Anyone reading this probably knows what a Game Over is, yet it is far from the only penalty for dying in a video game. Over the years, a surprising amount of ways of penalizing players for dying have been invented, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. In this article, we'll be looking at some of the most prevalent types and looking at the pros and cons of each of them as well as just which types of games they are good (or bad) for.
Literal Game Over: In this case, the words Game Over are taken on a simplistic, literal level. The player has no more chances and the game is at an end and must be restarted from the beginning with nothing carried over. This was one of the earliest death penalties and is most prevalent on systems up to the 8-bit era, although it has faded away over time to the point that it's actually probably one of the rarer penalties now. This penalty is suitable for shoot-em-ups and other games of under an hour in length as it generates a large amount of tension for players while not actually taking away too much progress. Games which take longer than an hour to complete or which do not grant the player roughly ten lives are usually poor fits for this penalty as frequent restarts or losing large amounts of progress are both scenarios which result in frustration and outright boredom.
Insert Coin: This penalty is exclusive to arcade games because it involves real money. Instead of an in-game penalty for failure, the player is penalized for dying through needing to pay more money (almost always equal to the initial cost to start playing, which is usually a quarter) in order to avoid a Game Over. This was a brilliant strategy back in the day of arcades for three reasons. First, it works in a similar way to modern-day 'microtransactions' in that the total amount of money spent seems like less than it actually is because it is spread out in small increments; paying $5 all at once for twenty continues would probably make most people hesitate, but paying this same amount or more over the course of a game is much harder to take notice of. Secondly, it is a self-motivating way to keep people playing; even if the final boss of a game constantly kills the player in a handful of seconds, many players would be more than willing to continuously pay this 'death penalty' because of all the money they already spent to make it to that point. Finally, this penalty is a payment towards the ability to continue playing and little else; the player is not buying the game so regardless of if he or she wins or quits, all progress is inevitably lost and at a bare minimum a person would have to pay the fee to start up the game on any subsequent replays.
Non-literal Game Over: Unlike a literal Game Over, this does not result in a complete loss of progress. Instead, once all lives are lost the player is simply sent back to the beginning of a level or an area, such as in Mega Man games. This penalty can be found in more or less any genre and makes a nice fit for most of them too. It's a steep enough penalty that it still gives players a sense of tension if they are low on lives, but ultimately results in only a few minutes of progress loss. The only games this would be a bad penalty for are ones with notably long, involved, or exceedingly difficult areas.
Back to Save: As the name suggests, this penalty sends the player back to the last time progress was saved, either at a savepoint or in general. Players still lose progress, but it allows for large dungeons to be broken up into sections while still technically only giving the player one life. This was, and likely still is, most commonly found in RPG's as savepoints served not only as checkpoints, but also as a way of hinting to players that they should prepare for a boss fight or some other challenge in the near future. The downside to this system when it revolves around savepoints is in many cases (though not usually in more modern games) this can result in needing to rewatch cutscenes, needing to go through a long part of the game again if savepoints are placed poorly (such as after a boss fight instead of before it), and/or becoming outright stuck in the middle of a dungeon without the proper supplies or stats needed to progress. With the popularization of autosaves and the ability to simply save anywhere, some of these issues have been fixed or reduced, but autosaves can still leave players stranded in poor locations and the ability to save anywhere when not paired with frequent autosaves can often lead to players losing an hour or more of progress simply because of the lack of savepoints to remind them when to actually save.
Money Loss: Another common penalty for RPG's and my personal favorite. This penalty can seem steep as it often involves the player losing a significant amount of money, usually half, and being sent back to the nearest town or an equivalent 'safe area'; party members other than the protagonist also sometimes remain dead and must be revived. However, there are several substantial benefits to this penalty when used properly. First, nearly all games which utilize this system have a bank to store money in to prevent it from being lost and/or an 'equivalent exchange' type of item which can be bought and sold for the same price so the actual penalty is usually quite small unless the player found a large amount of money while inside a dungeon. Secondly, this penalty allows a player to keep all experience points earned and items found before death, so a player will not only be able to go through a dungeon faster and more efficiently on a second attempt due to being stronger and better geared, but also because he or she will know the way up to the point he or she died at without needing to waste time and resources running into dead ends or taking sidepaths to find loot since they still have it. This can be problematic in games which don't have a way of storing money or which have excessively long dungeons, but it is otherwise usually a minor penalty which takes away little in the way of progression. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls use a fairly unique version of this system which is worth mentioning as souls are used both as money and experience points and all souls carried are lost upon death, but reaching the point of death without dying a second time results in being able to gain them all back.
Refight: This is a penalty which has become common in modern RPG's and games with RPG elements. Upon loss, the player is simply asked if he or she wants to retry, with an affirmative answer leading to the ability to simply restart the fight against whichever creature he or she lost to with no other penalty while declining results in a Game Over and being sent back to the last save. This is especially useful for games with challenging bosses as it allows players to formulate a strategy against a boss and not need to worry about any progress loss other than against the boss itself upon defeat. However, even more action-oriented games often utilize this system by taking the player to the beginning of a room he or she died in. There aren't really any downsides to this method since it is a very minor penalty, but not outright insignificant as players still need to worry about staying alive on a fight-by-fight basis.
Permanent Death: This is very common in rogue-likes and very rare everywhere else. If the player dies even once, all progress is completely lost and the player must restart from scratch. It adds an enormous amount of tension to games as it is even more punishing than a typical Game Over (which usually only occurs after multiple deaths). This can be a useful way to make players think carefully about their every move and is usually paired up with short games or ones with random generation as a way of increasing replayability. The downside to this penalty is it can be outright frustrating, especially if used in a lengthy game, and may result in players simply giving up or not wanting to start at all instead of being encouraged to to utilize knowledge gained and be more careful on future attempts.
Carry Over: A 'softer' version of permanent death which borrows a little from money loss. Players are still given only one life in most instances and death is still permanent, but there isn't a complete loss of progress. When players restart with this penalty, something carries over from their last run, such as an item/items, a percentage of stats, and/or actual progress (dungeon warp activations and other such shortcuts). Thus, even though players restart from the beginning with a new character, they get a bit more of a boost to make the second run easier than the first; depending on what carries over and in what quantity, this can be a constant cumulative increase so that every run is easier than the last. This is usually found in rogue-likes (and the Lufia series's randomized Ancient Dungeon does it too) and usually makes for a good balance of harsh without being entirely frustrating. It can be a downside for veteran players of rogue-likes who are more accustomed to permanent death, but it is otherwise a suitable penalty for newer players or for those who become bored or frustrated after potentially losing several hours of progress.
Score Loss: This penalty can either be great or horrible depending on the game and the game's audience. This is most commonly found in shoot-em-ups and other short games which focus on replay value. With score loss, players can continue as many times as they want right from where they left off, even in the middle of a boss fight, but their score is either severely reduced or outright reset. This allows new players to 'learn' a game and even players who aren't particularly good at a game can still reach the end if they persevere while it serves as a steep enough penalty for veteran players that they may outright restart the game instead of continue on with a low score. This is great for games with online leaderboards (and, in the past, arcade games) with competitive communities. On the other hand, games without online leaderboards which are played in the house instead of in an arcade, such as many NES games, have little to no competition so in these cases, and in the case of players who simply don't care about score, the 'penalty' can seem so insignificant that any sense of challenge or any desire to 'play well' are erased.
MMORPG Penalties: There are many penalties which are commonly found in MMORPG's yet which are rare in other genres. Generally, these penalties are timesinks which would be ill fits for single player games, but which are excellent (as far as developers are concerned) for multiplayer games as they help to keep people playing for long periods of time. There are enough of these that they will be covered in their own segment in the near future.
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