t all of them) had just a single ending also.

I haven’t seen Lost Highway, but WHAT exists in the video and audio of the movie IS unchanging… which way you interpret it is a separate issue.

Secondly, I would argue that Maniac Mansion is little different from FF7. The overall story progression of Maniac Mansion still results in Dr. Fred being helped and Sandy being rescued, with just permutations in what you do on the way. The same ultimate result occurs in FF7, with permutations on what you did up to that point.

I would argue that Chrono Trigger is much more flexible. In terms of WHO you meet, WHAT you do with those people, and WHAT result comes out of it all. Does Marle mend things with her father or screw things with her father? You probably won’t have the idyllic “marriage” ending in any permutation where she’s screwed up with her dad, am I right? Anyway, it’s not just “time” - it’s what you do and what story events you effect in what ways that influence the ending you get. Metroid 1-3’s endings are “just time.”

The kind of permutations you describe in behavior… with characters complaining about things or mandating certain approaches… I think some of that already happens at least in some games, and it’s usually unofficial but you can USUALLY detect the mechanical nature of the switch as you play (whether a character says “Talk to everyone in town first” and finally says “Let’s go” after you talk to a specific person, for example). Not that I want to discourage you from coming up with game stuff ;).