Continues and Game Overs: real game design or length compensation?

[Ikagura]

I'll have a small debate about how old school (ie: 8-bits and early16-bits) game that used to be quite challenging, often using the Try and Die/Die & Retry type of game design philosophy from the Arcade.

It was said to be done because of the space limitation preventing them from having too many levels and to not have the player finish it in an afternoon (Super Mario Bros 1 is pretty much 30 minutes long if you don't take any warp zones nor spend time in bonus areas).

But some also say it's a valid way of making a game that offers challenge for persevering gamers (which is why some indies also used that type of design such as Super Meat Boy and Celeste).

I get that they go with Trial > Retrying > Frustration > Perseverance/Pause (sometimes it helps to calm down) > Winning > Pleasure from passing that one level, rinse and repeat until the end of the game.

Throwing gamers back to square one is also why the first level are often the best in many games and why most endings back then were simply bad "Conglaturation: A winner is you!" instead of seeing a proper "cinematic" as the dev wanted to save space and assuming not many would ever see it.

Some games have difficulty spikes especially for that reason (some later, some sooner) and some have the boredom/automated phase. A good game designer should do the balance between both.

I think I understand why some re-release add features such as savestates or rewind (especially in compilation of older games, especially 8-bits and arcade from the 80's - 90's) as much as it could spark controversy from some of the purist.

Finally: nowadays challenge comes from speedrunning older and newer games as well as e-sport since fighting against someone else will always be less predictable than a computer program.

 

[kanesha]

some indies also used that type of design

I noticed that the modern ones don't seem to have the "out of lives? then all the way back to the beginning with you, noob" part, so you can go through some of those spikes by getting lucky and not actually mastering them. The old ones kind of force you to assume an even more trqnuil mindset and accept that you will have to figure out all of it and thoroughly flatten every spike before you're done.

 

[Leon]

From my understanding a part of this was actually influenced by the rental market in most of the world at the time, i have heard this is directly the reason why alot of western games were harder than their japanese counterparts, battletoads for example.

That said my thoughts on "death penalty" is that it depends on the game, some games it just makes sense to penalize the player for failure, while others it's more a detriment than a benefit, this is why death became less of a permanent penalty in jrpg's probably first, usually becoming a monetary one.

 

[Ikagura]

I noticed that the modern ones don't seem to have the "out of lives? then all the way back to the beginning with you, noob" part, so you can go through some of those spikes by getting lucky and not actually mastering them. The old ones kind of force you to assume an even more tranquil mindset and accept that you will have to figure out all of it and thoroughly flatten every spike before you're done.

Maybe because they noticed that it would only be relevant for speedrunners than most players around. Even Celeste didn't make you go back to Square One.

On the other hand I liked how Shovel Knight allowed you do literally destroy you checkpoint for a better score so this would be a high risk high reward kind of deal.

That's also probably why Roguelites are popular: they bring you back to Square One yet have some meta-progression or are short enough to not make you have to redo hours of game from scratch.

From my understanding a part of this was actually influenced by the rental market in most of the world at the time, i have heard this is directly the reason why a lot of western games were harder than their Japanese counterparts, Battletoads for example.

I also know about the infamously harder Streets of Rage 3 compared to Bare Knuckles III.

Rental is fine but not really part of the culture we got in Europe (or at least not as prominent).

That said my thoughts on "death penalty" is that it depends on the game, some games it just makes sense to penalize the player for failure, while others it's more a detriment than a benefit, this is why death became less of a permanent penalty in JRPGs probably first, usually becoming a monetary one.

I still save often in this kind of game because of the paranoia of losing half an hour of grinding.

 

[fake-kun]

I think the Mega Man games handle their continue/lives system pretty decently. When you game over, you only return to the start of the level, not all the way to the beginning of the game. This incentivizes you to learn the levels so that you have enough lives for the boss without completely discouraging you. Plus, in the latter titles, you can buy lives to make it easier if you want.

 

[kanesha]

OMG @Ikagura, my fingers all stumbled, fell and broke 10 ribs each on that tranquil and you helped them up and nursed them back to health, thank you kind sir!

Post automatically merged: Jan 20, 2025

Maybe because they noticed that it would only be relevant for speedrunners than most players around.

I've actually grown to enjoy that mindset the more of these old games I revisit and try to power through (even though I'm not particularly good and often don't end up beating them), so much so that I would apply it to modern games that are not meant to be difficult, like "ok i've beaten that part, but was I naratively badass enough? no? reload checkpoint!".

 

[Ikagura]

I think the Mega Man games handle their continue/lives system pretty decently. When you game over, you only return to the start of the level, not all the way to the beginning of the game. This incentivizes you to learn the levels so that you have enough lives for the boss without completely discouraging you. Plus, in the latter titles, you can buy lives to make it easier if you want.

I think that Megaman as a series also "modernised" (for its time) with the ability to choose your stage right at the beginning so the game is almost always a different experience (almost like Metroid with the more open design but to a lesser extent). MM2 thankfully had a password screen (I can excuse MM1 as there were only 6 Robot Masters and being the first entry).

I still find quickman hard since you'll have to either choose to use flash for the level itself or for the boss.

OMG @Ikagura, my fingers all stumbled, fell and broke 10 ribs each on that tranquil and you helped them up and nursed them back to health, thank you kind sir!

Post automatically merged: Jan 20, 2025

You're welcome.

I've actually grown to enjoy that mindset the more of these old games I revisit and try to power through (even though I'm not particularly good and often don't end up beating them), so much so that I would apply it to modern games that are not meant to be difficult, like "ok i've beaten that part, but was I naratively badass enough? no? reload checkpoint!".

I think this is why some more modern games have rank system to make people wanting to do better next time (like DMC and MGR).

 

[DunkeyKong]

Despite how hard those games can be, it's quite clever of them to find a way to make a player determined. Not all players of course, others would immediately quit

Games in NES and SNES like Contra, Castlevania, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ninja Gaiden is a great example of how they used the checkpoint systems so it wouldn't feel as punishing as sending you back to level 1

 

[Gorse]

Is it time for a poorly-thought-out contrarian opinion to be hastily injected into this thread? Why, yes, I think it is! I can't stand it when I see happy people agreeing with each other. Here's my take: I actually do like the life-continue system in games... that are designed around it, which tend to be arcade-style action games. (Not all of them are!) Let me illustrate why with an example: Super Mario Bros., a game that I just think is brilliant in its every detail.

Ikagura, in this thread's OP, you said:

Super Mario Bros 1 is pretty much 30 minutes long if you don't take any warp zones nor spend time in bonus areas

This is true in theory. In theory, if you train a video-game-playing AI to play Super Mario Bros. perfectly, and start counting from the moment it boots the game up to the moment the end message shows, then yes, it will beat the game in about 20-30 minutes. (I actually think 30 is long for SMB1, but the point stands.) But it isn't true in practice.

In practice, SMB1 is a game designed around manipulating a 2D obstacle course as well as possible. An average human playing the game is not going to do it on the first time, in the same way that an average human wouldn't complete an Olympic hurdle-jumping event on their first try. The idea is that you're supposed to get better every time you try. The lives/continue system facilitates that.

When you lose, you have to try again. If you lose a lot because it's your first time playing the game, you have to start over all the way from the beginning. But by trying again, you're given another chance to do things differently: To experiment a bit. To collect some more (or less) coins. To hop on a few enemies. To discover new things about the level designs. And to discover mechanics that you may not have realized the first time around. Hey, if I collect 100 coins, I get a 1-up – another chance! Hey, if I stomp on enough enemies, I get a 1-up, too – that's another chance! That's more time, and more room, to experiment, and to discover.

As you continue experimenting, and discovering, and losing, and trying again, you start to learn more about the game. "Ah, so if I move in this way, and jump off a block like this, I'll actually go further! Neat... I'll have to try that over that big pit I fell into last time!" "Ah, I see that you get a 1-up for every 10,000 points you get, and chaining together enemy kills with the koopa shells gives me successively more points – that's a good way to get more 1-ups!" You get better. And then, finally, once you've gotten better enough, and you know the game inside and out... you win. You haven't just "beaten" SMB1 – you've completed it. You've mastered it. YOU ARE A SUPER PLAYER !!

Yes, it takes time. It takes more time than using save states or rewinds or cheats or infinite continues would. But it's also more fun. It's more satisfying. It's a better way to play the game, because the game was designed around it. It's hard! But, as anyone who's overcome a hard thing legitimately can tell you, it's much more rewarding to defeat a challenge than it is to check a box.

If SMB1 were like Celeste or Super Meat Boy, where you're just given a room and an infinite amount of chances, you wouldn't really be learning anything. You'd be conditioning yourself to beat a single, isolated challenge with zero consequences, and when you beat the challenge, you'd never think about it again for the rest of your life. You'd be bashing your head against a wall until the wall breaks or you do. That isn't inherently a bad thing at all, but it's a very, very different kind of game, and I certainly don't think it's an improvement over SMB1.

These games also need to "extend their runtime" – they just do it through intentionally-unfair level design and gameplay mechanics that you're supposed to actively fight against by dying over and over and over and over until you finally squeak out a victory by circumstance or exploiting the game system (especially a problem in Super Meat Boy). It's only satisfying or rewarding in the sense that you don't have to play it anymore, which is a design ideology that you won't find me praising.

Rayman Legends (and this all goes for Rayman Origins, too) is a platforming game that I truly, truly adore, and it doesn't use lives or continues, either. Playing the game is an absolute joy, but, again, it's not as rewarding as SMB1 – or, at least, the pure platforming isn't. The game "extends its runtime" through an excellent collect-a-thon mechanic, where you're constantly given new cosmetics to play through the same levels again with. It's style-over-substance. Fortunately, the style is good enough that you don't need to worry about the substance. It's a very rare exception.

Every game, in some way, wastes your time. (They're electronic TV toys, after all.) But when a game is well-designed and you complete it, it doesn't matter how much time it's wasted – you'll feel rewarded, satisfied, and accomplished for doing so... and then your time won't have been wasted at all, because you've had fun.

AND THAT'S WHY LIVES ARE GOOD

 

[DunkeyKong]

Is it time for a poorly-thought-out contrarian opinion to be hastily injected into this thread? Why, yes, I think it is! I can't stand it when I see happy people agreeing with each other. Here's my take: I actually do like the life-continue system in games... that are designed around it, which tend to be arcade-style action games. (Not all of them are!) Let me illustrate why with an example: Super Mario Bros., a game that I just think is brilliant in its every detail.

Ikagura, in this thread's OP, you said:

This is true in theory. In theory, if you train a video-game-playing AI to play Super Mario Bros. perfectly, and start counting from the moment it boots the game up to the moment the end message shows, then yes, it will beat the game in about 20-30 minutes. (I actually think 30 is long for SMB1, but the point stands.) But it isn't true in practice.

In practice, SMB1 is a game designed around manipulating a 2D obstacle course as well as possible. An average human playing the game is not going to do it on the first time, in the same way that an average human wouldn't complete an Olympic hurdle-jumping event on their first try. The idea is that you're supposed to get better every time you try. The lives/continue system facilitates that.

When you lose, you have to try again. If you lose a lot because it's your first time playing the game, you have to start over all the way from the beginning. But by trying again, you're given another chance to do things differently: To experiment a bit. To collect some more (or less) coins. To hop on a few enemies. To discover new things about the level designs. And to discover mechanics that you may not have realized the first time around. Hey, if I collect 100 coins, I get a 1-up – another chance! Hey, if I stomp on enough enemies, I get a 1-up, too – that's another chance! That's more time, and more room, to experiment, and to discover.

As you continue experimenting, and discovering, and losing, and trying again, you start to learn more about the game. "Ah, so if I move in this way, and jump off a block like this, I'll actually go further! Neat... I'll have to try that over that big pit I fell into last time!" "Ah, I see that you get a 1-up for every 10,000 points you get, and chaining together enemy kills with the koopa shells gives me successively more points – that's a good way to get more 1-ups!" You get better. And then, finally, once you've gotten better enough, and you know the game inside and out... you win. You haven't just "beaten" SMB1 – you've completed it. You've mastered it. YOU ARE A SUPER PLAYER !!

Yes, it takes time. It takes more time than using save states or rewinds or cheats or infinite continues would. But it's also more fun. It's more satisfying. It's a better way to play the game, because the game was designed around it. It's hard! But, as anyone who's overcome a hard thing legitimately can tell you, it's much more rewarding to defeat a challenge than it is to check a box.

If SMB1 were like Celeste or Super Meat Boy, where you're just given a room and an infinite amount of chances, you wouldn't really be learning anything. You'd be conditioning yourself to beat a single, isolated challenge with zero consequences, and when you beat the challenge, you'd never think about it again for the rest of your life. You'd be bashing your head against a wall until the wall breaks or you do. That isn't inherently a bad thing at all, but it's a very, very different kind of game, and I certainly don't think it's an improvement over SMB1.

These games also need to "extend their runtime" – they just do it through intentionally-unfair level design and gameplay mechanics that you're supposed to actively fight against by dying over and over and over and over until you finally squeak out a victory by circumstance or exploiting the game system (especially a problem in Super Meat Boy). It's only satisfying or rewarding in the sense that you don't have to play it anymore, which is a design ideology that you won't find me praising.

Rayman Legends (and this all goes for Rayman Origins, too) is a platforming game that I truly, truly adore, and it doesn't use lives or continues, either. Playing the game is an absolute joy, but, again, it's not as rewarding as SMB1 – or, at least, the pure platforming isn't. The game "extends its runtime" through an excellent collect-a-thon mechanic, where you're constantly given new cosmetics to play through the same levels again with. It's style-over-substance. Fortunately, the style is good enough that you don't need to worry about the substance. It's a very rare exception.

Every game, in some way, wastes your time. (They're electronic TV toys, after all.) But when a game is well-designed and you complete it, it doesn't matter how much time it's wasted – you'll feel rewarded, satisfied, and accomplished for doing so... and then your time won't have been wasted at all, because you've had fun.

AND THAT'S WHY LIVES ARE GOOD

Bro DAMN, you should make an article of this lmao

 

[Yousef]

Is it time for a poorly-thought-out contrarian opinion to be hastily injected into this thread?

Always. There’s always time. That’s why I’m still here baby!

Why, yes, I think it is! I can't stand it when I see happy people agreeing with each other.

Yes… tasty chaos… gimme!!

If SMB1 were like Celeste or Super Meat Boy, where you're just given a room and an infinite amount of chances, you wouldn't really be learning anything. You'd be conditioning yourself to beat a single, isolated challenge with zero consequences, and when you beat the challenge, you'd never think about it again for the rest of your life. You'd be bashing your head against a wall until the wall breaks or you do.

Finally, someone says it.

That isn't inherently a bad thing at all, but it's a very, very different kind of game, and I certainly don't think it's an improvement over SMB1.

Yes. I don’t get the obsession here.

which is a design ideology that you won't find me praising.

You’re a design philosophy that I’ll always be praising.

Every game, in some way, wastes your time. (They're electronic TV toys, after all.) But when a game is well-designed and you complete it, it doesn't matter how much time it's wasted – you'll feel rewarded, satisfied, and accomplished for doing so... and then your time won't have been wasted at all, because you've had fun.

True.

AND THAT'S WHY LIVES ARE GOOD

Also true.

 

[kanesha]

I think this is why some more modern games have rank system to make people wanting to do better next time (like DMC and MGR).

That might not always be an option though, technical challenges aside, if you want to immerse the player in something more grounded than a narratively invulnerable demon prince revelling in the spectacle of slaughter, brutally murderizing them might be your only way to get them to try something again. Roguelike/lite games are a take on that I guess, but there exist more traditional linear modern games that have permadeath as a difficulty setting, so while they can't afford to make it a hard design choice and fine tune the whole game around that, it's their way of admitting that there is something to it other than just a genetic disease inherited from quarter munching arcades.

 

[therealRonneberg]

Nobody expects to play a song well on the first try. Nor do people start complaining about how the song is bullshit and to hard and that the songwriter needs to create a easier-to-play version of that song.
Obviously there are a lot of badly designed video games but that aren’t the ones we still talk about 40 years later. Those games were forgotten a long time ago.

Finally: nowadays challenge comes from speedrunning older and newer games

Unless the game is designed around fast completion like Metroid 1 or RE 1-3 usually speedrunning doesn't actually involve mastering the game but instead exploiting glitches and bugs.
The amount of people that really enjoy doing that is far smaller than the amount of people who enjoy properly mastering games with a high skill celling which is why I don't think speedrunning is a good replacement for what the best arcade games/arcade like console games used to provide.

You'd be conditioning yourself to beat a single, isolated challenge with zero consequences, and when you beat the challenge, you'd never think about it again for the rest of your life.

This is why self regenerating health ruined FPS games and continues to do so.