“It’s real. Those emotions are real. The loss is real.”
July 25, 2017 8:46 AM Subscribe
In These Games, Death Is Forever, and That’s Awesome [Wired] ““Permadeath” has been growing in popularity among game designers in recent years. Although it can take different forms depending on which game you’re playing, the message is always the same: Mistakes have consequences. [...] The games today that use permadeath as a feature are something of a hybrid of old and new. They have more storyline than Pac-Man but the emphasis is not on a heavily scripted Hollywood-style narrative. Rather, the game’s fictional worlds set the scene, establish a strong sense of place, but give the players more leeway to imagine their own personal stories.”
• Y'all Are Crazy With Permadeath In Fire Emblem [Kotaku]
• Y'all Are Crazy With Permadeath In Fire Emblem [Kotaku]
“But for some of you masochists, that doesn’t seem to be enough. You’ve just got to turn a fun game into something unmanageable. There seem to be a few ways to play Fire Emblem with permadeath on. The first is resetting the game every time a character dies. This doesn’t add any real challenge to the game; it just wastes time. Sure, the stakes are raised a bit to ideally inspire better strategy, but the punishment is making the game not fun by having to replay the exact same part again. Any punishment in a video game that makes the game not fun is too steep. Others will decide to just carry on whenever a character dies. I do not understand this.”• Why permadeath is alive and well in video games [GamesRadar+]
“There's no perfect definition of a permadeath game. They vary from single player survivals like Don't Starve to shooter MMOs like DayZ. The concept drives low-budget roguelikes like FTL and big-budget blockbusters like XCOM: Enemy Unknown. There's even an iOS game called One Single Life that can't be played again once you've died (well, unless you delete then reinstall it). There are twists, too. Dark Souls and ZombiU let you retrieve souls / items from your own corpse to reverse failure, while the hacking game Uplink can see your computer permanently 'disavowed' from the fictional in-game network if you’re caught. Permadeath can feature in various genres, then, but it can also be a genre itself. Essentially, permadeath is about being unable to rewrite the past--mistakes carry consequences.”• Someone Please Explain the Appeal of Permadeath and Roguelike Games To Me? [Forever Geek]
“I will just come out and say what a great many gamers think but refuse to say out loud because many gamers have become sensitive over last few years aka people who think what they think is right and any opposing view is wrong. A glance at the title of this article even says so much. Initially, it was “why permadeath is ruining gaming” and once I wrote it and realized how hypocritical I sound, I changed it to try to attempt to get some insight into what makes gamers like these games so much. EXTREME MODES and Permadeath games that seem to derive pleasure from torturing people are somehow the norm now? WHAT??!! It’s right there in the description. Someone please tell me the appeal of punishing games? How is that fun?”• Darkest Dungeon and Permanent Death in Video Games [Den of Geek]
“It’s not natural for us to think of adventurers in an RPG as disposable, but in a roguelikeRPG, that strategy starts to make a lot of sense. Just as you would weigh the pros and cons of adventuring forward in a roguelike, in DD you weigh the pros and cons of keeping team members around and paying extra for their recovery or cutting them loose and starting anew. In this fashion, DD is similar to X-COM in that proper roster management is essential. Permadeath adds yet another dimension to this strategy. With permadeath, you can’t rely on having only one “A” team of adventurers. As you expand your base of operations and expand the size of your complete roster, it’s imperative to work on several of your favorite classes to ensure you have backup teams to send away when characters die off or when stress/impairments requires time away from combat.”• What can “permadeath” video games teach us about suicide? [New Statesman]
“The rise of permadeath in video games – whereby player characters die permanently in-game, or where a game must restart from the beginning should the player character die, in the absence of multiple lives or continues – has changed the way players approach games. In these instances, emotion is often the driving force when it comes to decision-making, and thus with permadeath mental state governs player action, as opposed to logical rationale. It’s worth noting here that self-sacrifice – when players kill themselves to respawn or restart levels; or non-playable characters sacrifice themselves for the greater good/to save their companions – is different from suicide as portrayed in the above examples. Permadeath essentially forces players to consider consequence, permanence and finality within the bounds of digital landscapes.”
Wow this is a lot of bitching that other people are playing games wrong.
posted by muddgirl at 9:00 AM on July 25, 2017 [15 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 9:00 AM on July 25, 2017 [15 favorites]
So today's soft, weak gamers have rediscovered Nintendo Hard.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:03 AM on July 25, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by Sangermaine at 9:03 AM on July 25, 2017 [9 favorites]
it's a lot of the same appeal as gambling, I think. playing poker with marbles is a very different game than with money. likewise a roguelike with save rooms would not be the same game at all, in terms of the emotional experience of playing it as well as strategy.
posted by vogon_poet at 9:07 AM on July 25, 2017
posted by vogon_poet at 9:07 AM on July 25, 2017
The funny thing about people who say the game is being played wrong is that the game itself disproves that, permadeath is a built in part of the game. So people are playing it as intended.
posted by Fizz at 9:08 AM on July 25, 2017
posted by Fizz at 9:08 AM on July 25, 2017
Angband. Not the best time in my life.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:08 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:08 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Do you play a game for relaxation/enjoyment ? For escapism or exploration of worlds ? For a challenge that brings a sense of accomplishment ? What's "fun" for you ?
I'm glad they bring rougelikes into the discussion. Rogue/Nethack are a carry over from earlier times that sure as heck frustrated me (never won rogue, did get to ascend a bunch in NH).
That said, I prefer games that have you make hard choices, and all your choices have an outcome on how the story ends when you complete the game (but don't limit you to one life.. )
posted by k5.user at 9:13 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm glad they bring rougelikes into the discussion. Rogue/Nethack are a carry over from earlier times that sure as heck frustrated me (never won rogue, did get to ascend a bunch in NH).
That said, I prefer games that have you make hard choices, and all your choices have an outcome on how the story ends when you complete the game (but don't limit you to one life.. )
posted by k5.user at 9:13 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Wow this is a lot of bitching that other people are playing games wrong.
Welcome to video game journalism.
posted by Fizz at 9:19 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Welcome to video game journalism.
posted by Fizz at 9:19 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I remember reading about a game that tried to create a real feeling of loss by randomly deleting data from your hard drive when you lost, but I can't seem to find anything about it now. Does anyone else remember that?
posted by Sangermaine at 9:29 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Sangermaine at 9:29 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Someone Please Explain the Appeal of Permadeath and Roguelike Games To Me?
Someone please explain the appeal of infinite saves and being able to replay a scenario until you win?
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 9:31 AM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
Someone please explain the appeal of infinite saves and being able to replay a scenario until you win?
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 9:31 AM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
One reason to have opinions about what other gamers like because demand has an effect on what type of games get made. (Or maybe there enough good games to go around...)
I was pretty anti-permadeath roguelikes: I like exploration of worlds that other people have built, I like some semblance of a plot, I try to avoid getting addicted to things that have been too obviously gamified. Why would I want to wander around a roguelike when I could wander around Britannia?
I didn't get them until I played Spelunky. Spelunky is incredible and it works because it's a tight little sandbox of death and playing around it is so excruciatingly fair (or at least comically unfair) that death is simply another part of playing and losing your progress isn't too annoying because you immediately get a new sandbox to explore. (If you haven't played Spelunky (the non-free version) you really should.)
Though for me this is also where they fail*: after a while you become good enough that the challenge becomes being both lucky and incredibly careful for extended periods of time. Once you've invested an hour or more in a run, death starts to mean too much and it becomes less fun.
* at being infinitely entertaining, which is maybe a tall order
posted by ropeladder at 9:35 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I was pretty anti-permadeath roguelikes: I like exploration of worlds that other people have built, I like some semblance of a plot, I try to avoid getting addicted to things that have been too obviously gamified. Why would I want to wander around a roguelike when I could wander around Britannia?
I didn't get them until I played Spelunky. Spelunky is incredible and it works because it's a tight little sandbox of death and playing around it is so excruciatingly fair (or at least comically unfair) that death is simply another part of playing and losing your progress isn't too annoying because you immediately get a new sandbox to explore. (If you haven't played Spelunky (the non-free version) you really should.)
Though for me this is also where they fail*: after a while you become good enough that the challenge becomes being both lucky and incredibly careful for extended periods of time. Once you've invested an hour or more in a run, death starts to mean too much and it becomes less fun.
* at being infinitely entertaining, which is maybe a tall order
posted by ropeladder at 9:35 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I adore Don't Starve in spite of being terrible at all the big story-stuff in the game (and also at the boss fights.) My favorite part is building all the things from scratch while trying not to die, and it doesn't stop being fun for me if I have to start over (again, and again, and again.) There'll always be a new map to explore, so it's new and fun every time. I've played Don't Starve Together in a mode that allows players to resurrect easily, which helps me try to keep other players alive, but it definitely feels like a very different game in that case. (Plus I hate that it doesn't let me pause in DST even when playing local split-screen, which is much, much more of a problem for me in any game than permadeath.)
I play Fire Emblem on regular mode (and reset every time I get a unit killed, because I'm a softy like that, and also not very good at the game, so it happens with some regularity.)
Sure, the stakes are raised a bit to ideally inspire better strategy, but the punishment is making the game not fun by having to replay the exact same part again.
But the satisfaction of getting the strategy just right to complete a map without losing any units (and preferably getting the experience you want for those units, and also keeping friends fighting together and all that) is really good. On maps where it takes me two or three tries to get it right, that's just about the perfect level of difficulty (for me). There have been maps where I lost track of how many times I'd tried, and that eventually got less fun (except that refusal to give in is its own reward, sort of.)
The game just isn't as fun for me when the stakes aren't as high. I ended up turning on the casual/non-permadeath mode in FE Fates: Birthright when I accidentally killed off a unit without realizing it, and changing modes was the only way to get it back without restarting the game (I had overwritten the earlier saves, whoops.) I kept playing it the same way (I still wanted those units to get the experience they wouldn't if I just let them die and carried on) but it wasn't as fun. Partly because their statements on death were more like, "I'll retreat from the field for now," not delightfully tragic dying words.
I have played lots of Nethack. I have never ascended. I'm OK with that. Rogue Legacy was fun even though (as usual) I'm bad at it, and the deaths weren't so bad since if you do well enough in any given life, you can carry a bit of what you gained on to your next life. It's a good mechanic to have in a permadeath world.
posted by asperity at 9:39 AM on July 25, 2017
I play Fire Emblem on regular mode (and reset every time I get a unit killed, because I'm a softy like that, and also not very good at the game, so it happens with some regularity.)
Sure, the stakes are raised a bit to ideally inspire better strategy, but the punishment is making the game not fun by having to replay the exact same part again.
But the satisfaction of getting the strategy just right to complete a map without losing any units (and preferably getting the experience you want for those units, and also keeping friends fighting together and all that) is really good. On maps where it takes me two or three tries to get it right, that's just about the perfect level of difficulty (for me). There have been maps where I lost track of how many times I'd tried, and that eventually got less fun (except that refusal to give in is its own reward, sort of.)
The game just isn't as fun for me when the stakes aren't as high. I ended up turning on the casual/non-permadeath mode in FE Fates: Birthright when I accidentally killed off a unit without realizing it, and changing modes was the only way to get it back without restarting the game (I had overwritten the earlier saves, whoops.) I kept playing it the same way (I still wanted those units to get the experience they wouldn't if I just let them die and carried on) but it wasn't as fun. Partly because their statements on death were more like, "I'll retreat from the field for now," not delightfully tragic dying words.
I have played lots of Nethack. I have never ascended. I'm OK with that. Rogue Legacy was fun even though (as usual) I'm bad at it, and the deaths weren't so bad since if you do well enough in any given life, you can carry a bit of what you gained on to your next life. It's a good mechanic to have in a permadeath world.
posted by asperity at 9:39 AM on July 25, 2017
Someone please explain the appeal of infinite saves and being able to replay a scenario until you win?
Because I'm impatient and ADHD and if I can't get past a certain point in a game after a certain number of tries, I say "screw this" and find something else to do, and the game collects dust
posted by Lucinda at 9:43 AM on July 25, 2017 [13 favorites]
Because I'm impatient and ADHD and if I can't get past a certain point in a game after a certain number of tries, I say "screw this" and find something else to do, and the game collects dust
posted by Lucinda at 9:43 AM on July 25, 2017 [13 favorites]
What matters is that a game understands the consequences of its design choices. Perma-death isn't something that you can just add to a game to give it meaning, if you are going to be honest with the player you have to design the rest of the game around that choice. Skyrim + perma-death with nothing else changed would be a terrible game, but that's not to say that a game like Skyrim, but with perma-death, couldn't be made.
For the opposite of perma-death, see VVVVVV. The whole premise of the game is that the levels are maddeningly difficult and you will die hundreds of times, so the saving is made automatic and loading a saved game takes a fraction of a section and that's good because fuck Gravitron. The stroke-inducing gameplay is mitigated by the way the game handles death.
I suspect at least part of the complaint comes from game designers adding perma-death (or other features), but not taking the time to design the rest of the game so that it fits and adds to the overall gameplay.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:45 AM on July 25, 2017 [12 favorites]
For the opposite of perma-death, see VVVVVV. The whole premise of the game is that the levels are maddeningly difficult and you will die hundreds of times, so the saving is made automatic and loading a saved game takes a fraction of a section and that's good because fuck Gravitron. The stroke-inducing gameplay is mitigated by the way the game handles death.
I suspect at least part of the complaint comes from game designers adding perma-death (or other features), but not taking the time to design the rest of the game so that it fits and adds to the overall gameplay.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:45 AM on July 25, 2017 [12 favorites]
So today's soft, weak gamers have rediscovered Nintendo Hard.
Speaking as somebody who prides himself on being able to finsh the speeder bike level in Battletoads on a single life without cheats, permadeath is a little bit different from what we remember as "Nintendo Hard."
If Super Mario Bros treated death in the same way that Fire Emblem does (at least in the "hardcore" permadeath modes), every time Mario got hit with a fireball or turtle shell, he would be dead for the rest of the game; He would leave behind a wife, children, and treasured comrades, along with dozens of levels of accumulated experience, skills, and gear. FE is basically like chess if each playing piece had the backstory of a character from a Russian novel, and if you play with permadeath it makes you feel really bad about letting any of them get killed.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:46 AM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]
Speaking as somebody who prides himself on being able to finsh the speeder bike level in Battletoads on a single life without cheats, permadeath is a little bit different from what we remember as "Nintendo Hard."
If Super Mario Bros treated death in the same way that Fire Emblem does (at least in the "hardcore" permadeath modes), every time Mario got hit with a fireball or turtle shell, he would be dead for the rest of the game; He would leave behind a wife, children, and treasured comrades, along with dozens of levels of accumulated experience, skills, and gear. FE is basically like chess if each playing piece had the backstory of a character from a Russian novel, and if you play with permadeath it makes you feel really bad about letting any of them get killed.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:46 AM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]
So not exactly permadeath per se, but I was playing Superhot (great game!), there's a story part where you promise to not play the game any longer. I agreed to it, or rather my character did because it was a forced choice. But I haven't gone back since. I feel like if you agree to something you should follow through.
I'm role playing this game so fucking hard right now, you guys.
posted by ODiV at 9:47 AM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]
I'm role playing this game so fucking hard right now, you guys.
posted by ODiV at 9:47 AM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]
This has always been why at-home, console gaming has been somewhat unsatisfactory, for me: nothing drove the point home, that actions have real consequences, like wasting your $.25...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 9:48 AM on July 25, 2017
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 9:48 AM on July 25, 2017
I bought Don't Starve a while back, without knowing about its permadeath aspect. I played it for a little while, enjoying its dark whimsy, but then I died, and lost hours worth of work, with no way to get it back.
I play video games to forget just how much my real life is stuffed to the rafters with unfairness, discomfort, precarity. I worked my ass off for those damn stupid imaginary digital trinkets. If you like permadeath, fine. Just give me the option to opt out.
I'm almost fifty years old, but I've never played a single Nintendo game. I guess I'll go right on not playing them.
posted by KHAAAN! at 9:50 AM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]
I play video games to forget just how much my real life is stuffed to the rafters with unfairness, discomfort, precarity. I worked my ass off for those damn stupid imaginary digital trinkets. If you like permadeath, fine. Just give me the option to opt out.
I'm almost fifty years old, but I've never played a single Nintendo game. I guess I'll go right on not playing them.
posted by KHAAAN! at 9:50 AM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]
For me, the rise of permadeath is a great way of balancing the game while curbing my save scumming tendencies.
Essentially, permadeath is about being unable to rewrite the past--mistakes carry consequences. - Exactly this, from the GamesRadar pullquote.
I have to play XCOM in Ironman mode, otherwise it would take forever to get past a mission because of constant reloading for the perfect outcome. Being unable to go back is such a huge relief to me. I get that other people are wired differently though and can continue on with an imperfect mission/level/etc. But, for example, I played the first mission in Deus Ex for like a month.
Speaking of XCOM. I got to the final mission, got completely wiped out and thought, "Oh, well that's that." and was ready to start over, only to have the game load up the mission for me to try again. I've lost interest and haven't gone back. I should get started on the sequel.
posted by ODiV at 9:55 AM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
Essentially, permadeath is about being unable to rewrite the past--mistakes carry consequences. - Exactly this, from the GamesRadar pullquote.
I have to play XCOM in Ironman mode, otherwise it would take forever to get past a mission because of constant reloading for the perfect outcome. Being unable to go back is such a huge relief to me. I get that other people are wired differently though and can continue on with an imperfect mission/level/etc. But, for example, I played the first mission in Deus Ex for like a month.
Speaking of XCOM. I got to the final mission, got completely wiped out and thought, "Oh, well that's that." and was ready to start over, only to have the game load up the mission for me to try again. I've lost interest and haven't gone back. I should get started on the sequel.
posted by ODiV at 9:55 AM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
I mean, the thing with perma-death for me is I care less about the characters. Most games, to be challenging, are risky enough and dangerous enough, that any character in them is basically the walking dead from the get go unless they get lucky. So, after the first couple times I played a permadeath game and cared, it was just like 'eh? What's the point?' It becomes a ruthless optimization problem for me rather than a story I can engage with or a sandbox I can experiment in.
The one exception might be the final mission in Mass Effect 2 where I was going to leave the characters dead that died (even though it was total bullshit.) But... well... between ME2 and ME3 I decided I was done dealing with EA DRM crap and never looked back.
Well strategy games, too, ones on a little grander and impersonal scale than Fire Emblem or X-Com. It's interesting trying to play things until the bitter end. But there, too, there's less or no investment in individuals as characters.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:24 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
The one exception might be the final mission in Mass Effect 2 where I was going to leave the characters dead that died (even though it was total bullshit.) But... well... between ME2 and ME3 I decided I was done dealing with EA DRM crap and never looked back.
Well strategy games, too, ones on a little grander and impersonal scale than Fire Emblem or X-Com. It's interesting trying to play things until the bitter end. But there, too, there's less or no investment in individuals as characters.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:24 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Though for me this is also where they fail*: after a while you become good enough that the challenge becomes being both lucky and incredibly careful for extended periods of time. Once you've invested an hour or more in a run, death starts to mean too much and it becomes less fun.
I think this is why (well, besides the obvious factor of creating more and more content for your game being hard) a run of Spelunky lasts maybe fifteen minutes, or a run of Crypt of the Necrodancer lasts half an hour. Getting too attached to your build is indeed dangerous.
Fortunately, at least in my experience with those games, death is much more common in the early stages than in the later stages, due to a combination of (interrun) your skill having increased and (intrarun) your character having picked up more gear and more health.
posted by one for the books at 10:34 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I think this is why (well, besides the obvious factor of creating more and more content for your game being hard) a run of Spelunky lasts maybe fifteen minutes, or a run of Crypt of the Necrodancer lasts half an hour. Getting too attached to your build is indeed dangerous.
Fortunately, at least in my experience with those games, death is much more common in the early stages than in the later stages, due to a combination of (interrun) your skill having increased and (intrarun) your character having picked up more gear and more health.
posted by one for the books at 10:34 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I personally have always adhered to the strictures of permadeath as part of my personal gaming ethic.
Consequently, I haven't played a single Mario game since 4/5/1982, when he was crushed to death by a barrel 15 seconds into my first (and last) game of Donkey Kong.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:35 AM on July 25, 2017 [21 favorites]
Consequently, I haven't played a single Mario game since 4/5/1982, when he was crushed to death by a barrel 15 seconds into my first (and last) game of Donkey Kong.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:35 AM on July 25, 2017 [21 favorites]
Interesting! I have almost the opposite feeling about caring about characters, Zalzidrax. In a lot of non-permadeath games I have roughly the same experience as everyone else. I could watch a playthrough on YouTube. As a result I'm less attached to the characters because they feel less personal and have plot armour (essentially).
Ask me about the first Kobold I got to Zot in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup who could turn himself into a lich and who died to an ice dragon because I forgot to swap resistances or heal in time. That was probably like 8 years ago! God, that was dumb. Or the Centaur Hunter that I took into a Ziggurat who was comically unprepared and dropped to single digit HP to Mummy curses, but went on to collect all 15 runes and win the game. The Grotesk Yred worshipper who had gotten the silver rune from the Vaults successfully, but who greedily went back in for loot and died to a simple vault guard.
But yeah, the games definitely have to be built around either having permadeath or not otherwise the balance is just out of whack.
posted by ODiV at 10:39 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
Ask me about the first Kobold I got to Zot in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup who could turn himself into a lich and who died to an ice dragon because I forgot to swap resistances or heal in time. That was probably like 8 years ago! God, that was dumb. Or the Centaur Hunter that I took into a Ziggurat who was comically unprepared and dropped to single digit HP to Mummy curses, but went on to collect all 15 runes and win the game. The Grotesk Yred worshipper who had gotten the silver rune from the Vaults successfully, but who greedily went back in for loot and died to a simple vault guard.
But yeah, the games definitely have to be built around either having permadeath or not otherwise the balance is just out of whack.
posted by ODiV at 10:39 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
Personally, I like permadeath in some games, but not in others. Depends on what the game's specific appeal to me is. Like... I'm not willing to play Dungeons of Dredmor without permadeath because it's a whimsical roguelike and being able to reload ruins the entire tense experience for me. I want every single encounter to be life or death in there, because that's the whole point. The game also generates fresh maps on every playthrough, so when I die in there, I'm not stuck doing the same stuff over and over again except in the broadest sense of needing to re-level/re-gear. I'm still exploring something new, regardless.
On the other hand, I would probably never be willing to play a CRPG like Pillars of Eternity on permadeath because half the fun for me is exploring different dialogue choices, and I tend to reload a lot to see how different decision paths look. (Indeed, my favorite Infinity Engine game is Planescape Torment, where the entire central premise is that the protagonist cannot die anymore, and wants to figure out both why that happened and how to become mortal again. So one of my favorite games of all time literally could not have a permadeath mode.)
Some stuff straddles that, and is held back by various factors. Like, I've recently gotten into D3, and it's a tough one. I like the permadeath mode more in principle, (it's very exciting!), but because the game requires a continuous Internet connection, I haven't gotten very far because my crappy Internet will cause me to lag out and die. I get mad if I die to something that wasn't my fault - just technical glitches - so I mostly stick to Softcore. If the game had an offline mode though, I'd be all over Iron Man solo play.
Also:
Because I'm impatient and ADHD and if I can't get past a certain point in a game after a certain number of tries, I say "screw this" and find something else to do, and the game collects dust
My girlfriend's the same, yeah. Watching her get annoyed with this stuff, I feel like whatever my personal predilections, permadeath should be optional in most games, rather than the only way to play. Like, she refused to play Dredmor on permadeath because it was just too bothersome for her. I don't think it's a good idea to exclude people like you from these virtual worlds just to guarantee you're playing games 'correctly.'
posted by mordax at 10:40 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
On the other hand, I would probably never be willing to play a CRPG like Pillars of Eternity on permadeath because half the fun for me is exploring different dialogue choices, and I tend to reload a lot to see how different decision paths look. (Indeed, my favorite Infinity Engine game is Planescape Torment, where the entire central premise is that the protagonist cannot die anymore, and wants to figure out both why that happened and how to become mortal again. So one of my favorite games of all time literally could not have a permadeath mode.)
Some stuff straddles that, and is held back by various factors. Like, I've recently gotten into D3, and it's a tough one. I like the permadeath mode more in principle, (it's very exciting!), but because the game requires a continuous Internet connection, I haven't gotten very far because my crappy Internet will cause me to lag out and die. I get mad if I die to something that wasn't my fault - just technical glitches - so I mostly stick to Softcore. If the game had an offline mode though, I'd be all over Iron Man solo play.
Also:
Because I'm impatient and ADHD and if I can't get past a certain point in a game after a certain number of tries, I say "screw this" and find something else to do, and the game collects dust
My girlfriend's the same, yeah. Watching her get annoyed with this stuff, I feel like whatever my personal predilections, permadeath should be optional in most games, rather than the only way to play. Like, she refused to play Dredmor on permadeath because it was just too bothersome for her. I don't think it's a good idea to exclude people like you from these virtual worlds just to guarantee you're playing games 'correctly.'
posted by mordax at 10:40 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
FE is basically like chess if each playing piece had the backstory of a character from a Russian novel, and if you play with permadeath it makes you feel really bad about letting any of them get killed.
This is my new favourite way to describe Fire Emblem. :)
posted by Fizz at 10:46 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is my new favourite way to describe Fire Emblem. :)
posted by Fizz at 10:46 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
There's room for all sorts of games, including ones that involve permadeath. Personally, I'd lost interest in a single player game where death meant having to start completely over; they ended when I finished Super Mario Bros. without warps, back in 1988.
I enjoy games on rails like FPS single players with checkpoints. I also enjoy open world exploration. My favorite type of video games growing were adventure games, particularly LucasArts games where death was impossible (versus Sierra games, where death was inevitable, though I did enjoy those, too) and CRPGs.
Now CRPGs had permadeath built in if it was party-based, i.e. the characters you created in your party were yours to create and mold and come up with a back story. And so long as one of them survived, you could go and create more characters to replace the ones that died. Granted, a lot of folks simply restored to the last save point if a battle ended with permanent casualties, and CRPGs did let you save (though sometimes limited it in some manner, but this was probably more a technical limitation back then), but CRPGs were nice in that you could do either/or and the game itself was designed such that it would not be compromised by either choice.
Aside: there was one game that had a lot of fun with the concept of death that I found really enjoyable: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
posted by linux at 10:47 AM on July 25, 2017
I enjoy games on rails like FPS single players with checkpoints. I also enjoy open world exploration. My favorite type of video games growing were adventure games, particularly LucasArts games where death was impossible (versus Sierra games, where death was inevitable, though I did enjoy those, too) and CRPGs.
Now CRPGs had permadeath built in if it was party-based, i.e. the characters you created in your party were yours to create and mold and come up with a back story. And so long as one of them survived, you could go and create more characters to replace the ones that died. Granted, a lot of folks simply restored to the last save point if a battle ended with permanent casualties, and CRPGs did let you save (though sometimes limited it in some manner, but this was probably more a technical limitation back then), but CRPGs were nice in that you could do either/or and the game itself was designed such that it would not be compromised by either choice.
Aside: there was one game that had a lot of fun with the concept of death that I found really enjoyable: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
posted by linux at 10:47 AM on July 25, 2017
Wow this is a lot of bitching that other people are playing games wrong.
Games are really tricky.
Is playing Batman: Arkham City on Easy the same game as playing Batman: Arkham City on hard?
On the one hand: Of course it is. The story, characters, writing, and voice acting are all the same. The environments you explore are the same. The secrets and puzzles are the same. That cool feeling of combining the grappling hook and gliding to soar around the city is the same.
On the other hand: Of course it's not. The core combat mechanic feels completely different. The process and satisfaction of mastering it is very different. On Easy, you can ignore half the nuances of the enemy patterns. You hardly need any of the gadgets. Playing on Easy makes you feel like you're watching Batman be awesome. Playing successfully on Hard makes you feel like you are the goddamn Batman.
How certain are you that you can predict ahead of time, as your cursor hovers over the difficulty selection, which of these perspectives would be yours? How well can these two perspectives understand each other when they try to talk about the merits of Arkham City?
I've spent many years playing lots and lots of video games. Some things I was pretty sure I knew about myself as a gamer is that I mostly cared about that first perspective. I knew I hated games that made you repeat sections over and over and over when you fail a challenge. I knew I had zero patience for grinding (repeating a section over and over again to farm resources). I played the first two Arkham games--the first on Easy, the second on Normal--and loved them.
Then I tried Dark Souls. Dark Souls appears to have no difficulty setting. It forced me to repeat sections over and over and over again. I found myself grinding areas repeatedly to farm resources. And it wasn't just that I loved everything else about the game and was suffering through those parts in order to get to what I liked. In Dark Souls I found that I loved grinding.
The thing about Dark Souls is that the combat options are so varied and the skill ceiling so high that I could repeat areas over and over again but not be doing the same thing over and over. Every pass through a hall with the same four enemies I was trying new things, mastering skills, all of which made tackling the next hall and the next set of enemies even more fun and satisfying.
Now here's the point. I had read comments pretty much identical to everything I've just written here and said, "Yeah, no thanks. Dark Souls is not for me." And wow was I wrong. Dark Souls is easily in my top 10 favorite games I've ever played. I'm not sure what made me finally give it a try (a Steam Sale was no doubt involved), but it probably had a lot to do with people passionately arguing not just for the merits of a particular game, but for a particular way of playing games. A way of playing that seemed foreign and repellent to me.
So I guess I'm really thankful that there is so much bitching that other people are playing games wrong. Much more so than in criticism of other forms of art, I think games criticism requires making a case for people to try not just passively experiencing but actually doing something that they aren't sure they would enjoy.
posted by straight at 11:01 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
Games are really tricky.
Is playing Batman: Arkham City on Easy the same game as playing Batman: Arkham City on hard?
On the one hand: Of course it is. The story, characters, writing, and voice acting are all the same. The environments you explore are the same. The secrets and puzzles are the same. That cool feeling of combining the grappling hook and gliding to soar around the city is the same.
On the other hand: Of course it's not. The core combat mechanic feels completely different. The process and satisfaction of mastering it is very different. On Easy, you can ignore half the nuances of the enemy patterns. You hardly need any of the gadgets. Playing on Easy makes you feel like you're watching Batman be awesome. Playing successfully on Hard makes you feel like you are the goddamn Batman.
How certain are you that you can predict ahead of time, as your cursor hovers over the difficulty selection, which of these perspectives would be yours? How well can these two perspectives understand each other when they try to talk about the merits of Arkham City?
I've spent many years playing lots and lots of video games. Some things I was pretty sure I knew about myself as a gamer is that I mostly cared about that first perspective. I knew I hated games that made you repeat sections over and over and over when you fail a challenge. I knew I had zero patience for grinding (repeating a section over and over again to farm resources). I played the first two Arkham games--the first on Easy, the second on Normal--and loved them.
Then I tried Dark Souls. Dark Souls appears to have no difficulty setting. It forced me to repeat sections over and over and over again. I found myself grinding areas repeatedly to farm resources. And it wasn't just that I loved everything else about the game and was suffering through those parts in order to get to what I liked. In Dark Souls I found that I loved grinding.
The thing about Dark Souls is that the combat options are so varied and the skill ceiling so high that I could repeat areas over and over again but not be doing the same thing over and over. Every pass through a hall with the same four enemies I was trying new things, mastering skills, all of which made tackling the next hall and the next set of enemies even more fun and satisfying.
Now here's the point. I had read comments pretty much identical to everything I've just written here and said, "Yeah, no thanks. Dark Souls is not for me." And wow was I wrong. Dark Souls is easily in my top 10 favorite games I've ever played. I'm not sure what made me finally give it a try (a Steam Sale was no doubt involved), but it probably had a lot to do with people passionately arguing not just for the merits of a particular game, but for a particular way of playing games. A way of playing that seemed foreign and repellent to me.
So I guess I'm really thankful that there is so much bitching that other people are playing games wrong. Much more so than in criticism of other forms of art, I think games criticism requires making a case for people to try not just passively experiencing but actually doing something that they aren't sure they would enjoy.
posted by straight at 11:01 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
There is a way to say "Fire Emblem on Casual Mode is so much fun!" without saying "Fire Emblem on Classic mode is a complete a waste of time and I don't understand why anyone would play that way!"
posted by muddgirl at 11:04 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 11:04 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
Also I don't have a dog in this fight. I've never played Fire Emblem, I'm shit at both roguelikes and FPS, no matter if there is permadeath or not. However it seems to me like there are a plethora of the kinds of games I like - open world sandboxy RPGs where I can obsessively collect every blade of grass and butterfly - that I can't possibly begrudge games that aren't that.
posted by muddgirl at 11:12 AM on July 25, 2017
posted by muddgirl at 11:12 AM on July 25, 2017
I've been playing UnReal World recently, a survival sim set in iron age Finland, which is a permadeath game. Rock, Paper, Shotgun puts it as their 26th best RPG on the PC. Also previously mentioned in a MeFi post. True, the keyboard commands are a bit of a pain to get around, but 1. it's oldschool and 2. you'll get most memorized anyway.
It's pretty fun and pretty stressful until you've found water and got a shelter and a fire going... 3 months into the game, I had some logs chopped to start on my cabin, had a huge lake with fish in it for food and springtime was on the horizon. The thaw had weakened the ice and I fell in on the way to check my fishing net. Every time I tried to get out of the water the ice broke until the fourth time and I never came up again. A sad and small death unnoticed by the world.
Learning from that, I'm taking the really long view on things. Where can I get food, how to set up traps for elk and that thieving badger, checking the ice thickness, swimming in the summer, drying enough meat for the next 6 months and do I have enough to trade for a box of seeds and an iron pot. Death would REALLY suck, but if I get killed by a bear it's probably because I didn't do something right. When you do build your first cabin and take down your first elk and survive your first winter, it's an accomplishment made sweeter due to the fact that death is waiting for you to make a mistake. The game's a free download and you can buy it off of Steam or PayPal the developer directly. I highly recommend this game.
Protips: make a folder called Archives in the game folder and copy your character folder to that as a backup. Permadeath due to a game glitch is no fun and not fair. Also: don't get cocky - dumb risks = dumb death.
posted by Zack_Replica at 11:25 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
It's pretty fun and pretty stressful until you've found water and got a shelter and a fire going... 3 months into the game, I had some logs chopped to start on my cabin, had a huge lake with fish in it for food and springtime was on the horizon. The thaw had weakened the ice and I fell in on the way to check my fishing net. Every time I tried to get out of the water the ice broke until the fourth time and I never came up again. A sad and small death unnoticed by the world.
Learning from that, I'm taking the really long view on things. Where can I get food, how to set up traps for elk and that thieving badger, checking the ice thickness, swimming in the summer, drying enough meat for the next 6 months and do I have enough to trade for a box of seeds and an iron pot. Death would REALLY suck, but if I get killed by a bear it's probably because I didn't do something right. When you do build your first cabin and take down your first elk and survive your first winter, it's an accomplishment made sweeter due to the fact that death is waiting for you to make a mistake. The game's a free download and you can buy it off of Steam or PayPal the developer directly. I highly recommend this game.
Protips: make a folder called Archives in the game folder and copy your character folder to that as a backup. Permadeath due to a game glitch is no fun and not fair. Also: don't get cocky - dumb risks = dumb death.
posted by Zack_Replica at 11:25 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I feel like I would like permadeath a lot more if it weren't for randomness. It feels bad doing everything right and dying to something you couldn't help.
The Souls games (not permadeath, I know) go this so right. The enemies are always in the same place and they all have predictable behavior. You can figure things out through observation and reliably apply that skill to consistently progress. If you die, it's because you did something wrong.
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum are most strict roguelikes. The skill ceiling is generally pretty low, so after a few runs you have all the skills you really need to finish the game. All it takes after that is several hundred more runs hoping for the RNG stars to align. That's super not fun to me.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:34 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
The Souls games (not permadeath, I know) go this so right. The enemies are always in the same place and they all have predictable behavior. You can figure things out through observation and reliably apply that skill to consistently progress. If you die, it's because you did something wrong.
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum are most strict roguelikes. The skill ceiling is generally pretty low, so after a few runs you have all the skills you really need to finish the game. All it takes after that is several hundred more runs hoping for the RNG stars to align. That's super not fun to me.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:34 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum are most strict roguelikes. The skill ceiling is generally pretty low, so after a few runs you have all the skills you really need to finish the game. All it takes after that is several hundred more runs hoping for the RNG stars to align. That's super not fun to me.
Just using this comment as an excuse to recommend: Hollow Knight and Dead Cells. They're two of the more recent roguelike/metroidvania games and they're absolutely delightful.
posted by Fizz at 11:38 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Just using this comment as an excuse to recommend: Hollow Knight and Dead Cells. They're two of the more recent roguelike/metroidvania games and they're absolutely delightful.
posted by Fizz at 11:38 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
FE is basically like chess if each playing piece had the backstory of a character from a Russian novel, and if you play with permadeath it makes you feel really bad about letting any of them get killed.
This is my new favourite way to describe Fire Emblem. :)
I lightly ripped it off from the far more brutal Fire Emblem Honest Trailer: "Like chess, but you can make the playing pieces kiss."
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:41 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
This is my new favourite way to describe Fire Emblem. :)
I lightly ripped it off from the far more brutal Fire Emblem Honest Trailer: "Like chess, but you can make the playing pieces kiss."
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:41 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
On the complete opposite side of the spectrum are most strict roguelikes. The skill ceiling is generally pretty low, so after a few runs you have all the skills you really need to finish the game. All it takes after that is several hundred runs hoping for the RNG stars to align. That's super not fun to me.
Depends on the game but in some of the big traditional RLs the ceiling is really quite high. Nobody wins 100 percent of the time but there are players who win 20-40 percent of the time in DCSS, I think even higher rates in Nethack. And players who are that good are not often sticking to the easiest character types or modes - players have done streaks of dozens of consecutive wins when they are really trying.
I think it is true to an extent though that the difference between being able to win repeatedly (once might be dumb luck) versus regularly comes down to applying the same strategies and tactics with a degree of sustained care and precision that isn't appealing to a lot of people.
posted by atoxyl at 11:50 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Depends on the game but in some of the big traditional RLs the ceiling is really quite high. Nobody wins 100 percent of the time but there are players who win 20-40 percent of the time in DCSS, I think even higher rates in Nethack. And players who are that good are not often sticking to the easiest character types or modes - players have done streaks of dozens of consecutive wins when they are really trying.
I think it is true to an extent though that the difference between being able to win repeatedly (once might be dumb luck) versus regularly comes down to applying the same strategies and tactics with a degree of sustained care and precision that isn't appealing to a lot of people.
posted by atoxyl at 11:50 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I enjoy the (for lack of a better term) hybrid permadeath games, like Dungeonmans or the FPS Immortal Redneck. In IR, when you die, everything starts over... BUT... You can take your gold from the last one and spend it at the Skill Tree persistently customizing your character's skills and unlocking gods. In Dungeonmans, there's an academy that you can drop items off at for identification, and upgrade, so your new characters can start out with slightly better equipment and items. (I also like the fact that if it determines a dungeon is too easy for you, it basically autoruns it and drops the loot outside the dungeon entrance).
posted by Samizdata at 12:03 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Samizdata at 12:03 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I can't think of a single instance in which permadeath would positively enhance a game experience for me but like... I don't care that it exists, really? It doesn't detract from what I enjoy gamewise until people start telling me that I'm wrong or a "fake gamer" for not being interested in those games.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:14 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 12:14 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I have no problem with a conversation about the impact of permadeath in gaming and how that shapes game-design or game-play. But you're right, we don't need to have that tired conversation of "real gamers play like this" or "real gamers only like this specific game".
That's been done to death.
posted by Fizz at 12:16 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
That's been done to death.
posted by Fizz at 12:16 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]
I was big into roguelikes for a while (I guess it's still my favorite genre I just haven't been playing a lot of video games period lately) and to me the thing about the good permadeath games is that they're really designed around the concept. This tends to imply a lot of randomness/procedural generation and a minimum of scripted story (though there are some popular games that do have one). I don't really know how to explain the appeal except that there's obviously some of a gambling/intermittent reinforcement aspect and you have to have the right mindset to be able to just let go of the losses and see each one as a learning experience.
Playing games that are not primarily designed for permadeath in permadeath mode does not really appeal to me, nor would playing traditional roguelikes without it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:27 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Playing games that are not primarily designed for permadeath in permadeath mode does not really appeal to me, nor would playing traditional roguelikes without it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:27 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
I feel like I would like permadeath a lot more if it weren't for randomness. It feels bad doing everything right and dying to something you couldn't help.
This is part of the problem, I think. I have nothing against permadeath or hardcore modes in games - I was an enthusiastic player of hardcore Diablo 2, for example, and I sometimes play something like Minecraft on Hardcore mode as well - but I'm really resistant to the mode when it cropped up in Diablo 3 because the game is always online. Die because I fucked up, made a bad choice, whatever, I can deal with that. Die because of a lag spike? No thanks.
I think having the choice to play permadeath is an important part of game design; I don't always want it, but when I do I find it enhances my gameplay - I'm more engaged, involved, and I spend some time learning about the game mechanics because that knowledge becomes useful in different ways.
I find how it impacts the gameplay depends on the game - for Diablo 2, it made me think through my builds better and plan for upcoming encounters. In a game like Invisible, Inc. it makes me apprehensive about the choices I make and the chances being taken, because failure means restarting from the beginning. But a game like Invisible, Inc. wouldn't be the same if I could reload and retry; beating the game - heck, sometimes just beating a level - feels significant because I overcame the challenges. But the other reason it works in Invisible, Inc. is that the game gives the player all the information needed to make their decisions before setting the turn; there is no real random factor present to fuck you over except for the level layout.
posted by nubs at 12:29 PM on July 25, 2017
This is part of the problem, I think. I have nothing against permadeath or hardcore modes in games - I was an enthusiastic player of hardcore Diablo 2, for example, and I sometimes play something like Minecraft on Hardcore mode as well - but I'm really resistant to the mode when it cropped up in Diablo 3 because the game is always online. Die because I fucked up, made a bad choice, whatever, I can deal with that. Die because of a lag spike? No thanks.
I think having the choice to play permadeath is an important part of game design; I don't always want it, but when I do I find it enhances my gameplay - I'm more engaged, involved, and I spend some time learning about the game mechanics because that knowledge becomes useful in different ways.
I find how it impacts the gameplay depends on the game - for Diablo 2, it made me think through my builds better and plan for upcoming encounters. In a game like Invisible, Inc. it makes me apprehensive about the choices I make and the chances being taken, because failure means restarting from the beginning. But a game like Invisible, Inc. wouldn't be the same if I could reload and retry; beating the game - heck, sometimes just beating a level - feels significant because I overcame the challenges. But the other reason it works in Invisible, Inc. is that the game gives the player all the information needed to make their decisions before setting the turn; there is no real random factor present to fuck you over except for the level layout.
posted by nubs at 12:29 PM on July 25, 2017
Someone please explain the appeal of infinite saves and being able to replay a scenario until you win?
Because games are puzzles. A well-crafted game will put you in situations where you can win if you put your mind to it, but has a strong risk of failure when coming in blind. At least those are my favorite moments: Go in blind. Get the boss down to 50%. Die. Try again. Zig instead of zagging. Get the boss down to 40%. Die. Try again a few more times but the boss never gets below 30%. Take a look at your skill tree. Take a look at your inventory. Realize that seemingly useless item or useless skill is actually very useful in this situation. Equip it and win. Or at least get the boss lower so you know you're on the right track. The iterative process of experimentation & failure & trying to reason it all out is what I love most in gaming experiences.
Permadeath robs me of that experience. Permadeath means I get one shot at a specific problem and then no guarantee I'll ever get another chance. Sure, I can play a permadeath game repeatedly, but odds are high I'll never replicate the exact situation which intrigued me so much: the specific combination of gear, skills, monster, and location on the game map. If I can replicate it, it's usually at the end of a long-ish and grueling journey to get there. A journey I don't want to repeat endlessly while trying to find a solution.
I get why other people like it. And I love games which have it as an option. It's just not something I enjoy on a full time basis. The thought of having a puzzle ruined, simply because I failed a first attempt, is somewhat horrifying.
posted by honestcoyote at 12:44 PM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
Because games are puzzles. A well-crafted game will put you in situations where you can win if you put your mind to it, but has a strong risk of failure when coming in blind. At least those are my favorite moments: Go in blind. Get the boss down to 50%. Die. Try again. Zig instead of zagging. Get the boss down to 40%. Die. Try again a few more times but the boss never gets below 30%. Take a look at your skill tree. Take a look at your inventory. Realize that seemingly useless item or useless skill is actually very useful in this situation. Equip it and win. Or at least get the boss lower so you know you're on the right track. The iterative process of experimentation & failure & trying to reason it all out is what I love most in gaming experiences.
Permadeath robs me of that experience. Permadeath means I get one shot at a specific problem and then no guarantee I'll ever get another chance. Sure, I can play a permadeath game repeatedly, but odds are high I'll never replicate the exact situation which intrigued me so much: the specific combination of gear, skills, monster, and location on the game map. If I can replicate it, it's usually at the end of a long-ish and grueling journey to get there. A journey I don't want to repeat endlessly while trying to find a solution.
I get why other people like it. And I love games which have it as an option. It's just not something I enjoy on a full time basis. The thought of having a puzzle ruined, simply because I failed a first attempt, is somewhat horrifying.
posted by honestcoyote at 12:44 PM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]
This tends to imply a lot of randomness/procedural generation and a minimum of scripted story
And also for example there tend to be resource management mechanics that become high-stakes due to the uncertainty of success in an encounter and the irreversibility of death. I don't know about you all but in most RPGs I'm the guy who hoards every consumable in case I really need it and then ends up with tons of extras at the end. Well in an RL you are forced to actually learn to make those decisions. For a neurotic sort of player like me I think you could either hit the wall on things like that (this is all too stressful, I can't deal) or break through your patterns. And I find myself in the latter category, and once I get my head in the right place it's weirdly relieving.
Permadeath robs me of that experience. Permadeath means I get one shot at a specific problem and then no guarantee I'll ever get another chance. Sure, I can play a permadeath game repeatedly, but odds are high I'll never replicate the exact situation which intrigued me so much: the specific combination of gear, skills, monster, and location on the game map. If I can replicate it, it's usually at the end of a long-ish and grueling journey to get there. A journey I don't want to repeat endlessly while trying to find a solution.
This is an interesting take because I think for a some games people see it as sort of a larger-scale puzzle to try to figure out the right approach to get to the end of something that seems nearly impossible.
posted by atoxyl at 12:53 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
And also for example there tend to be resource management mechanics that become high-stakes due to the uncertainty of success in an encounter and the irreversibility of death. I don't know about you all but in most RPGs I'm the guy who hoards every consumable in case I really need it and then ends up with tons of extras at the end. Well in an RL you are forced to actually learn to make those decisions. For a neurotic sort of player like me I think you could either hit the wall on things like that (this is all too stressful, I can't deal) or break through your patterns. And I find myself in the latter category, and once I get my head in the right place it's weirdly relieving.
Permadeath robs me of that experience. Permadeath means I get one shot at a specific problem and then no guarantee I'll ever get another chance. Sure, I can play a permadeath game repeatedly, but odds are high I'll never replicate the exact situation which intrigued me so much: the specific combination of gear, skills, monster, and location on the game map. If I can replicate it, it's usually at the end of a long-ish and grueling journey to get there. A journey I don't want to repeat endlessly while trying to find a solution.
This is an interesting take because I think for a some games people see it as sort of a larger-scale puzzle to try to figure out the right approach to get to the end of something that seems nearly impossible.
posted by atoxyl at 12:53 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, another point about UnReal World that could throw people. There's no plot and there's no "winning the game". It's basically Plot = 'how do I not die' and Win = 'I didn't die today!'. Apparently future updates could have you marry and have kids and continue the game through them and with all the accumulated belongings rather than you getting old and finally dying.
posted by Zack_Replica at 12:55 PM on July 25, 2017
posted by Zack_Replica at 12:55 PM on July 25, 2017
Permadeath goes hand in hand with a randomly generated world. You're in control, juggling your resources and deftly handling each problem and combination of problems that the game throws at you.
Until suddenly you handle one problem badly and you aren't in control anymore. At any moment the things you are juggling are about to come crashing down as one less than optimal solution creates more problems. Will you stumble or will you crash? Can you bail and cut your losses, just letting one of the things you're juggling fall, or do you try to save too much?
If you could just reload, you would lose the RNG aspect. You don't die because of some low probability shot anymore, but you don't die at all, ever. Because the way you die in these games, in fact the entire reason to play them, is because your problems have a chance of snowballing out of control in an unlucky sequence. No more bad luck ruins the game.
posted by cotterpin at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Until suddenly you handle one problem badly and you aren't in control anymore. At any moment the things you are juggling are about to come crashing down as one less than optimal solution creates more problems. Will you stumble or will you crash? Can you bail and cut your losses, just letting one of the things you're juggling fall, or do you try to save too much?
If you could just reload, you would lose the RNG aspect. You don't die because of some low probability shot anymore, but you don't die at all, ever. Because the way you die in these games, in fact the entire reason to play them, is because your problems have a chance of snowballing out of control in an unlucky sequence. No more bad luck ruins the game.
posted by cotterpin at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Also a randomly generated world goes hand-in-hand with permadeath because it keeps you from getting bored playing the same thing over and over...
posted by atoxyl at 1:40 PM on July 25, 2017
posted by atoxyl at 1:40 PM on July 25, 2017
I sometimes enjoy playing the permadeath mode of games that offer it. The added consequences of mistakes makes you be more careful, and heightens the tension, which can be just what I'm after -- in my case, it can make for a more engrossing experience.
My kids like to watch me do this, and I can tell they're on pins and needles, but haven't yet followed my lead. The games I've most enjoyed it with are No Man's Sky and Minecraft. And of course, I've always enjoyed a good permadeath roguelike - my current favorite there is CogMind, which is a lovely homage to the entire genre.
posted by dylanjames at 1:42 PM on July 25, 2017
My kids like to watch me do this, and I can tell they're on pins and needles, but haven't yet followed my lead. The games I've most enjoyed it with are No Man's Sky and Minecraft. And of course, I've always enjoyed a good permadeath roguelike - my current favorite there is CogMind, which is a lovely homage to the entire genre.
posted by dylanjames at 1:42 PM on July 25, 2017
The best for me is permadeath combined with some system of progression or growth across the multiple playthroughs. Spelunky did this to a degree by unlocking shortcuts. Rogue Legacy turned this into a core part of gameplay, with descendants of fallen heroes inheriting their leveled up weapons and skills. Then there's also a subtler form of this, where each playthrough makes you smarter about the world and mechanics and leaves you with a little bit more understanding of where you went wrong and how to survive better next time. Permadeath mechanics are really exciting for me. Iron Man in the newer XCOM games turned what was a decent strategy game into white-knuckle tension and caution every single turn, and real despair and panic when battles get out of control and everything goes wrong; it transformed the entire game for me. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, Waypoint has a fun series where Austin Walker tries to play through Breath of the Wild with only three lives. Once he dies three times, the series ends. There's also a new difficulty modifier added each time.
posted by naju at 1:50 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
If you're interested in this sort of thing, Waypoint has a fun series where Austin Walker tries to play through Breath of the Wild with only three lives. Once he dies three times, the series ends. There's also a new difficulty modifier added each time.
posted by naju at 1:50 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I feel like in non-video games "permadeath" equivalents are a lot more prevalent to the point where it's not even called anything because it's the norm and thus unremarkable?
Like if you take my continent in RISK then we're not going back to the beginning of the battle so I can try again, right? I mean we could and I'm sure some people do, but we recognize that that would be a divergence from the normal flow of the game.
If I beat you in a 100m footrace, then we could run it again until you win, but I will have always won that first race.
I suppose once you remove the competition between two or more people aspect then you have a lot more freedom to say, "Okay, let's just back up until before things went horribly wrong and try again." Computers also help with that by being able to perfectly reassemble a previous game state.
posted by ODiV at 2:08 PM on July 25, 2017
Like if you take my continent in RISK then we're not going back to the beginning of the battle so I can try again, right? I mean we could and I'm sure some people do, but we recognize that that would be a divergence from the normal flow of the game.
If I beat you in a 100m footrace, then we could run it again until you win, but I will have always won that first race.
I suppose once you remove the competition between two or more people aspect then you have a lot more freedom to say, "Okay, let's just back up until before things went horribly wrong and try again." Computers also help with that by being able to perfectly reassemble a previous game state.
posted by ODiV at 2:08 PM on July 25, 2017
Crawl win streaks in case you don't believe these are ultimately games of skill.
posted by atoxyl at 2:09 PM on July 25, 2017
posted by atoxyl at 2:09 PM on July 25, 2017
Speaking of XCOM. I got to the final mission, got completely wiped out and thought, "Oh, well that's that." and was ready to start over, only to have the game load up the mission for me to try again. I've lost interest and haven't gone back. I should get started on the sequel.
Good news! Your playthrough is canonical. :D
Here's a Game Maker's Toolkit episode on death in video games.
GMTK tends to take the perspective that gameplay is about teaching your player a skill and then testing them on it, which I think is a useful perspective for discussing a mechanic like permadeath. Permadeath and randomly-generated levels often go hand-in-hand, which gives us a clue at what skills those games are interested in teaching and testing.
Basically, randomly-generated-permadeath games are inviting players to learn the underlying systems that run the game world and then use those to deal with these unexpected scenarios. Memorising level designs and min-maxing character builds are mostly ruled out as strategies, so you kind of have to play things as they lie. But you can learn enemy attack patterns, figure out ways to steal stuff from shopkeepers safely, and you pick up tricks to identify scrolls and potions without using them up or to guess at what gear is cursed before you put it on.
I personally really like the trend of short-playthrough roguelikes and roguelikelikes because they get at the core of this idea very quickly. It takes you a hour to reach the flagship in FTL, and you realise that you need a way to attack through the high evasion stat and hacking drones. Maybe you die there. So you come prepared for the first stage, play for another hour, then you get to the second stage and realise you need a counter for the drone power surge. Then you play for another hour and figure out that you need a counter for the Zoltan shield and boarders. But you never have the same solution for any of the phases, because you can't guarantee any loot drops or shop items, which makes you think about contingency plans. "Even if I can't get X, maybe I can get by with Y."
In games that are more about enjoying a story or exploring a large world, yeah, permadeath is fucking miserable, and there's no reason to do permadeath runthroughs until you've worn out the narrative and the exploration and just want to challenge yourself.
Or, with the older "Nintendo hard" games, the game actually wanted you to memorise the specific level layouts. That's why you'd get bumped back to the beginning after you expended your lives to test your memorisation skills again as sort of a pseudo-permadeath. You get that buffer to say "Hey, maybe you just missed the jump, try it again", but if you keep failing the game decides that you've missed a key element and wants you to start over to make sure you get it. (Though it's still kind of bullshit, and I'm glad modern platformers are so generous in both their checkpointing and that they've gotten better at teaching skills before testing players on them.)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:09 PM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
Good news! Your playthrough is canonical. :D
Here's a Game Maker's Toolkit episode on death in video games.
GMTK tends to take the perspective that gameplay is about teaching your player a skill and then testing them on it, which I think is a useful perspective for discussing a mechanic like permadeath. Permadeath and randomly-generated levels often go hand-in-hand, which gives us a clue at what skills those games are interested in teaching and testing.
Basically, randomly-generated-permadeath games are inviting players to learn the underlying systems that run the game world and then use those to deal with these unexpected scenarios. Memorising level designs and min-maxing character builds are mostly ruled out as strategies, so you kind of have to play things as they lie. But you can learn enemy attack patterns, figure out ways to steal stuff from shopkeepers safely, and you pick up tricks to identify scrolls and potions without using them up or to guess at what gear is cursed before you put it on.
I personally really like the trend of short-playthrough roguelikes and roguelikelikes because they get at the core of this idea very quickly. It takes you a hour to reach the flagship in FTL, and you realise that you need a way to attack through the high evasion stat and hacking drones. Maybe you die there. So you come prepared for the first stage, play for another hour, then you get to the second stage and realise you need a counter for the drone power surge. Then you play for another hour and figure out that you need a counter for the Zoltan shield and boarders. But you never have the same solution for any of the phases, because you can't guarantee any loot drops or shop items, which makes you think about contingency plans. "Even if I can't get X, maybe I can get by with Y."
In games that are more about enjoying a story or exploring a large world, yeah, permadeath is fucking miserable, and there's no reason to do permadeath runthroughs until you've worn out the narrative and the exploration and just want to challenge yourself.
Or, with the older "Nintendo hard" games, the game actually wanted you to memorise the specific level layouts. That's why you'd get bumped back to the beginning after you expended your lives to test your memorisation skills again as sort of a pseudo-permadeath. You get that buffer to say "Hey, maybe you just missed the jump, try it again", but if you keep failing the game decides that you've missed a key element and wants you to start over to make sure you get it. (Though it's still kind of bullshit, and I'm glad modern platformers are so generous in both their checkpointing and that they've gotten better at teaching skills before testing players on them.)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:09 PM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]
What about games with hospitals? Your character merely gets maimed, but the doctors patch them up, and they hobble around for days, weeks, or their life.
We ran a psychologist character once in Call of Cthulhu once, a paper and pencil RPG famous for characters going insane. It worked surprisingly well until the DM instituted some house rules for the psychologist and their patient influencing one another. It still helped, but the change restored the inevitable slide into insanity.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:25 PM on July 25, 2017
We ran a psychologist character once in Call of Cthulhu once, a paper and pencil RPG famous for characters going insane. It worked surprisingly well until the DM instituted some house rules for the psychologist and their patient influencing one another. It still helped, but the change restored the inevitable slide into insanity.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:25 PM on July 25, 2017
My experience with Dungeons of Dredmor made me get the appeal of permadeath... and also reject it.
It adds a frisson of meaning to every fight. And I was pretty proud of myself for getting two characters to level 7. (I ran two so I wouldn't be quite as bummed if one died.)
Then I learned from a wiki that mushrooms can be eaten. I'd never tried it, because who knows what those things can do? Exploring with permadeath means (for me) being so cautious that I'm wary of doing anything new. And that's not the way I like to play games. (I am the sort who opens all the chests and presses the buttons and wants to see all the lore.)
Also... level 7 was hard; there'd be half a dozen monsters in each room and some of them could take 20% of my health in one hit. So level 8 terrified me, and I stopped playing.
posted by zompist at 4:51 PM on July 25, 2017
It adds a frisson of meaning to every fight. And I was pretty proud of myself for getting two characters to level 7. (I ran two so I wouldn't be quite as bummed if one died.)
Then I learned from a wiki that mushrooms can be eaten. I'd never tried it, because who knows what those things can do? Exploring with permadeath means (for me) being so cautious that I'm wary of doing anything new. And that's not the way I like to play games. (I am the sort who opens all the chests and presses the buttons and wants to see all the lore.)
Also... level 7 was hard; there'd be half a dozen monsters in each room and some of them could take 20% of my health in one hit. So level 8 terrified me, and I stopped playing.
posted by zompist at 4:51 PM on July 25, 2017
I feel like I would like permadeath a lot more if it weren't for randomness. It feels bad doing everything right and dying to something you couldn't help.
On the contrary... my view is that games with randomness should have permadeath, otherwise the game mechanics become meaningless! With the ability to reload saves, what is the difference between a magic wand with a 30% chance to crit and a wand with 70% chance to crit? You could just reload until you got your crit and save after that...
I felt that way playing XCOM2 on Ironman - there's a mechanic for emergency evacuation which allows you to make the call that playing out the mission was too risky. I thought it was cool: sometimes, you run into too many enemies at once, or you get ambushed, or just get unlucky with your shots, or you picked the wrong team composition, and you get to make the call to bug out. I would never have used this mechanic if I was playing with the ability to reload: if things went badly, I would just reload the map and play it again rather than evacuating.
So it all comes down to game design, right. Dying to something you "couldn't help" is either going to come down to the game design being bad (as you are walking, there is a 10% chance a meteor will fall from the sky and kill you) or the player being generally unaware of the mechanics (in XCOM2, opening a door into a new room when your entire squad has no time units left and just gambling on random chance that the room is empty). You have the luxury of doing that when you can reload (I'll just check this room and if it results in death I'll reload and not do that).
Games where you can reload feel like there are no hard decisions, no sense that your actions have consequences, where you could end up using a crutch like just repeatedly rolling the dice until you got the roll you wanted, and worse, that not doing so felt lazy and un-optimal. Permadeath forces you to use mechanics, not dice rolls.
There are memorable moments, like when a soldier performs a feat of heroism - running forward to rescue an ally through a storm of enemy fire, taking out 3 aliens with perfect shots and escaping unscathed... but the knowledge you could just do that by reloading 20 times kind of diminishes that sense of narrative.
I feel the reload mechanic is as much a crutch for the designer as it is for the player. Like the example mentioned above, how would a person know they could eat mushrooms? A game with saving and reloading could assume players would try everything out, but a game with permadeath will have to carefully design its mechanics to ensure there is consistency between what players assume about the game and how the game actually acts. A trivial example of this if you label an item "explosive" it will actually explode when thrown. And the size of the explosion is indicative of the actual damage radius. Like eating mushrooms and not knowing if they would be good or bad for you, these mechanics have to be implied to the player, and not something that players discover through save and reload testing.
posted by xdvesper at 5:15 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
On the contrary... my view is that games with randomness should have permadeath, otherwise the game mechanics become meaningless! With the ability to reload saves, what is the difference between a magic wand with a 30% chance to crit and a wand with 70% chance to crit? You could just reload until you got your crit and save after that...
I felt that way playing XCOM2 on Ironman - there's a mechanic for emergency evacuation which allows you to make the call that playing out the mission was too risky. I thought it was cool: sometimes, you run into too many enemies at once, or you get ambushed, or just get unlucky with your shots, or you picked the wrong team composition, and you get to make the call to bug out. I would never have used this mechanic if I was playing with the ability to reload: if things went badly, I would just reload the map and play it again rather than evacuating.
So it all comes down to game design, right. Dying to something you "couldn't help" is either going to come down to the game design being bad (as you are walking, there is a 10% chance a meteor will fall from the sky and kill you) or the player being generally unaware of the mechanics (in XCOM2, opening a door into a new room when your entire squad has no time units left and just gambling on random chance that the room is empty). You have the luxury of doing that when you can reload (I'll just check this room and if it results in death I'll reload and not do that).
Games where you can reload feel like there are no hard decisions, no sense that your actions have consequences, where you could end up using a crutch like just repeatedly rolling the dice until you got the roll you wanted, and worse, that not doing so felt lazy and un-optimal. Permadeath forces you to use mechanics, not dice rolls.
There are memorable moments, like when a soldier performs a feat of heroism - running forward to rescue an ally through a storm of enemy fire, taking out 3 aliens with perfect shots and escaping unscathed... but the knowledge you could just do that by reloading 20 times kind of diminishes that sense of narrative.
I feel the reload mechanic is as much a crutch for the designer as it is for the player. Like the example mentioned above, how would a person know they could eat mushrooms? A game with saving and reloading could assume players would try everything out, but a game with permadeath will have to carefully design its mechanics to ensure there is consistency between what players assume about the game and how the game actually acts. A trivial example of this if you label an item "explosive" it will actually explode when thrown. And the size of the explosion is indicative of the actual damage radius. Like eating mushrooms and not knowing if they would be good or bad for you, these mechanics have to be implied to the player, and not something that players discover through save and reload testing.
posted by xdvesper at 5:15 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
When I was a kid, video gaming was most definitely a real-world activity, with real-world consequences...
If you got killed, you just wasted twenty-five cents...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 5:32 PM on July 25, 2017
If you got killed, you just wasted twenty-five cents...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 5:32 PM on July 25, 2017
I think a lot of roguelikes suffer from having so much randomization that longer term planning is mostly pointless, resulting in a very reactive style of play. And that's not necessarily a problem in itself, but combined with having to repeat the early areas every time you die the result is that the start of a run can feel more like a time tax than actual enjoyable gameplay.
Ideally, in a game with permadeath every part of the game (beginning, middle, and end) would be engaging even for a skilled player.
posted by Pyry at 6:06 PM on July 25, 2017
Ideally, in a game with permadeath every part of the game (beginning, middle, and end) would be engaging even for a skilled player.
posted by Pyry at 6:06 PM on July 25, 2017
I don't mind replaying scenarios in Fire Emblem because the fun of it is to optimize your strategy so nobody dies. This is also why I replay levels on casual games over and over until I get three stars/a gold ranking/whatever. (I do prefer to be able to revert to a fairly recent save ... I don't want to permadeath back to the beginning of the whole game, that is rapidly tedious unless it's a very short game.)
"But the satisfaction of getting the strategy just right to complete a map without losing any units (and preferably getting the experience you want for those units, and also keeping friends fighting together and all that) is really good."
Yep, this. I totally understand why other people would hate it! But I don't mind it at all. Although I do think this is why it behooves many games to have different modes so people can turn on and off things like permadeath. (I've been playing a sim lately that just PILES ON the complexity and I would like to be able to turn off some of the things and not deal with them, so I can play with other parts I'm more interested in.) I understand designers often have a vision for how the game will work, but it'd be nice to be able to make more choices about how to play a game -- especially when those iterations were available in the beta. I mean, sure, it's cheating to type "rosebud" into The Sims, but maybe you don't want to achieve a career for your dude, maybe you just want to play around with the housebuilding stuff.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:11 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
"But the satisfaction of getting the strategy just right to complete a map without losing any units (and preferably getting the experience you want for those units, and also keeping friends fighting together and all that) is really good."
Yep, this. I totally understand why other people would hate it! But I don't mind it at all. Although I do think this is why it behooves many games to have different modes so people can turn on and off things like permadeath. (I've been playing a sim lately that just PILES ON the complexity and I would like to be able to turn off some of the things and not deal with them, so I can play with other parts I'm more interested in.) I understand designers often have a vision for how the game will work, but it'd be nice to be able to make more choices about how to play a game -- especially when those iterations were available in the beta. I mean, sure, it's cheating to type "rosebud" into The Sims, but maybe you don't want to achieve a career for your dude, maybe you just want to play around with the housebuilding stuff.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:11 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Now here's the point. I had read comments pretty much identical to everything I've just written here and said, "Yeah, no thanks. Dark Souls is not for me."
That's me! That's me right there!
Grinding is almost never fun, and the DS games are all about the grinding. I beat Dark Souls 2 and thought it was worthwhile to do so because it certainly is a different type of game and gameplay than anything else (that used to be) out there. And there's definitely a sense of accomplishment. But then I got like a quarter of the way through Dark Souls III and all I could feel was "not this shit again". I know I can beat it, it's just a matter of grinding it out. Eh, not for me.
posted by Justinian at 10:27 PM on July 25, 2017
That's me! That's me right there!
Grinding is almost never fun, and the DS games are all about the grinding. I beat Dark Souls 2 and thought it was worthwhile to do so because it certainly is a different type of game and gameplay than anything else (that used to be) out there. And there's definitely a sense of accomplishment. But then I got like a quarter of the way through Dark Souls III and all I could feel was "not this shit again". I know I can beat it, it's just a matter of grinding it out. Eh, not for me.
posted by Justinian at 10:27 PM on July 25, 2017
I had a girlfriend in college who would write her papers permadeath style. She would sit down at the word processor (these were the days before everyone had a computer in their dorm room) and start typing her paper. If she made a typo, or phrased something poorly, she would tear out the page and start again. It drove me INSANE. I kept trying to convince her to do a first draft, mark up corrections, and re-type a second draft, but she was set in her ways. I have no idea how she ever managed to finish a paper, let alone ace all her classes.
posted by ejs at 9:26 AM on July 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by ejs at 9:26 AM on July 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
The Kotaku and Forever Geek articles were pretty annoying, the Forever Geek one in particular given that in a previous article about Hardcore vs Casual gaming the guy issued a call to stop "hating each other and drawing lines in the sand".
I find it interesting that they both talk about it being masochistic and punishing though. I wonder if it's partly a difference in temperament - of course you wouldn't understand if you just find losing deeply unpleasant. These are all self imposed challenges though, losing is part of the play. It's like someone who wants to walk across a room being confused by someone else who wants to pretend the floor is lava.
posted by lucidium at 9:53 AM on July 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
I find it interesting that they both talk about it being masochistic and punishing though. I wonder if it's partly a difference in temperament - of course you wouldn't understand if you just find losing deeply unpleasant. These are all self imposed challenges though, losing is part of the play. It's like someone who wants to walk across a room being confused by someone else who wants to pretend the floor is lava.
posted by lucidium at 9:53 AM on July 26, 2017 [3 favorites]
I used to play a lot of Nethack (and managed to ascend once--yay, me!) but these days, I'm pretty anti-permadeath.
The problem with a game where my progress is at risk and gets increasingly more valuable is that the whole thing became a lot like work. I kept notes and did research. I had to start asking if I was too tired to play effectively instead of just diving in because a moment of carelessness could lose everything. I couldn't just play for fun. And if I did have the energy to play effectively, it also meant I had the energy to make stuff, so playing the game felt like a waste of my time.
I'm now Too Old For This Shit, so I either stick to games with a lenient save system or I gleefully make backups of the save file. Sometimes, I do both.
However, in order to add some weight to in-game death in the various Fallout-series games, I've started keeping a sticky note on my computer on which I keep a tally of the number of times I've died in the current playthrough. Keeping that tally low seems to be enough motivation for me to not do dumb things while still enjoying the game.
posted by suetanvil at 10:29 AM on July 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
The problem with a game where my progress is at risk and gets increasingly more valuable is that the whole thing became a lot like work. I kept notes and did research. I had to start asking if I was too tired to play effectively instead of just diving in because a moment of carelessness could lose everything. I couldn't just play for fun. And if I did have the energy to play effectively, it also meant I had the energy to make stuff, so playing the game felt like a waste of my time.
I'm now Too Old For This Shit, so I either stick to games with a lenient save system or I gleefully make backups of the save file. Sometimes, I do both.
However, in order to add some weight to in-game death in the various Fallout-series games, I've started keeping a sticky note on my computer on which I keep a tally of the number of times I've died in the current playthrough. Keeping that tally low seems to be enough motivation for me to not do dumb things while still enjoying the game.
posted by suetanvil at 10:29 AM on July 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think the appeal is the ability to lose. If you can't lose can you really win?
posted by yonega at 9:51 AM on July 27, 2017
posted by yonega at 9:51 AM on July 27, 2017
Thinking about it a few more minutes: I don't think I've ever actually won a game that included permadeath of any kind, but it's still one of my favorite features. I usually make some terrible mistake and die sooner rather than later but I can spend hours doing it and still enjoy myself. Something about "this time I'm going to do it" (of course, I never do it) and trying to make good decisions and start well is very engaging.
posted by yonega at 10:06 AM on July 27, 2017
posted by yonega at 10:06 AM on July 27, 2017
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