Game development > Game design

Death

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loken:
Rather grim subject line for a newcomer, eh? Well anyways before I begin, just want to say thanks to Mnemonic for writing Wintermute. It's truly great software, and even better for being free. I hope to give back in some way when I can.

Anyways, I'm developing a game which carries with it the spirit of Space Quest. It's not a remake, nor a prequel or a sequel. I'm just trying to capture it's essence. So I've been playing through the originals and making notes of their design.

One thing in particular happens rather often in the Space Quest series, as well as other early adventure games -- you die. A lot. Often, unexpectantly. At least it's usually humorous, but it often gives rise to frustration from the player. It seems later adventure game designers realized this and completely removed the idea of player death.

My question is, do modern gamers care? What if dying wasn't so terrible and the player didn't loose their progress up until they bit it? Perhaps an autosave feature based on scene change would remedy the situation? Is there a situation to be remedied?

Mnemonic:
Removing player's death from games seems to be an obvious trend nowadays, because it's considered to be too frustrating for the players (well, doh). And it's not only true for adventure games, but surprisingly for action games as well. Take Bioshock, for example, you can't actually die in this game. Similarly in Assassin's Creed, you don't die, you just "lose synchronization" and restart at nearest checkpoint. Many action games provide self-healing of the main hero etc.
In other words, modern gamers do care. It's because gaming is no longer aimed at hard-core gamers, like in the 80s, but it's a casual entertainment now. Even us, who remember the old days, are too lazy to play insanely hard games.

Back to adventure games though... my opinion is that the amount of deaths in SQ is ridiculous and most people would hate it today. However, the possibility of character dying can add a lot to the game atmosphere (when it makes sense). An auto-save is a good trade-off between frustrating the player and making the game look unrealistic. Another solution is coming with a design which describes the player's immortality in a reasonable way (like the vita chambers in Bioshock).

metamorphium:
I like the idea where actor is dying all the time but it doesn't make him to replay anything. :) Like in Cosmology of Kyoto for example - death and hells are paired and in the hell you're supposed to play as well before you get back.

Jyujinkai:
I think player death can be a good thing, as long as it dose not interrupt to much. IMO, the key in a successful adventure game is the continual advancement of the story.  Death and reset, or large explorable areas you have to walk back and forth across, to hard puzzles... etc anything that makes the player start to repeat things and not advance the story will boar and make the game less fun.

Also with deaths, I think there is no point in having playr deaths if all you need to do is reset and start again till you learn a sequence. Examples of this is a conversation where you asy the wrong thing and die, or a maze or something were a wrong turn kills you. If you just reset and start again is is simply a matter of deaths untill you memorize a sequence. Annoying.

I think (spesh with the emulation of space quest) that a death should be somethings obvious. Something like sticking your hand in a electrified power conduit. Mabey with a few warnings, that get funnier untill it says "Fine.. put your hand there see if we care"

There is a WME project that you can download called The White Chamber that has some cool use of deaths. (spesh the "dorrway" death)

sychron:
Death in games can add to the athmosphere, for it creates suspense. If you just cannot die, there is no suspense in action themes. For example The Longest Journey. There are some scenes in which you are in a dangerous situation, but you have all the time you need to solve them. Theese scenes are not creating suspense at all, they are just normal game scenes with heart pounding music.
If you would automatically die after a set time, or better: after a number of tries, this would be more suspense.

BUT: As it was already said, you have to think about how to handle Death. To keep the player in the flow, it's not advisable to present a "Game Over - Load Again?" screen. For simple handling, I would suggest a death sequence, showing the player what happened, and then auto-reload the scene he died in to have him play again imeaiately without and choice. If you give players a choice here, the answer might also be "no".

I read an interesting game design article about player choice requesters -- nearly all of them are counter productive, so you should generally avoid asking players what to do. For example, if you reach a checkpoint, don't ask the players wether they want to save -- of course they want to. Just save and continue. Same here: If the player dies, just load and continue. If the player really wants to bail out, he will find his way through the menu. Otherwise keep him playing without disturbing requesters, even after death.

If you're going for a fun adventure, try counting player deaths and make fun of them. An example NSC could note that the player is "somewhat pale", and the number of NSC remarks increases with the number of deaths.

The concept to play in hell for a few scenes is nice, but it may disturb the normal game flow. If the player died, the idea what to to instead might come while watching the death sequence. So let them try their new idea as soon as possible!

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