I'm afraid to die in games

boing
21

If you’re afraid to die in games, you probably should not play games. A simulated death is the most obvious failure state so naturally, nearly all games are going to use it, because most games’ mechanics (though becoming increasingly complex) are not really very creative at all. And that’s how players like it, because they can jump right into the next new game without having to learn everything all over.

I don’t play games much these days either, but I stopped because they started seeming like work. I would invest all this time and energy into doing things that only mattered in the context of the game, and that time and energy was therefore lost. And then games started demanding more and more time. I have no desire to spend forty-plus hours playing a single game, which is what a lot of the flagship titles demand these days. I could read five complete books in that time!

Today’s blockbuster game designers strive mightily to make their games “sticky,” with a key metric being how much time players spend playing them, and they have discovered or invented many techniques that can make gameplay addictive. But being unable to stop playing a game is not the same as enjoying yourself. I don’t think the rats that were compulsively pressing a lever to zap their pleasure centers were enjoying themselves very much.

1 Like
22

I mean. Isn’t there value in asking why it’s so common? I feel like part of why the article works is that is tries to poke at the implications and consequences of Death as the default failure state in gaming. And while this article doesn’t delve into possible solutions (which is fine, that’s not what the article does) I think asking the question is important.

23

You don’t need to poke at it that much. Originally, guaranteeing the player some amount of play time for his quarter was necessary so players felt they were getting their money’s worth. In pinball machines, this was achieved by allowing the player to play multiple balls. Many early video games took a similar approach. It wasn’t a major leap from multiple balls multiple lives, with the anthropomorphization of a crude bunch of pixels serving to raise the emotional stakes. It was an established play mechanic by the time of 1979’s Asteroids, though not the only one (some games were timed, for example). It’s still used today because it’s proven effective.

24

Right, I know the history behind why these decisions were made. I think the article tries to suggest that maybe we could try something else.

Also, I’m not sure I agree that something is effective just because it’s been done over and over in the past. In general, I don’t find “that’s the way it’s always been” as a convincing argument for pretty much anything. That’s just me, though.

1 Like
25

A secret bonus weapon! Genius!

26

If you’re afraid to die while playing a game, play chess.
…oh, wait…

27

Somebody set us up the bomb.

1 Like
28
2 Likes
29

I was never particularly good at math, and I’m lazy even to this day, preferring to spend more time on things I’m already good at rather than to develop new skills.

IMHO that’s not a good place to be in. I’ve been spending the past few years being an amateur at burlesque dance, aikido, pole dance, and now circus arts. It’s been fun to use the techniques of learning I picked up over the ten or so years I spent becoming a pro-level artist. I leave my ego at the door because I know damn well I am a beginner at these things; I have learnt to excel at one thing, and I know that if I’m willing to put in the effort for several years, I can be decent or even amazing at other things, too. But I will have to endure a thousand tiny failures along the way.

When you die in a game, no one is there to tell you how your work could be better. You’ve simply failed. People tell me you learn the rules of games like Bloodborne. Articles promise me the game itself will teach me how to improve, but I don’t believe them. Every failure brings me no lessons – just shame and humiliation. Ridicule from other fans, even when I succeed.

You do! The game itself even lets other people leave notes for you. And you can do the same. Your character will die, again and again - and wake up none the worse for wear, aside from losing a handful of blood dollars. If you’re the least bit attentive to the level design you will know damn well that you’re about to walk into a boss arena, and if you have enough blood dollars to worry about, you’ll turn around and go spend them before running back to that arena and getting your ass handed to you a dozen times in a row. Or you’ll just shrug and walk into the boss arena, just to see what it is and start to figure out how its attacks work. Die, respawn, run like a maniac past the minor enemies along the shortcut you’ve opened up to the boss arena, and die again. With zero blood dollars in your pocket, so there’s nothing to lose, except the time it took. Maybe look up some strategies on the wikis. Maybe just throw yourself against the boss again and again until you learn all its attack cues well enough to dodge out of its way and repeatedly stick your weapon in it. Probably from behind.

Personally, I think Bloodborne is a great way to learn to quit caring about failure. And maybe to learn something about the transience of all things. And something about not investing your ego in your successes or failure, either.

Also I am pretty sure that nobody is going to ridicule you for dying in Bloodborne. From’s games are infamous for being about repeated failure. I’ve talked about my playthrough on Twitter, including my many deaths, and I get nothing but sympathy from my friends. And strategy advice.

Is this really learning? Or is this being hammered down, until you give up a part of yourself?

Yes. To both.

Is this a part of yourself you need? This fear of failure so strong you never try things you might fail, even if they’re utterly lacking in any consequence? What have you not done because this fear kept you from making the many mistakes required to master something?

When I got into the animation industry, I was subjected to incredibly harsh criticism of my drawings. It was pretty discouraging sometimes. But over time I learnt to detach my ego from the drawings. And when I did that, I started getting better much faster.

Go forth and make mistakes. Make many of them. Make them in matters of little consequence; make them in serious things. There is always a way to carry on. Analyze your failures, instead of hiding from them: what went wrong? How can I reduce the chances of this mistake happening again? Keep it in the back of your mind as you try again. Perhaps you will make the exact same mistake again and again. Perhaps you will never make it again. Either way, there are other new and exciting mistakes to make. Eventually, though, your mistakes become so subtle and esoteric that very few people but yourself could detect them, and you have ways to recover from them quickly and easily. Until you find a way to make yet another one, because you’re still pushing into new territory.

5 Likes
30

I did not say it was not possible to make alternative endings, or that they should not be used - as death, they are just tools, use the best one for the design.

What I was saying is that death (apart from thematic relevance - is not like the enemies you are shooting in a FPS are not dying but deciding to retire from conflict, for example), has a simple, in your face, logical way to present the end game. You are dead, so no more actions from you.

Of course, use the simple tool always may be laziness, and I agree there are several other interesting ways to make the “failed” game state known. But again, there is something to be said for the simple solution, and why it is used so much.

I really dont know what the original article was trying to say, as at some points it goes into nothing related to death (you failed an exam). If the author think games should all be without failure states, I vehemently disagree. If the author thinks there should be more games without failure states, I agree.

31

Likewise goes for being a teacher. You want to give students the skills and mentality they need to productively fail - luckily I’m a teacher in a subject that isn’t crushed under the heel of standardized testing, so I have a bit more leeway in that respect, without admin breathing down my neck.

It’s also worth noting that “not harp[ing] on grades, but harp[ing] on effort” goes both for criticism AND praise. You don’t beat kids up for failing a test or getting a bad grade, clearly. But likewise, you don’t shallowly praise them for getting a grade (good, middling, or bad), you praise them for the effort put into that grade. Studies have actually shown that ill-considered praise makes kids less likely to move beyond their comfort zone, to associate academic achievement with innate qualities rather than effort, and to be ill-prepared for times when they inevitably DO fail.

There was a great passage on this in the book Nurture Shock.

2 Likes
32

I feel like some games use the trope better than others. Some very uncompromising games like Dark Souls, Super Meat Boy, or Hotline Miami are structured to allow the player to learn from mistakes, to hone skills, and jump right back in to developing the muscle memory/training to succeed. Other games with forms of permadeath (like Binding of Isaac and other Roguelikes) respect and convey the gravity of death by making it an irreversible event that highlights the singularity and preciousness of the ‘life’ of each character you play as.

But most of the time, it’s not implemented thoughtfully at all. And it’s a breath of fresh air when inventive designers work around it. I remember how blown away I was in elementary school when Wario Land 2 nd 3 came out, touting that death was simply not possible in those games. You could be set back, weakened, transformed, miss out on treasures, forced onto a less-desirable path through the level, but never, ever simply killed and booted to a ‘game over’ screen. Those games are still among my favorites.

2 Likes
33

I’m just saying that this doesn’t make death special. There’s an infinity of ways to present a simple, in your face, logical fail state. Death isn’t any better or worse than any of them. It is chosen more often, and maybe it should be chosen less often, because it is often used as a lazy default rather than a considered thematic choice.

34

Just about everything in that game was intensely haunting. As befits a work that remains the most serious attempt to take on the horror of nuclear weapons in an interactive medium.

35

This article was interesting to me, not because I sympathize, but because I have never ever experienced any reaction like this to death in a game. When it says-

“I don’t think the message YOU DIED tells you what life is worth.”

-my reaction is just “Well, it’s not supposed to. Death in the game doesn’t mean anything permanent at all. It’s not really even death.” Every time I’ve lost at a game it my gut, animal reaction is something along the lines of “Fuck you, game! I’m better than that!” And then I inevitably stubbornly slave away at that same thing or encounter until I win. Sometimes to my detriment(I remember several times in online multiplayer games getting paired up with people way way better than me-one I spent around 2 hours losing to the same guy in Smash online because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me disconnect. Which probably wasn’t as helpful as just hopping off to go into training and practice fundamentals!)
It’s the same sort of drive which has made me seek out games where death does matter, a lot, because it motivates me… like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and other oldschool roguelikes which mostly come before my time, but often have still active communities. I want to give death in games meaning through loss of player progress because then I’m driven to perform well, and that’s where the thrill comes from.

I guess it’s worth keeping in mind, as someone who is interested in making games in the future, that some people view/react to death in games inherently differently than me.

36

Don’t forget 1995’s Yoshi’s Island! In addition to being the greatest 2D platformer of all time (in my opinion), the game’s only failure state is baby Mario being kidnapped by a pack of Koopas.

37

That is the point. Death in video games is not death, but failure. Your outlook on failure is how i think it should be. Yeah! I failed, but I learned something, and next time I will be better. You don’t take a failure as a soul crushing defeat,that makes you question your ability, but a setback that you will overcome. Those two different responses to failure change your whole outlook on life. That is why at a young age children should be allowed to fail and learn how to handle failure.

1 Like
38

This is exactly the right tactic and is covered in many parenting books. Your mom did it right! :open_hands:

If you are told you’re good at something “because you are smart”, what happens when you inevitably aren’t good at something? Well, you must be dumb, is the inevitable conclusion…

Compare with being told you are good at something “because you practiced hard.” Now if you aren’t good at something, it’s because you didn’t practice, and this is no longer an implied negative statement about your self worth.

One of the worst things you can do to a kid is tell them they are smart.

1 Like
39

From a game design perspective, you need to provide enough information to the player about why they died so they can understand what to try next.

In first person shooters, for example:

  • the worst death is from a sniper where you are just suddenly dead with zero information.

  • the best death is a killcam showing where and how the bullet came from. (oh, I didn’t know people could shoot me from that window, I’ll watch for that next time…)

I’m sure everyone can think of other game design examples. One of my favorite is for the avatars to make a windmilling “whooooa!” animation when they get too close to an edge in a 2D platformer. Even better if they offer a button that lets you “catch” yourself as you fall by grabbing the edge before you fully fall down.

1 Like
40

4 Likes