Poll: Death in Games

[heyheysg]

Have you ever played a game where dying is considered a gameplay mechanic? Games like Megaman, Prinny and Metal Slug are practically designed with it in mind. Using your mistakes as a guide, you learn and adapt the next time round.

However, the flip side is, even the best 2D platform players in the world would not be able to complete an entire new game without first seeing the new enemies or patterns.

Should this be the case, are designers rewarding memorisation and practice on one particular scenario instead of rewarding skills?

Compared to Street Fighter, Starcraft or Guitar Hero, practice also makes perfect, but you don't die per se, you lose a round and have the chance to improve yourself. Come the next Fighter, RTS or Music game, you can port over the skills wholesale, only taking a moment to learn the new things. Example, the leading Guitar Hero player who got 5 stars on the Van Halen song in a single day.

On another note, you have death as a plot device, 2008 Prince of Persia and Modern Warfare etc.
Where death isn't necessary as a gameplay mechanic, but more as a plot device, you could go through the entire two games on the first try without dying (falling counts) if you are good enough in platformers or FPS's.

Or like the suggested ideas for Heavy Rain, where if your character dies, you don't respawn, the story simply continues without you.

 

[The Real Sandman]

PREY.

Whenever you die, you play a mini game to restore your health and magic power. While the game is nothing short of awesome, that little detail makes the entire experience insultingly easy.

 

[Gigaguy64]

It just depends on the game.

I like it when Death is a penalty and irreversible, like in Fire Emblem.
Now whenever i loose a character i always restart but, it makes you value your units more and keeps you from making hasty decisions.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Most gamers find dying repeatedly pretty frustrating, but there'll always be the select few ultra-masochistic gamers who will facilitate little gems like IWBTG.

There's room for skill based learning and room for trial and error.

Personally, I hate trial and error deaths, they make me want to kick puppies.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Don't get me

PREY.

Whenever you die, you play a mini game to restore your health and magic power. While the game is nothing short of awesome, that little detail makes the entire experience insultingly easy.

If thats easy to you then don't get me started on that latest prince of Persia game

 

[klakkat]

It depends on how the game implements it. Games can have a very high difficulty and still be fun, but the player needs to get far enough and learn enough from failed tries to have fun and be willing to keep going. A game that has a very high difficulty (as default; I'm not talking about high difficulty modes for low to mid difficulty games) also has to be streamlined to some extent. The more time the player wastes NOT playing the game (due to unskippable cut-scenes or long loading times) the worse the overall experience if they have to try several times. I certainly don't mind an exceptionally difficult game, provided the game doesn't punish a player too much for dying (but there needs to be SOME consequences; so far a checkpoint system like God of War is my favorite).

Games that have a save/load system (rather than Lives or Checkpoints) should generally avoid situations that are nearly impossible to get through on the first try, since they mean nothing to a player that saves frequently but can annoy a player that saves rarely to the point they quit the game.

 

[Twad]

Old, another topic on the very same subject was made, like, 3 days ago.

Otherwise, daeth in games; depends on the game.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

I like it when Death is a penalty and irreversible, like in Fire Emblem.

^ this, it's my favorite kind of death system, because you can continue when someone dies, but you have to ask yourself; "do i really want to play the rest of the game without that character"?

 

[Trifixion]

How about Planescape: Torment? Your character may actually gain experience - or get past certain obstacles - or even solve puzzles - by dying.

 

[Gigaguy64]

I like it when Death is a penalty and irreversible, like in Fire Emblem.

^ this, it's my favorite kind of death system, because you can continue when someone dies, but you have to ask yourself; "do i really want to play the rest of the game without that character"?

I know, it doesn't help any that the Characters all have great back story's that make me feel for all of them, even the ones i don't use.
I can spend Hours on one chapter just because the AI would take advantage of a simple mistake and take out my favorite character.

 

[The DSM]

Depends if the game is trying to be hard or not.

If its trying to be difficult you lose them forever, if not nothing happens or there are limited penalties.

Also killing permenantly is a dick move and if its because of a glitch, you feel cheated.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

I like it when Death is a penalty and irreversible, like in Fire Emblem.

^ this, it's my favorite kind of death system, because you can continue when someone dies, but you have to ask yourself; "do i really want to play the rest of the game without that character"?

I know, it doesn't help any that the Characters all have great back story's that make me feel for all of them, even the ones i don't use.
I can spend Hours on one chapter just because the AI would take advantage of a simple mistake and take out my favorite character.

sooo true - i just have to complete every FE game with all characters alive, even if that means that i have to restart a chapter 5 or more times :3

 

[Woodsey]

It depends on the game.

It worked in the last Prince of Persia, whilst in other games it doesn't. I dislike games where the only way you'll know what to do is to die though.

Dragon Age: Origins spoiler coming up:

Spoiler

I like the fact that I could die in Dragon Age (and obviously I chose to) because it adds to the experience in creating your "own" story, although if we're only talking in terms of my previous examples then ignore this.

 

[Gigaguy64]

I like it when Death is a penalty and irreversible, like in Fire Emblem.

^ this, it's my favorite kind of death system, because you can continue when someone dies, but you have to ask yourself; "do i really want to play the rest of the game without that character"?

I know, it doesn't help any that the Characters all have great back story's that make me feel for all of them, even the ones i don't use.
I can spend Hours on one chapter just because the AI would take advantage of a simple mistake and take out my favorite character.

sooo true - i just have to complete every FE game with all characters alive, even if that means that i have to restart a chapter 5 or more times :3

I hear ya.
That's one of the things i hate about Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
In order to get to the Secret chapters you can only have 15 or less units in your Total army.
My "Keep them all alive" instincts clashed with my " Collectors" instincts throughout the entire game.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

I hear ya.
That's one of the things i hate about Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
In order to get to the Secret chapters you can only have 15 or less units in your Total army.
My "Keep them all alive" instincts clashed with my " Collectors" instincts throughout the entire game.

yeah, that was a "WTF" moment for me too ... "i HAVE to send people to their deaths in order to experience the full game??? :O" - i wonder why they made it that way... :|

 

[Gigaguy64]

I hear ya.
That's one of the things i hate about Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
In order to get to the Secret chapters you can only have 15 or less units in your Total army.
My "Keep them all alive" instincts clashed with my " Collectors" instincts throughout the entire game.

yeah, that was a "WTF" moment for me too ... "i HAVE to send people to their deaths in order to experience the full game??? :O" - i wonder why they made it that way... :|

I have no idea.
It was hard for me too but, the secret chapters usually had cooler characters anyway.
:3

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

I hear ya.
That's one of the things i hate about Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.
In order to get to the Secret chapters you can only have 15 or less units in your Total army.
My "Keep them all alive" instincts clashed with my " Collectors" instincts throughout the entire game.

yeah, that was a "WTF" moment for me too ... "i HAVE to send people to their deaths in order to experience the full game??? :O" - i wonder why they made it that way... :|

I have no idea.
It was hard for me too but, the secret chapters usually had cooler characters anyway.
:3

that's true... but that some less cool characters had to die on purpose to get the cooler characters made them somewhat less cooler

 

[teisjm]

You don't neccecerily have to die, i fyou're good enough sure you can survive.

If i can play through a game without dying, it's too easy though, cause i'm not that hardcore.

Death should have some sort of penalty, harshness dependant on teh game ofc.
In platformers like mario, a restart of the level is fair, possibly checkpoints if it's long levels.

In online FPS, either respawn a bit away from combat, eitehr insatntly or afgter a few seconds, or you could sit the rest of teh round out, like counter strike. IF it's death match game style, youc an easily respawn insatntly, cause your kills/deaths are determining on whether you win or not.

In MMO's i think you need some penalty, i liked it better in EVE online where you actually loose stuff when you die, cause it made you care about whether you die as opposed to WoW, where you just ahev to run to your corpse which takes what? ½-3 minutes?