Alternatives to death

Email
Comment *
File	Select/drop/paste files here
* = required field	[▶ Show post options & limits] Confused? See the FAQ.

Embed	(replaces files and can be used instead)
Options	Do not bump (you can also write sage in the email field) Spoiler images (this replaces the thumbnails of your images with question marks)
Password	(For file and post deletion.)
Allowed file types:jpg, jpeg, gif, png, webm, mp4 Max filesize is 8 MB. Max image dimensions are 10000 x 10000. You may upload 1 per post.

Alternatives to death Anonymous 02/12/15 (Thu) 02:49:39 c11e4e No.502

What are some good (non point and click) games where you can't die? Dying can sometimes take people out of the game if it happens too much, so I'm wondering if there are any games with creative alternatives to it.

Here's an example from a game I recently found called Uncanny Valley:

>Uncanny Valley's main difference from other games is a thing we like to call the consequence system. Whenever you fail at something, the game goes on, but with harsh consequences for your character that can impact both the story and the gameplay.

>For example - you fail at avoiding your attackers, meaning your character will move slower throughout the game, making it harder to escape future pursuers, so the player needs to be careful and more clever, which adds more tension to the game. Of course, there are a couple of sections where you can die, but we're trying to avoid that as much as possible.

>Why? Because dying and repeating the same section over and over is tedious and leads to frustration. The game stops being scary if you're angry and just want to rush through it, so we think that adding such a system will still keep the tension while adding a new layer to scariness.

Anonymous 02/12/15 (Thu) 03:32:43 edf5ed No.504

It worked in Wario Land II. Money you collected would be lost if you got hit and Wario would bounce back so much it could set you back quite a way depending where you were. If you ran out of money it would simply bounce back. If you got caught by a boss they would throw you out of the room and when the player makes their way back, they would be at full health again. So there was enough of a challenge and you would be required to repeat difficult parts again but not the entire level.

The money was necessary to play a mini-game that gave you a collectable and another mini-game at the end of each level to get a tile. You need all of both to get to the true final level and win the game. So there's enough of an incentive to do well (the more money you have to spend, the easier the mini-games are).

>Uncanny Valley
One of the devs posts on /agdg/ and I can appreciate that sort of system working in a horror game. Fates worse than death and other horrifying consequences.

Anonymous 02/12/15 (Thu) 07:12:39 2fe768 No.505

>>504

Wario Land series with it's lack of actually dying was still very challenging. I can't think of other games that work like that.

I don't really find tedium in dying and repeating segments though. I grew up on hard as fuck platformers with limited lives, so that kind of thing doesn't bother me much anymore. I think the frustration is what makes completion feel so good.

Anonymous 02/12/15 (Thu) 14:35:12 bd79d4 No.506

>>505
I don't particularly mind repeating segments either, assuming the cause of death was my mistake or lack of skill and not the game being buggy or something. Obviously not every game can have a system where you don't die - fighting games or action games where you're going through sets, there's very few other ways to reasonably punish somebody for messing up. Platformers where you just go up can mimic it by, if you fail a jump you end up falling pretty far (technically you don't die but you're set back) which is sort of what Wario Land does with the bouncing. That sort of thing couldn't work in a Musou game or something - there's other ways to lose, but if you can't die there's a lot of the challenge gone.

The idea just seems to fit with a horror game. You don't just fear the monster catching you and killing you but also injuring you, making you more scared for the next appearance because it'll be harder to get away from.

A fair amount of Wario Land II's challenge, at least for me, was finding the way to the branching paths. I had difficulty finding all of them, iirc. I still haven't finished it (I should) but it was very fair.

Anonymous 02/23/15 (Mon) 04:52:28 281b61 No.652

>>502
In a JRPG system, you lose characters permanently.

The problem with giving setbacks for losing is that playing well is rewarded with an easier game, whereas playing badly causes a snowball effect of sucking, to the point where you're restarting when you get hurt anyway, because if you didn't have the skill to dodge that bullet when at full health, now that your speed is permanently halved you hardly have much of a chance to dodge future ones.

A better way of doing it is having in-story consequences. Don't just black out the screen when I die. Show my opponent taking a celebratory shit in my mouth. Show my corpse dragged before the BBEG. Show my hometown slaughtered, the fields burnt and the sky blackened. Make me feel that my victory is not pre-ordained and that my screw ups have consequences for the game world.

These consequences should be as isolated from power level in gameplay as possible. If anything, they should give additional power, to aid me in my revenge (assuming I didn't die).