Life (video games)

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A generic character has a total of three lives, indicated as light-blue orbs. The character has currently lost 3.5 out of 11 health points - losing all would cost a life. Lives and Health in gaming.png
A generic character has a total of three lives, indicated as light-blue orbs. The character has currently lost 3.5 out of 11 health points – losing all would cost a life.

In video games, a life is a play-turn that a player character has, defined as the period between start and end of play. [1] Lives refer to a finite number of tries before the game ends with a game over. [2] Sometimes the euphemisms chance, try, rest and continue are used, particularly in all-ages games, to avoid the morbid insinuation of losing one's "life". [3] Generally, if the player loses all their health, they lose a life. Losing all lives usually grants the player character "game over", forcing them to either restart or stop playing.

Contents

The number of lives a player is granted varies per game type. A finite number of lives became a common feature in arcade games and action games during the 1980s, and mechanics such as checkpoints and power-ups made the managing of lives a more strategic experience for players over time. Lives give novice players more chances to learn the mechanics of a video game, while allowing more advanced players to take more risks.

History

Lives may have originated from the pinball mechanic of having a limited number of balls. A finite number of lives (usually three) became a common feature in arcade games. The number of lives usually displayed on the screen (in arcade games, the character that is being played, is also counted as a "life"). Much like in pinball games, the player's goal was usually to score as many points as possible with their limited number of lives. [2] [4] Taito's classic arcade video game Space Invaders (1978) is usually credited with introducing multiple lives to video games. [5] Lives were important in these games because the desire to avoid the finality of the player character's death compelled players to insert more quarters, making the maximum amount of profit. [6]

Later, refinements of health, defense and other attributes, as well as power-ups, made managing the player character's life a more strategic experience and made lost health less of the handicap it was in early arcade games. [4] Lives and game over screens became thought of as outmoded concepts and holdovers from arcade games that were unnecessary when players had already paid for the game. They also discouraged the player from playing the game fairly, with players in games such as Doom resorting to save scumming in order to preserve their lives rather than start from an in-game checkpoint with their lives depleted, and getting a game over can often cause players to permanently abandon a game instead of making another attempt at the level. Therefore, most modern games have completely abandoned the concept of player lives, instead simply restarting the player from the nearest checkpoint when they die, allowing them to undo or rewind their progress until such time as they are safe, as in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time , or making saving the player from death contingent on successfully executing a QTE, as in Batman: Arkham Asylum . [6]

Usage

It is common in action games for the player to have multiple lives and chances to earn more in-game. This way, a player can recover from making a disastrous mistake. Role-playing games and adventure games usually grant only one, but allow player-characters to reload a saved game. [7] [8]

Lives set up the situation where dying is not necessarily the end of the game, allowing the player to take risks they might not take otherwise, or experiment with different strategies to find one that works. Multiple lives also allow novice players a chance to learn a game's mechanics before the game is over. Another reason to implement lives is that the ability to earn extra lives provide an additional reward incentive for the player. [2]

Many older video games feature cheat codes that allow you to gain extra lives without earning them throughout gameplay. One example is Contra, which added the option to input the Konami code to get 30 extra lives. [9]

In modern times, some free-to-play games, such as the Candy Crush Saga trilogy, capitalize on the multiple life system to create an opportunity to earn more microtransactions. In such games, a life is lost when the player fails a level, but once all lives are lost, the player is prevented from continuing the game for a temporary amount of time, instead of receiving a game over that would entail total failure or require a new beginning, as lives will re-generate automatically after a number of minutes or hours. Players can either wait for lives, attempt alternate activities to recover lives (such as asking for friends online to donate lives), or purchase items that can fully replenish lives or grant unlimited lives for a limited time to continue playing immediately.[ citation needed ] This system works like an "energy" meter for other free-to-play games, however, lives do not deplete when a level is successfully completed, unlike energy.

Extra lives

A 1-up Mushroom from the Super Mario series 1-UP mushroom.jpg
A 1-up Mushroom from the Super Mario series

An extra life or a 1-up is a video game item that increments the player character's number of lives. [10] Because there are no universal game rules, the form 1-ups take varies from game to game, but are often rare and difficult items to acquire. The use of the term "1-up" to designate an extra life first appeared in Super Mario Bros. , where a 1-Up could be obtained in several ways, including grabbing a green "1-Up Mushroom", collecting 100 coins, using a Koopa shell to kill 8 or more consecutive enemies, and jumping on 8 or more consecutive enemies without touching the ground. The term quickly caught on, seeing use in both home and arcade video games. [1]

A number of games included an exploitable design flaw called a "1-up loop", in which it is possible to consistently acquire two or more 1-ups between a certain checkpoint and the following checkpoint. The player can thus acquire two 1-ups, make the character die, and restart from the first checkpoint with a net gain of one life; this procedure can then be repeated for as many lives as the player desires. [11]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Player character</span> Character controlled by a game player

A player character is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not controlled by a player are called non-player characters (NPCs). The actions of non-player characters are typically handled by the game itself in video games, or according to rules followed by a gamemaster refereeing tabletop role-playing games. The player character functions as a fictional, alternate body for the player controlling the character.

In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that can be used at any time chosen by the player. Although often collected directly through touch, power-ups can sometimes only be gained by collecting several related items, such as the floating letters of the word 'EXTEND' in Bubble Bobble. Well known examples of power-ups that have entered popular culture include the power pellets from Pac-Man and the Super Mushroom from Super Mario Bros., which ranked first in UGO Networks' Top 11 Video Game Powerups.

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Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic racing simulations and more fantastical arcade-style racing games. Kart racing games emerged in the 1990s as a popular sub-genre of the latter. Racing games may also fall under the category of sports video games.

An action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction time. The genre includes a large variety of sub-genres, such as fighting games, beat 'em ups, shooter games, rhythm games and platform games. Multiplayer online battle arena and some real-time strategy games are also considered action games.

<i>Kung-Fu Master</i> (video game) 1984 video game

Kung-Fu Master, known as Spartan X in Japan, is a 1984 beat 'em up game developed and published by Irem for arcades. It was distributed by Data East in North America. Designed by Takashi Nishiyama, the game was based on Hong Kong martial arts films. It is a loose adaptation of the Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao film Wheels on Meals (1984), called Spartan X in Japan, with the protagonist Thomas named after Jackie Chan's character in the film. The game is also heavily inspired by the Bruce Lee film Game of Death (1972), which was the basis for the game's concept. Nishiyama, who had previously designed the side-scrolling shooter Moon Patrol (1982), combined fighting elements with a shoot 'em up gameplay rhythm. Irem and Data East exported the game to the West without the Spartan X license.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomohiro Nishikado</span> Japanese video game developer

Tomohiro Nishikado is a Japanese video game developer and engineer. He is the creator of the arcade shoot 'em up game Space Invaders, released to the public in 1978 by the Taito Corporation of Japan, often credited as the first shoot 'em up and for beginning the golden age of arcade video games. Prior to Space Invaders, he also designed other earlier Taito arcade games, including the shooting electro-mechanical games Sky Fighter (1971) and Sky Fighter II, the sports video game TV Basketball in 1974, the vertical scrolling racing video game Speed Race in 1974, the multi-directional shooter Western Gun in 1975, and the first-person combat flight simulator Interceptor (1975).

<i>Gun Fight</i> 1975 video game

Gun Fight, known as Western Gun in Japan and Europe, is a 1975 multidirectional shooter arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released by Taito in Japan and Europe and by Midway in North America. Based around two Old West cowboys armed with revolvers and squaring off in a duel, it was the first video game to depict human-to-human combat. The Midway version was also the first video game to use a microprocessor instead of TTL. The game's concept was adapted from Sega's 1969 arcade electro-mechanical game Gun Fight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Game over</span> Message which signals that the game has ended

"Game over" is a message in video games which informs the player that their play session has ended, usually because the player has reached a loss condition. It also sometimes appears at the successful completion of a session, especially in games designed for arcades, after the player has exhausted the game's supply of new challenges. The phrase has since been turned into quasi-slang, usually describing an event that will cause significant harm, injury, bad luck, or even death to a person. However, since the turn of the century, it has largely fallen out of fashion in favor of unlimited lives and endless checkpoints with autosaves, although it very much remains the norm in arcades, as they require payment inserts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saved game</span> Digital information about player progress

A saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Level (video games)</span> Discrete play space in video games

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A bonus stage is a special level within a video game designed to reward the player or players, and typically allows the player to collect extra points or power-ups. Bonus stage either have no enemies or hazards, or replace the normal penalties for being struck by enemies or hazards with simply being thrown out of the bonus stage. Many bonus stages need to be activated or discovered in some manner, or certain conditions must be satisfied to access them. Otherwise, they may appear after the player has completed a certain number of regular stages. They are often much shorter than regular stages.

A beat 'em up is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in scrolling, two-dimensional (2D) levels, while a number of modern games feature more open three-dimensional (3D) environments with yet larger numbers of enemies. The gameplay tends to follow arcade genre conventions, such as being simple to learn but difficult to master, and the combat system tends to be more highly developed than other side-scrolling action games. Two-player cooperative gameplay and multiple player characters are also hallmarks of the genre. Most of these games take place in urban settings and feature crime-fighting and revenge-based plots, though some games may employ historical, science fiction or fantasy themes.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health (game terminology)</span> Gaming-related attribute

Health is a video game or tabletop game quality that determines the maximum amount of damage or fatigue something takes before leaving the main game. In role-playing games, this typically takes the form of hit points (HP), a numerical attribute representing the health of a character or object. The game character can be a player character, a boss, or a mob. Health can also be attributed to destructible elements of the game environment or inanimate objects such as vehicles and their individual parts. In video games, health is often represented by visual elements such as a numerical fraction, a health bar or a series of small icons, though it may also be represented acoustically, such as through a character's heartbeat.

In pen and paper games and computer and video games, an item is an object within the game world that can be collected by a player or, occasionally, a non-player character. These items are sometimes called pick-ups.

Since the origin of video games in the early 1970s, the video game industry, the players, and surrounding culture have spawned a wide range of technical and slang terms.

References

  1. 1 2 Hsu, Dan "Shoe" (2007). Foreword. The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual. By Thomas, David; Orland, Kyle; Steinberg, Scott. Power Play Publishing. pp.  11, 41. ISBN   978-1-4303-1305-2 . Retrieved 2014-12-10.
  2. 1 2 3 Rouse III, Richard (2010-03-08). Game Design: Theory and Practice, Second Edition. Jones & Bartlett Learning. p. 60. ISBN   978-1449633455 . Retrieved 2014-12-19.
  3. ↑ "The Next Generation 1996 Lexicon A to Z: Chance". Next Generation . No. 15. Imagine Media. March 1996. p. 31.
  4. 1 2 Lecky-Thompson, Guy W. (2008-01-01). "life". Video Game Design Revealed. Cengage Learning. p. 49. ISBN   978-1584506072 . Retrieved 2014-12-19.
  5. ↑ Records, Guinness World (6 November 2014). Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2015 Ebook. Guinness World Records. p. 68. ISBN   978-1-908843-71-5.
  6. 1 2 Rogers, Scott (2014-04-11). Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 299–301. ISBN   978-1118877210 . Retrieved 2014-12-19.
  7. ↑ Ernest, Adams (2010-04-07). Fundamentals of Game Design. New Riders. pp. 161, 168. ISBN   978-0132104753 . Retrieved 2014-12-19.
  8. ↑ Fullerton, Tracy (2008-02-08). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. CRC Press. pp. 72, 73. ISBN   978-0240809748 . Retrieved 2014-12-19.
  9. ↑ NES Cheats - Contra Wiki Guide - IGN, 7 March 2017, retrieved 2021-06-01
  10. ↑ Schwartz, Steven A.; Schwartz, Janet (December 1993). The Parent's Guide to Video Games - Steven A. Schwartz, Janet Schwartz. Prima Pub. ISBN   9781559584746 . Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  11. ↑ "The Next Generation 1996 Lexicon A to Z: One-up Loop". Next Generation . No. 15. Imagine Media. March 1996. p. 38.
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