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Death: From Dungeon Crawl to Meat Boy

54 points by luu 8y ago

keyle 8y ago
Dying in games has very different meanings. For some, you've lost 3-10 seconds of progress. For others, you lose 3 years of time invested (and potentially money). There is also an emotional connection to death in games. Some are happy death, some are dreadful. Take roguelike games for example, dying can be a good thing, you might have been stuck with a weapon or ability you got at the start, and by dying to get rewarded a new 'random' package which happens to be much better.
- adrianN 8y ago
  You can't really play roguelikes without getting some enjoyment out of dying (or save-scumming). Failure is almost inevitable.
  - setr 8y ago
    Not necessarily: I personally dislike death in roguelikes. What I like is that I fear death. It gives a weight to the game thats normally absent I normally quit my roguelike binges when I stop caring about keeping my characters alive, even on a good/long run. In fact, too good a run can even get boring, when I get too confident in my capacity to survive (though this naturally resolves itself when I inevitably splat because of that confidence). But never because I haven't gotten the fun of dying recently; its because I stopped worrying about the possibility/consequence.
    - danielbarla 8y ago
      I think there's two separate concepts, and it can be worthwhile to separate them out, namely ironman (or permadeath), versus roguelikes which encourage more frequent, "short"(-er) games. E.g. you might play a game like XCOM or Europa Universalis on ironman, and that is what will give the situations you encounter the seriousness / gravitas that they deserve, and it can be thrilling. On the other hand, a game like Everspace actually pulls of the "fun of dying" quite nicely. Games are relatively short, especially early on, and unlike most roguelikes your character's skills and weapon choices do survive deaths to some degree. So much of the time, you're dying with a smile on your face, because you know you've just achieved an important milestone, and you can't wait to try again with whatever you just unlocked. I thought it was an interesting hybrid take on the roguelike genre.
      - ferongr 8y ago
        >roguelikes which encourage more frequent, "short"(-er) games Those are roguelites, not roguelikes.
        taneq 8y ago
        Or "coffee break rogues".
        floatboth 8y ago
        Yeah, "roguelite" usually implies losing some of the big classic elements (e.g. not being turn based). "coffee break" only implies short length.
      - chongli 8y ago
        I would argue that if a game is meant to make dying fun, it isn't a roguelike. The purpose of death in roguelikes is to add the sense of gravitas, as you say. The fun aspect of death is accidental at best. Perhaps a good analogy is with horror movies. Horror movies are meant to scare you. Horror movies can often be funny. But a movie that was intended to be funny is not a horror movie, it's a comedy.
      - setr 8y ago
        >roguelikes which encourage more frequent, "short"(-er) games. I wouldn't say roguelikes encourage shorter games; they encourage long games, and are mechanically designed around long sessions. The difficulty makes it more ..difficult.. to achieve a longer game, but there's absolutely nothing to encourage killing off your character. Someone new to roguelikes, I think, might be perceive that everything revolves around the initial roll of the dice, and the items you find, but the games are balanced such that you should be capable of surviving regardless of the initial roll (except in really, awful, just plain terrible starts). And you'll still trivially die with even a great start. You're encouraged towards a long session, but unlike most games, roguelikes fight really hard to not let you have it. in a similar fashion as https://i.imgur.com/mHXiz.png https://i.imgur.com/mHXiz.png roguelites on the other hand encourage shorter sessions to some degree, by the usual mechanic of meta-rewards that persist between sessions. With it, it's not just less punishing to die; it actively encourages you to die, because you'll be able to start again with a better character, with better equipment, abilities, whatever. And this will inevitably mean you take more risks with your character (like say, investing more in health, because you have a guaranteed strong weapon), and eventually reach the same point as where you died but stronger than before. They push death onto you, whereas a roguelike offers next to nothing. Just another roll, but you'll get those anyways if you push on..
- baby 8y ago
  That’s why I liked playing minecraft on survival servers. If you die you can’t re-join for something like a week
Kiro 8y ago
Nothing beats the death system in (early) Ultima Online. Not only could you lose everything you had on you. If you were unlucky to get killed while having your house key in your inventory a looter could rob you clean. Dying was a serious business and being a robber/PK/looter was super lucrative. Going outside the city was the biggest adrenaline rush ever.
- scaryclam 8y ago
  I really wish more games would use this sort of mechanic. I understand that many players don't want to have to worry about losing their stuff, or being hassled by other players griefing them, but I love the feeling of actually going on an adventure when you leave a safe area. Danger is a part of that, and let's face it, other humans creating some of that danger is a lot better than an AI.
  - marcodave 8y ago
    Minecraft is similar to that, when you die you lose everything, but you can regain your items back in the span of 5 minutes. You respawn in the last place you slept, and the adrenaline rush is to try to get back there on the death place as fast as possible without getting killed again. It gets even "funnier" when the respawn point is reset to the world initial spawn. 90% of times, that effectively means your loot is gone forever
  - xsace 8y ago
    The problem is when you have 0 chance of making it because other players outgear/outnumber you.
    - chongli 8y ago
      That's when you need to make friends. It's a multiplayer game, after all. Some of the most enjoyable moments I've ever had in a video game happened like that in UO. There were relentless groups of PKs killing our miners. So what did we do? We grouped up together and went out in force.
  - 8y ago
cjslep 8y ago
The parody platformer I Want To Be The Guy adjusts difficulty solely by adding or removing checkpoints. The hardest difficulty has no checkpoints; good luck becoming The Guy.
l0b0 8y ago
Skinner boxes like WoW are extreme examples of trying to make you play for as long and often as possible. So when dying, if your choice is between quitting on a low or grinding a bit more to get at least a bit of satisfaction out of the session, I suspect a lot of people will do the grind.
Lazare 8y ago
Interestingly, it seems Blizzard agrees with him; WoW has moved sharply away from the system he describes as nonsensical. (The time penalty has been sharply decreased in all cases, and essentially eliminated in difficult group content.)
- noxToken 8y ago
  To be fair, the author mentions that they're discussing death for PvE content: > And more specifically, let's talk about losing in a PvE game, either solo or cooperative. And through that lens, the death system for WoW is pretty lame. But I'd beg to differ for PvP or RPPv(E|P). The run-back system allows people to camp your corpse. This would cause you to request help from your guild or hop on an alt and get help in trade chat. Now you have an overworld faction battle going on. For RP, it becomes an RP element.
  - Lazare 8y ago
    Yes, quite right. The runback makes sense in PVP; it largely doesn't in PVE, where it's mostly been eliminated.
- noirbot 8y ago
  Yea, I maybe die once a month, at most, in general PvE content. For the most part now, you're dying because of dungeon/raid wipes, where you either have a short runback, or you have someone who can resurrect you on the spot. These days, the length of that runback, at least for M+ content is actually important, and there's interesting interactions and strategy around using/abusing it in higher-level content.
  - Lazare 8y ago
    Yep. I've been playing WoW long enough that I can recall wiping in a dungeon or raid, respawning as a ghost in a graveyard on the other side of the zone, and needing to run back across difficult terrain on foot. In a couple of notable cases, you'd even need to navigate a maze of some sort just so you could find the portal so you could zone in, rez, and start heading back. The game also used trash respawn as a mechanism for punishing you for taking too long, and I literally had raids disband when we wiped and discovered trash had respawned and we'd need to spend an hour just getting back to where we were. Basically, you screw up, and you could lose anywhere from maybe 5m to an hour. Now at worst you'll respawn at the most recent checkpoint, usually a 10s to 30s runback, and even that is usually avoidable via failure detection pylons and such. It's a different world. > there's interesting interactions and strategy around using/abusing it in higher-level content Yeah, was fascinating watching the MDI and seeing some teams purposefully suicide run and rez up on the fair side to skip hard packs.
mihaifm 8y ago
What I don't really like in a lot of video games is the learning through death mechanic, when you basically need to die in order to learn how to defeat a boss or to advance to the next stage. It's mostly popular in action adventure games, some of them (Dark Souls, Bloodborne) are amazing games but there has to be a better way to learn how to advance, instead of just dying and repeating.
- s_m_t 8y ago
  I imagine it is just easier to balance that way. "Death" in these games really just means teleporting you to a predetermined position and restarting the encounter (in the souls games also adding a chance to permanently lose some of your gathered resources, which based on the non-linear stat leveling don't actually matter all that much). I would also add that in the souls games the dodging is very lenient, if you spend the first couple of minutes of a boss fight simply not getting hit you can usually see most of the bosses attack animations and beat it on the first try if you don't mess up. Based on the alternatives that actually exist the cure may be worse than the disease. In many modern AAA games you never really have to learn anything, the game just lets you progress regardless. Unless you play on the extremely hard difficulty modes that just completely break the balance of the game (the hardest difficulty mode on the Uncharted remastered is a good example of this).
- setr 8y ago
  Dunno about bloodbourne but demon/dark souls were notable to me in that they didnt require death to learn; they just required patience and care, and failing to do so meant a quick death. Death taught nothing; it just punishes for not learning. And afaicr, none of the bosses weren't mostly clear from the get-go, with most moves being pretty heavily telegraphed. Still not easy, mind you, but imo they were never so cruel as to hide their intent, and not provide hints as to what was coming.
- jtms 8y ago
  That mechanic is my favorite part of the souls series. I love the surprise of hitting a trap or particularly nasty ambush for the first time and getting destroyed. the next time through you get to know the future before it happens and have learned from it
sgt101 8y ago
The "I don't understand death in WoW" made me laugh. The discussion is all "then you don't win", but win is never is WoW.
mhd 8y ago
That mirrors the development in tabletop RPGs. While nobody's trying checkpoints there, the attitude towards getting killed by sheer game master fiat or happenstance changed a lot. When the mechanical complexity was lower and players often didn't have elaborate back stories, starting from scratch, even with a new level 1 character, didn't seem that disturbing. So today you see all kinds of mechanics helping player agency (like "fate" points that serve as extra lives), wanton PC murder like Gygax' Tomb of Horrors mostly sells to nostalgic players these days.
- SuperGent 8y ago
  This reminds me of the Paranoia RPG. The GM was expected to kill off many PCs, usually in a funny and elaborate way, so each player got 6 'clones' that activate upon death. It was a really great game for letting off steam! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)
  - officemonkey 8y ago
    In the original "Traveller" RPG (we called them the "little black books") you could get killed during character generation! The game also had a fairly deadly combat system; often the only way to "win" was not to fight. (If you died, you could always introduce a replacement character at the next spaceport.) It probably cost them some popularity long term, but it also made for an entire galaxy of world building. (Younger kids will probably not realize that Traveller was likely an inspiration for the "Firefly" show. When I first saw the show, I said "That's Traveller.")
spapas82 8y ago
I think that permadeath is not as bad as it seems if the game is properly balanced. For example, I remember playing Super Mario Land on the Game Boy before ~ 25 years (I was 10). When I first played it, I couldn't pass the first level, but after a couple of times I was able to move to the second, third etc. Each time I played it I felt that I was better at passing the levels (knowing when to jump, when each enemy will approach etc) and I almost universally felt that I acomplished something (i.e "oh wow I reached the Boss of the first three levels"). I never felt frustrated because I lost because I knew that next time I play I'll probably do better; even if I didn't make it further away I'd improve my playthrough of the previous stages. Now, this "play/learn, lose, repeat" lasted (IIRC) for about 1-2 months until I finished the game. I then continued playing it for a little more time to discover more secrets and/or improve my score. The thing is that I never was angry that I needed to repeat these stages because I had learn that the game was fair (balanced). That was also the case for some (not all) arcade games I remember like Shinobi, Double Dragon, Snow Brows, Bubble Bubble etc; you needed to play them some times to discover their secrets and become better and then you'd be able to reach further and further with a single credit (and even finish them). This experience was contrary to what I felt when I played games that were not properly balanced (which felt non-fair to me then). For example, I remember that while I played Castlevania on the game boy I was always frustrated, I had reach the final stage but I couldn't pass some obstacles; and if I could was by pure luck. It was like dropping a coin 10 times and needing to get heads in all 10 times. One time after many hours of trying I had reached the final boss but I was killed before actually seeing anything on how he attacks etc. I was so frustrated that I thrown the Gameboy at the floor and broken it! The game was so unfair! TL;DR: If the game has good gameplay and is properly balanced then repeating stages is not bad; not many games are properly balanced though :/
ariehkovler 8y ago
Three games' approaches to death come to mind immediately: First, Braid, where your character can die in the usual way for a 2D platformer, killed by monsters or falling in holes. But the game lets you manipulate time, so the answer to death is just to rewind a few seconds while the music plays backwards and you come back to life. Second, the original Monkey Island. Unlike the Sierra click puzzlers of the time (King's Quest etc) you couldn't die. But if you stood at the edge of the cliff, you fell off and got a Sierra-style Game Over screen... for a few seconds. Then you bounced back up on a 'rubber tree'. Finally, there's the original ZX Spectrum isometric platformer version of Batman. In that game, if you died in a particularly frustrating way or at the same puzzle repeatedly, the game would sometimes give you a "Dog's life", an extra life as a consolation prize. Interesting article.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  you could die in the first monkey islamd exceeding ten minutes submerged.
- akavel 8y ago
  I have some faint kind of an impression that I've once played (?) some game (?), where if your character died, it woke up in some kind of "netherworld", and there was also something to do there. (I seem to recall being hugely surprised and impressed by this course of events.) Does this trigger some more concrete memories about particular name of a game to anyone here?
  - cjcenizal 8y ago
    Are you thinking of Prey? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2006_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2006_video_game)
    - akavel 8y ago
      I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I didn't play Prey; but then there's some chance I could have watched some playthrough on Youtube, and only see that happening to someone else. Don't know.
pressurefree 8y ago
??? what is this vague coward shit?
qiemem 8y ago
One of my favorite death concepts is the Death Alternative[1] mod for Skyrim. It weaves "death" into the narrative. Instead of dying, you're robbed and left for dead by bandits and then can go on a quest to get your items back, or you're captured and enslaved by vampires and must escape (or, IIRC, join them). I love that it makes defeats part of the story. They become part of your character's history, helping define who your character is. It makes death meaningful, more so than checkpoints or saves, but not as frustrating as permadeath, while being a powerful mechanism for procedural storytelling. I would really love to see it in more games, by I believe Death Alternative is the only place I've seen it done. [1]: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/45894 https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/45894
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
stared 8y ago
I found this article underwhelming. There are a few examples, whereas concept of death in games is way broader. Moreover, it does not go to extremes (I mean, I didn't expect Saw-like scenario, or Russian Roulette). E.g. "You Only Live Once" is even harsher. Once you die, you die. There is not "play again?": https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/505914 https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/505914 (warning: Flash)
- bbarn 8y ago
  That was a fun 4 minutes. Thanks.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  The prime example of that are true Rogue-likes where it takes hours to bootstrap a character. And even more so, simulations like Dwarf Fortress.
  - stared 8y ago
    I played ADOM a number of times. And liked its death mechanics, as it dissuaded from reckless behaviours. For a faster-paced and more gateway (to RL hell), there is https://drl.chaosforge.org/ https://drl.chaosforge.org/. Still, after dying, I could play again.
ergothus 8y ago
I'm a very casual gamer and have been very turned off by the recent (?) Hardcore fetish. By which I mean a combination of games that are increasingly difficult with no meaningfully fun easier mode and the disdain for anyone wanting such a thing. In particular I miss out on some awesome story and design work by authors and artists because I lack the reflexes and/or hours of dedication needed to be able to truly experience these games. When I ask (or find where someone else asks) about how to deal with difficulty and the NICE responses are "this game is not for you" it is a real letdown.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  difficulty can be a powerful game mechanic if it's treated carefully.
  - TimJYoung 8y ago
    Case in point: Cuphead.
- wilsonnb2 8y ago
  To be honest you're not missing out on many good stories by not playing video games. Video games are generally a terrible way to tell a story.
- swimfar 8y ago
  I've been playing the Baldur's Gate rpg recently which has multiple difficulty levels. One of them is "Story Mode" where, as I understand it, you can't die. Baldur's Gate is famous for its story and this lets people enjoy it without having to worry about picking the right team, using the best strategy, items, etc. I thought it was a cool feature to include. (I think it's only in the Enhanced Edition).

54 points by luu 8y ago

Dying in games has very different meanings. For some, you've lost 3-10 seconds of progress. For others, you lose 3 years of time invested (and potentially money). There is also an emotional connection to death in games. Some are happy death, some are dreadful. Take roguelike games for example, dying can be a good thing, you might have been stuck with a weapon or ability you got at the start, and by dying to get rewarded a new 'random' package which happens to be much better.

adrianN 8y ago
You can't really play roguelikes without getting some enjoyment out of dying (or save-scumming). Failure is almost inevitable.
- setr 8y ago
  Not necessarily: I personally dislike death in roguelikes. What I like is that I fear death. It gives a weight to the game thats normally absent I normally quit my roguelike binges when I stop caring about keeping my characters alive, even on a good/long run. In fact, too good a run can even get boring, when I get too confident in my capacity to survive (though this naturally resolves itself when I inevitably splat because of that confidence). But never because I haven't gotten the fun of dying recently; its because I stopped worrying about the possibility/consequence.
  - danielbarla 8y ago
    I think there's two separate concepts, and it can be worthwhile to separate them out, namely ironman (or permadeath), versus roguelikes which encourage more frequent, "short"(-er) games. E.g. you might play a game like XCOM or Europa Universalis on ironman, and that is what will give the situations you encounter the seriousness / gravitas that they deserve, and it can be thrilling. On the other hand, a game like Everspace actually pulls of the "fun of dying" quite nicely. Games are relatively short, especially early on, and unlike most roguelikes your character's skills and weapon choices do survive deaths to some degree. So much of the time, you're dying with a smile on your face, because you know you've just achieved an important milestone, and you can't wait to try again with whatever you just unlocked. I thought it was an interesting hybrid take on the roguelike genre.
    - ferongr 8y ago
      >roguelikes which encourage more frequent, "short"(-er) games Those are roguelites, not roguelikes.
      - taneq 8y ago
        Or "coffee break rogues".
        floatboth 8y ago
        Yeah, "roguelite" usually implies losing some of the big classic elements (e.g. not being turn based). "coffee break" only implies short length.
    - chongli 8y ago
      I would argue that if a game is meant to make dying fun, it isn't a roguelike. The purpose of death in roguelikes is to add the sense of gravitas, as you say. The fun aspect of death is accidental at best. Perhaps a good analogy is with horror movies. Horror movies are meant to scare you. Horror movies can often be funny. But a movie that was intended to be funny is not a horror movie, it's a comedy.
    - setr 8y ago
      >roguelikes which encourage more frequent, "short"(-er) games. I wouldn't say roguelikes encourage shorter games; they encourage long games, and are mechanically designed around long sessions. The difficulty makes it more ..difficult.. to achieve a longer game, but there's absolutely nothing to encourage killing off your character. Someone new to roguelikes, I think, might be perceive that everything revolves around the initial roll of the dice, and the items you find, but the games are balanced such that you should be capable of surviving regardless of the initial roll (except in really, awful, just plain terrible starts). And you'll still trivially die with even a great start. You're encouraged towards a long session, but unlike most games, roguelikes fight really hard to not let you have it. in a similar fashion as https://i.imgur.com/mHXiz.png https://i.imgur.com/mHXiz.png roguelites on the other hand encourage shorter sessions to some degree, by the usual mechanic of meta-rewards that persist between sessions. With it, it's not just less punishing to die; it actively encourages you to die, because you'll be able to start again with a better character, with better equipment, abilities, whatever. And this will inevitably mean you take more risks with your character (like say, investing more in health, because you have a guaranteed strong weapon), and eventually reach the same point as where you died but stronger than before. They push death onto you, whereas a roguelike offers next to nothing. Just another roll, but you'll get those anyways if you push on..
baby 8y ago
That’s why I liked playing minecraft on survival servers. If you die you can’t re-join for something like a week

Kiro 8y ago

Nothing beats the death system in (early) Ultima Online. Not only could you lose everything you had on you. If you were unlucky to get killed while having your house key in your inventory a looter could rob you clean. Dying was a serious business and being a robber/PK/looter was super lucrative. Going outside the city was the biggest adrenaline rush ever.

scaryclam 8y ago
I really wish more games would use this sort of mechanic. I understand that many players don't want to have to worry about losing their stuff, or being hassled by other players griefing them, but I love the feeling of actually going on an adventure when you leave a safe area. Danger is a part of that, and let's face it, other humans creating some of that danger is a lot better than an AI.
- marcodave 8y ago
  Minecraft is similar to that, when you die you lose everything, but you can regain your items back in the span of 5 minutes. You respawn in the last place you slept, and the adrenaline rush is to try to get back there on the death place as fast as possible without getting killed again. It gets even "funnier" when the respawn point is reset to the world initial spawn. 90% of times, that effectively means your loot is gone forever
- xsace 8y ago
  The problem is when you have 0 chance of making it because other players outgear/outnumber you.
  - chongli 8y ago
    That's when you need to make friends. It's a multiplayer game, after all. Some of the most enjoyable moments I've ever had in a video game happened like that in UO. There were relentless groups of PKs killing our miners. So what did we do? We grouped up together and went out in force.
- 8y ago

cjslep 8y ago

The parody platformer I Want To Be The Guy adjusts difficulty solely by adding or removing checkpoints. The hardest difficulty has no checkpoints; good luck becoming The Guy.

l0b0 8y ago

Skinner boxes like WoW are extreme examples of trying to make you play for as long and often as possible. So when dying, if your choice is between quitting on a low or grinding a bit more to get at least a bit of satisfaction out of the session, I suspect a lot of people will do the grind.

Lazare 8y ago

Interestingly, it seems Blizzard agrees with him; WoW has moved sharply away from the system he describes as nonsensical. (The time penalty has been sharply decreased in all cases, and essentially eliminated in difficult group content.)

noxToken 8y ago
To be fair, the author mentions that they're discussing death for PvE content: > And more specifically, let's talk about losing in a PvE game, either solo or cooperative. And through that lens, the death system for WoW is pretty lame. But I'd beg to differ for PvP or RPPv(E|P). The run-back system allows people to camp your corpse. This would cause you to request help from your guild or hop on an alt and get help in trade chat. Now you have an overworld faction battle going on. For RP, it becomes an RP element.
- Lazare 8y ago
  Yes, quite right. The runback makes sense in PVP; it largely doesn't in PVE, where it's mostly been eliminated.
noirbot 8y ago
Yea, I maybe die once a month, at most, in general PvE content. For the most part now, you're dying because of dungeon/raid wipes, where you either have a short runback, or you have someone who can resurrect you on the spot. These days, the length of that runback, at least for M+ content is actually important, and there's interesting interactions and strategy around using/abusing it in higher-level content.
- Lazare 8y ago
  Yep. I've been playing WoW long enough that I can recall wiping in a dungeon or raid, respawning as a ghost in a graveyard on the other side of the zone, and needing to run back across difficult terrain on foot. In a couple of notable cases, you'd even need to navigate a maze of some sort just so you could find the portal so you could zone in, rez, and start heading back. The game also used trash respawn as a mechanism for punishing you for taking too long, and I literally had raids disband when we wiped and discovered trash had respawned and we'd need to spend an hour just getting back to where we were. Basically, you screw up, and you could lose anywhere from maybe 5m to an hour. Now at worst you'll respawn at the most recent checkpoint, usually a 10s to 30s runback, and even that is usually avoidable via failure detection pylons and such. It's a different world. > there's interesting interactions and strategy around using/abusing it in higher-level content Yeah, was fascinating watching the MDI and seeing some teams purposefully suicide run and rez up on the fair side to skip hard packs.

mihaifm 8y ago

What I don't really like in a lot of video games is the learning through death mechanic, when you basically need to die in order to learn how to defeat a boss or to advance to the next stage. It's mostly popular in action adventure games, some of them (Dark Souls, Bloodborne) are amazing games but there has to be a better way to learn how to advance, instead of just dying and repeating.

s_m_t 8y ago
I imagine it is just easier to balance that way. "Death" in these games really just means teleporting you to a predetermined position and restarting the encounter (in the souls games also adding a chance to permanently lose some of your gathered resources, which based on the non-linear stat leveling don't actually matter all that much). I would also add that in the souls games the dodging is very lenient, if you spend the first couple of minutes of a boss fight simply not getting hit you can usually see most of the bosses attack animations and beat it on the first try if you don't mess up. Based on the alternatives that actually exist the cure may be worse than the disease. In many modern AAA games you never really have to learn anything, the game just lets you progress regardless. Unless you play on the extremely hard difficulty modes that just completely break the balance of the game (the hardest difficulty mode on the Uncharted remastered is a good example of this).
setr 8y ago
Dunno about bloodbourne but demon/dark souls were notable to me in that they didnt require death to learn; they just required patience and care, and failing to do so meant a quick death. Death taught nothing; it just punishes for not learning. And afaicr, none of the bosses weren't mostly clear from the get-go, with most moves being pretty heavily telegraphed. Still not easy, mind you, but imo they were never so cruel as to hide their intent, and not provide hints as to what was coming.
jtms 8y ago
That mechanic is my favorite part of the souls series. I love the surprise of hitting a trap or particularly nasty ambush for the first time and getting destroyed. the next time through you get to know the future before it happens and have learned from it

sgt101 8y ago

The "I don't understand death in WoW" made me laugh. The discussion is all "then you don't win", but win is never is WoW.

mhd 8y ago

That mirrors the development in tabletop RPGs. While nobody's trying checkpoints there, the attitude towards getting killed by sheer game master fiat or happenstance changed a lot. When the mechanical complexity was lower and players often didn't have elaborate back stories, starting from scratch, even with a new level 1 character, didn't seem that disturbing. So today you see all kinds of mechanics helping player agency (like "fate" points that serve as extra lives), wanton PC murder like Gygax' Tomb of Horrors mostly sells to nostalgic players these days.

SuperGent 8y ago
This reminds me of the Paranoia RPG. The GM was expected to kill off many PCs, usually in a funny and elaborate way, so each player got 6 'clones' that activate upon death. It was a really great game for letting off steam! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)
- officemonkey 8y ago
  In the original "Traveller" RPG (we called them the "little black books") you could get killed during character generation! The game also had a fairly deadly combat system; often the only way to "win" was not to fight. (If you died, you could always introduce a replacement character at the next spaceport.) It probably cost them some popularity long term, but it also made for an entire galaxy of world building. (Younger kids will probably not realize that Traveller was likely an inspiration for the "Firefly" show. When I first saw the show, I said "That's Traveller.")

spapas82 8y ago

I think that permadeath is not as bad as it seems if the game is properly balanced. For example, I remember playing Super Mario Land on the Game Boy before ~ 25 years (I was 10). When I first played it, I couldn't pass the first level, but after a couple of times I was able to move to the second, third etc. Each time I played it I felt that I was better at passing the levels (knowing when to jump, when each enemy will approach etc) and I almost universally felt that I acomplished something (i.e "oh wow I reached the Boss of the first three levels"). I never felt frustrated because I lost because I knew that next time I play I'll probably do better; even if I didn't make it further away I'd improve my playthrough of the previous stages. Now, this "play/learn, lose, repeat" lasted (IIRC) for about 1-2 months until I finished the game. I then continued playing it for a little more time to discover more secrets and/or improve my score. The thing is that I never was angry that I needed to repeat these stages because I had learn that the game was fair (balanced). That was also the case for some (not all) arcade games I remember like Shinobi, Double Dragon, Snow Brows, Bubble Bubble etc; you needed to play them some times to discover their secrets and become better and then you'd be able to reach further and further with a single credit (and even finish them). This experience was contrary to what I felt when I played games that were not properly balanced (which felt non-fair to me then). For example, I remember that while I played Castlevania on the game boy I was always frustrated, I had reach the final stage but I couldn't pass some obstacles; and if I could was by pure luck. It was like dropping a coin 10 times and needing to get heads in all 10 times. One time after many hours of trying I had reached the final boss but I was killed before actually seeing anything on how he attacks etc. I was so frustrated that I thrown the Gameboy at the floor and broken it! The game was so unfair! TL;DR: If the game has good gameplay and is properly balanced then repeating stages is not bad; not many games are properly balanced though :/

ariehkovler 8y ago

Three games' approaches to death come to mind immediately: First, Braid, where your character can die in the usual way for a 2D platformer, killed by monsters or falling in holes. But the game lets you manipulate time, so the answer to death is just to rewind a few seconds while the music plays backwards and you come back to life. Second, the original Monkey Island. Unlike the Sierra click puzzlers of the time (King's Quest etc) you couldn't die. But if you stood at the edge of the cliff, you fell off and got a Sierra-style Game Over screen... for a few seconds. Then you bounced back up on a 'rubber tree'. Finally, there's the original ZX Spectrum isometric platformer version of Batman. In that game, if you died in a particularly frustrating way or at the same puzzle repeatedly, the game would sometimes give you a "Dog's life", an extra life as a consolation prize. Interesting article.

LoSboccacc 8y ago
you could die in the first monkey islamd exceeding ten minutes submerged.
akavel 8y ago
I have some faint kind of an impression that I've once played (?) some game (?), where if your character died, it woke up in some kind of "netherworld", and there was also something to do there. (I seem to recall being hugely surprised and impressed by this course of events.) Does this trigger some more concrete memories about particular name of a game to anyone here?
- cjcenizal 8y ago
  Are you thinking of Prey? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2006_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2006_video_game)
  - akavel 8y ago
    I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I didn't play Prey; but then there's some chance I could have watched some playthrough on Youtube, and only see that happening to someone else. Don't know.

pressurefree 8y ago

??? what is this vague coward shit?

qiemem 8y ago

One of my favorite death concepts is the Death Alternative[1] mod for Skyrim. It weaves "death" into the narrative. Instead of dying, you're robbed and left for dead by bandits and then can go on a quest to get your items back, or you're captured and enslaved by vampires and must escape (or, IIRC, join them). I love that it makes defeats part of the story. They become part of your character's history, helping define who your character is. It makes death meaningful, more so than checkpoints or saves, but not as frustrating as permadeath, while being a powerful mechanism for procedural storytelling. I would really love to see it in more games, by I believe Death Alternative is the only place I've seen it done. [1]: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/45894 https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/45894

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

stared 8y ago

I found this article underwhelming. There are a few examples, whereas concept of death in games is way broader. Moreover, it does not go to extremes (I mean, I didn't expect Saw-like scenario, or Russian Roulette). E.g. "You Only Live Once" is even harsher. Once you die, you die. There is not "play again?": https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/505914 https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/505914 (warning: Flash)

bbarn 8y ago
That was a fun 4 minutes. Thanks.
AstralStorm 8y ago
The prime example of that are true Rogue-likes where it takes hours to bootstrap a character. And even more so, simulations like Dwarf Fortress.
- stared 8y ago
  I played ADOM a number of times. And liked its death mechanics, as it dissuaded from reckless behaviours. For a faster-paced and more gateway (to RL hell), there is https://drl.chaosforge.org/ https://drl.chaosforge.org/. Still, after dying, I could play again.

ergothus 8y ago

I'm a very casual gamer and have been very turned off by the recent (?) Hardcore fetish. By which I mean a combination of games that are increasingly difficult with no meaningfully fun easier mode and the disdain for anyone wanting such a thing. In particular I miss out on some awesome story and design work by authors and artists because I lack the reflexes and/or hours of dedication needed to be able to truly experience these games. When I ask (or find where someone else asks) about how to deal with difficulty and the NICE responses are "this game is not for you" it is a real letdown.

nyolfen 8y ago
difficulty can be a powerful game mechanic if it's treated carefully.
- TimJYoung 8y ago
  Case in point: Cuphead.
wilsonnb2 8y ago
To be honest you're not missing out on many good stories by not playing video games. Video games are generally a terrible way to tell a story.
swimfar 8y ago
I've been playing the Baldur's Gate rpg recently which has multiple difficulty levels. One of them is "Story Mode" where, as I understand it, you can't die. Baldur's Gate is famous for its story and this lets people enjoy it without having to worry about picking the right team, using the best strategy, items, etc. I thought it was a cool feature to include. (I think it's only in the Enhanced Edition).