Extra lives

What do you guys think about lives, saving, and checkpoints in games?

I was doing a bit of thinking and I really think they are somewhat old-fashioned now.

In your old games, you couldn't save the exact state of the game with a checkpoint like you get from modern shooters and what not. Instead, save points existed so that they could control when and where the game got saved, and only save the essential data to memory; in an RPG this is basically your stats, inventory, and quest flags.

Consider a game like the original Super Mario Brothers; you couldn't save so your extra lives basically determined whether you won or lost the game. Later, you'd have Donkey Kong Country where you can save at predetermined points, but running out of lives meant you went back to your last save point. You weren't pressured to beat it all in one sitting, you could do it more casually, but there was still a bit of risk.

Now look at a modern Mario game, such as Mario 3D World; the game autosaves after every level. If you run out of lives, you … restart the level from the start. You maybe lose half a level of progress. You might as well not even have extra lives, the risk is so minimal.

Bump

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DKC formula seems the best. The game also needs to be tough so you don't rack up lives like a madman and never die, so the lives system doesn't seem pointless.

On one hand, it makes games riskier to the player. On the other, it's generally a filler because the player is just going to have to play some annoying levels to get some progress back. There's something to be said about "if you don't like playing all the levels, maybe you don't like playing this game" but I feel like that just makes it a bad game in more cases than not. The few exceptions to this are some good roguelikes like DCSS, where the end game is only played by a smaller percentage of players and thanks to permadeath, you only get one chance per character. I personally hate how long it takes and the fact that I lose all progress after hours of playing so I've taken a break from DCSS, where others like it. This is pretty close to what I'd call artificial difficulty, where the game has the illusion of difficulty because you lose all your progress, when in reality if you could do a few things differently, you probably would have been fine. But fuck you, all progress gone.

So in general, being able to save where ever/when ever is preferred. Not to mention that it's a pain to wait to get to a save point when you want to shut down and sleep, versus replaying levels instead of being able to see new stuff.

I hope this makes sense, I'm writing this really early in the morning.

For 2D platformers where the goal is to simply get to the end of the level, I think the best system is a simple checkpoint at the start of a level, where dying rolls you back to the start of that level. With that, we can really amp up the difficulty of each level so that making it through is genuinely rewarding, but failure isn't a massive setback. Super Meat Boy did this perfectly in my opinion.

For 3D platformer/collect-a-thon games like SM64, Spyro, BK etc with huge, lengthy levels, the above system but modified. There's still the checkpoint at the beginning of the level, but there should also be periodic checkpoints as you complete milestones with the level, and extra lives to be obtained (should be rare, not more than 1 per level). Dying while you have extra lives gives you the opportunity to either spend one, and roll back to the most recent checkpoint, or save it and go all the way back to the beginning again.

Extra lives are apart of the game and the thing is if you want more difficulty you just have the choice of not taking the extra lives. It's completely up to you so there's nothing wrong with it.

Some games, like platformers such as DKC don't always give you a choice. You get coins or bananas or level tokens as you play, sometimes even jumping through invisible balloons. It just happens.


The first few levels of any of the games have plenty of 1-UPs. I think DKC3, level 1 or level 2 has a total of FIVE extra lives. The later levels are lucky to have one.

The newer Mario games are too easy in general

Mario 1 is also kinda easy but not so easy that when you play it the first time you can just play it blindfolded. People will die several times when playing Mario 1

Yeah but the original Super Mario Bros doesn't give you so many lives. You can pick up lives for getting a hundred coins and you can find secret 1-ups at the beginning of every world's first stage if you picked up all the coins on the third level of the previous world. But aside from that, the game doesn't hand hold you. Even SMB3, by comparison, is much easier because you can get at least one extra life every three stages and there are bonus games where you can win extra lives.

Super Mario 3D Land, 3D World, the New Super Mario Bros games, all give you insane amounts of lives in addition to being much much easier overall

I have not played a mario game since Galaxy 2 but i do remember myself dying several times in both Galaxy 1 and Galaxy 2. You did have way too many extra lifes in those games and most of those games were easy but there was some hard parts in both games that needs several tries unless you are great at platformers

Depends on how hard the game is.

A thing that sorta bothers me about games are the sheer amount of checkpoints, extra lives you get. Sonic/mario games are real culprits of this, where you barely die, and can just go and farm lives if you feel like it. Normally I wouldn't mind if it was hard, but apart from extra levels/eggmanland, they barely are.

There are no checkpoints in Sonic time trail mode. I also think that while Crash 3 were on the easy side because of all the extra lifes and checkpoints the time trail mode did provide a good challenge if you wanted plat relics in all stages since not only do you have to have to start over from the beginning when you die you have to do it fast as well

Making as a single level hard is easy as shit. Look at mario Maker. There's tons of hard levels near impossible ones.

Making an entire game hard is much trickier and requires a lot of pacing, balancing and testing of the game… So devs say fuck that and just let the player save wherever, who gives a shit.

When a game actually is designed to be done in one playthrough, it tends to be pretty great. The last levels are challenging, but even more so after getting stressed through playing so long, and the first levels are so exciting and memorable, you don't mind playing them over again just for a chance at getting a little closer to the end.


Is it filler? Yes it is. You know what else is filler? Throwing a bunch of RPG mechanics into a goddam sonic game. That's not only filler, it slows the game down.
New Mario games just have secret coins everywhere because not only do lives not matter, but powerups mean pretty little too. Waste all your flying stuff, just load a save file, or farm it at the same easy world 2 level you keep going back too. Even getting a shortcut like that rolercoaster or beanstalk is mostly decoration. Hell people avoid them cause they try to get all the coin stars in order on their first playthough.

What games did that? I am bored and want to play one of these games

Sonic 2 definitely. helps that it's a short game, but it also has a shorter term goal of just reaching Casino night zone.

Mario 3 is pretty good for it if you aren't too familiar with everything in the game.

Resident Evil 1 is designed pretty well for a no-save or no-continue run

Starfox 64 depends on just how much you like dialogue in in it.

They're used as a setback for the player, otherwise he'd finish the game immediately. Checkpoint systems work better with them because it gives some sense of risk to the plays, but otherwise they're kind of a redundancy now that we have savestates, quicksaves, regenerating health etc.
Platformers in general seem to have gone the way of the speedrunners instead of getting tougher.

Mario was never good.
Also i see it as developers recognizing their modern games are shit and saving the player from slogging through a pile of trash repeatedly and just letting them repeat the same level.

Which Sanic did that? Unleashed?

Lives are an antiquated system. I'd prefer checkpoint saves and increased difficulty at this point.

The idea of limited lives is basically a holdover from arcade games. It fits some games better than others. You don't even need to look at a recent game; they were largely meaningless in Super Mario 64.

They're different design methods, one isn't inherently better than the other.

Being able to save at any time is terrible, it pretty much makes any game pointless. Checkpoints are OK. The best system is the Hitman one, with the amount of saves decided by difficulty (hardest allows no saves during the level).

My sentiments remain unchanged. Provide examples of modern games that would benefit from a lives system.

Save at will anywhere is mainly used in games where saves can be corrupted or players can find themselves in game breaking situations. People shouldn't have to maintain a history of saves in case the game screws up.

Modern games aren't designed around lives system, einstein.

Of course they aren't. Lives are an antiquated system.

I don't see the problem with allowing you to save anywhere. Sure, it can be used to make the game too easy, but so can things like console commands. They're not quest markers, where the "just turn it off" suggestion doesn't work because the game is designed around them. The fact that you can save any time inherently means you can save as frequently or infrequently you think you should.
I'd rather have the option and just exercise self-control.

That's what he's saying. You said that one isn't better than the other, and he's essentially saying lives are shit and challenging you to produce an example of a modern game that would benefit from such a system.

Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic and the black knight, Sonic Generations.
Possibly others, A few adventure style sonic games did it too, but those are already slow paced so it fit.

You buy upgrades to increase your speed, to do certain moves or power those moves up, to start with certain items, and you equip these upgrades like Badge points in paper mario.

The problem arises when players save in horrible places. They may save at a location or in a situation where they will die as soon as they load their game. To prevent this, players are expected to keep a history of saves in case they do something stupid. A player shouldn't have to worry about any of that. I think a profile system that allows loading from a 'progress' save or a 'checkpoint' save is the best solution for that issue. You know, as long as there aren't game breaking bugs that prevent you from completing the game.

A combination of manual saving and infrequent autosaving should be enough to prevent getting stuck, without requiring effort by the player.

Alone, that's good 99% of the time. I had a game that used it, and a few players still got into a situation where the game could no longer be completed. I finally decided to add some code that would look at the situation the player was in and actually heal them a bit or remove status effects if they were totally fucked. That ceased requests completely.

It really depends what kind of game it is.
Fairly short linear games, especially arcade style games, shouldn't have saving at all since they're meant to be played in one sitting. Whether loosing all lives should send you to a true game over (Mario) or sends you to the beginning of the level/chapter/act sans powerups (Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden) really depends on the game.
Longer games or short games with a nonlinear route or games that have RPG mechanics should at least have a password system (Simon's Quest, Mega Man, Wizards & Warriors).
Very long games need a save system even if they are linear or fairly linear platformers. (Kirby, DK Country)
And of course RPG's and RPG like games not only need a save system but static and limited savepoints as well. (basically every RPG before the 7th generation)

Modern games are so scared to let people fail have been made so easy that they're not worth playing. The few that will allow you to fail inevitably get hyped up as "the hardest game ever", Soulsborne games for example.

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Modern games are a dumpster fire.

That's one perspective, although I think that if you truly find fault with all modern games, then the problem may be with you, rather than the games themselves.

No they really are a dumpster fire

What he said was they were different design philosophies. Name a classic game that would benefit from having no lives system at all

Dragon's Dogma?

Give me a date range to work with. 'Classic' is a pretty huge umbrella.

Let's say 1978-~1995

I think most every extremely difficult platformer from that time period would benefit from a simple 'checkpoint at the beginning of the level' system. The first Earthworm Jim, for example.

Checkpoints can be the very healthy alternative to quick- and autosaving - being able to decide where the player has to start over if he dies can be a powerfull tool for a dev in the right games.

The idea of saving and loading could be made interesting if in a game the protagonist would somehow remember what he experienced and also gets a bit more traumatized each time he dies and reloads. Just an idea though - and I bet it's one that has been used before, obviously.

Lives only make sense in modern games if you want to give death meaning - which, by itself, can be a good thing. You don't see that often though, often it's like in OPs example. In many games I find myself go the "wrong" way on purpose just to find out what's there since I can just reload anyway - with lifes every detour can be a risk. But it is a great feeling when you take a risk because you are feeling lucky, barely make it and get a reward while death would have actually meant a consequence.

Lives are indeed an antiquated mechanic and unless the developer is going for a certain fell, I'm not sure why you'd even have them these days.

Checkpoints however, I can still see a use for them if the game doesn't support a save anywhere function or it has really long segments. So depends on context.

ehehehHAHAHA

Lives can be used as a metric of "you're not good enough yet for this point"
when you die you're supposed to learn. repeating the scenario in which you died the first time should see the player making it past or at least trying something new.
dying repeatedly in the same spot with infinite lives isn't forcing the player to grow; it's letting the player eventually brute force their way past.

a game over system is basically the game telling you to go back to the beginning and get past those trouble points without dying this time. No brute forcing, just accumulated skill. Now when you reach the point of your final death from the last run, you should hopefully still be on your first life.

Game overs force you to git gud

Whenever I go to a new level in Mega Man with one life, I commit suicide to restock because I can't beat the whole stage with just that. That's really the only problem I have with lives.

What's bullshit is Blaster Master because it never tells you that you only have five continues. I wasted all of mine killing myself to skip backtracking and ran out in the final level. Also the gun upgrade system can go eat a dick.


Shit, I never knew that.

Depends on the game being made. If it is too easy, lives are pointless. If you can save after every level, then lives may or may not be useless depending on the levels difficulty.

Lives are a too that can add challenge when done right. There is nothing wrong with them. It depends on the developers skills.

Just like lives, it depends on how it's used. It can be a form of easy mode or a handy tool.

In the old days you were charged a quarter dollar for each play through of the game. You got extra lives so you don't feel ripped off when you die 5 seconds in on your first time playing the game. This predates vidya and goes back to pinball and other arcade games. Nowadays it's an arbitrary way of making a game more or less difficult.


So you are not considered to have beaten a level unless you can get through it with N lives or less. This is a meaningful use of an extra lives system. It is definitely easier than having to restart the whole game like original Super Mario.

Games like Mario 64 and Sonic 3 make lives pretty much pointless. Is there literally any point to them at all in Mario 64? Either way you just get kicked out of the level. Is going to the title screen and reloading even really a punishment? Sonic 3 ruins any difficulty there may have been in Sonic & Knuckles, when it adds a save feature to Sonic & Knuckles and thus makes the only punishment going back a max of one level, so who cares?

Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario World did a good job by having you go back to predetermined points, so it feels like a challenge to have to beat at least a sometimes long string of levels without dying. Super Mario World is a very easy game in this regard anyway (the only real challenge coming from Secret Exits and Secret Levels) but DKC has a level of challenge where it can feel significant to only get so many lives to beat that string of levels, especially since backtracking (and thus farming lives) is also limited.


Secret Rings and Black Knight are spinoffs and don't count (and are shit). Generations doesn't really do it. And no Adventure games do it. The closest those get is finding new moves hidden around the game, but I wouldn't say that makes it the same as the actual leveling up you do in Unleashed.

extra lives are bad, save scumming is bad, saving in general is bad, you should finish the game in one sitting even if it takes 60 hours or else you're a fucking casual who deserves to roast in an oven like the jews who did 9/11