Game Overs

     The dreaded Game Over screen. If you have ever played a game with a death animation for your character, chances are after that last live disappeared from the screen, you were greeted with a Game Over screen of some kind. The purpose of this screen is simple: remind the player that they lost the game and taunt them with those bold, yet simple four letter words. And then the game resets to the very beginning. 

 

      In the early years of gaming, this screen was a very common sight. To the casual player, it typically meant literally what the words said: your game is, in fact, over. To the hardcore players, it meant “Try it until you get it right!” I played UN Squadron for the SNES. Flying through all the levels was difficult at first and I saw the Game Over screen numerous times. I remember it perfectly: it's dark out, there is a crashed plane and my pilot is walking away all depressed. I am prompted to continue. I just survived a plane crash. Of course I want to try again. Once those continues ran out, the entire game was reset.

      That is a harsh punishment to someone who wants to play your game. It's like if you succeed in all of your course assignments for that biology class, and then you fail the final exam. You have to repeat the entire class all over again. Why not just let us try that segment again? We passed everything else!

      I know the Game Over screen is meant to discourage players from dying. It teaches them to be careful and to not just rush through the game with reckless abandon. What if that game is Sonic? Where the idea is rushing through everything. You put some obstacles in the way to slow us down and then it becomes tedious. Then when we die, back to square one.

      Certain titles are getting better with handling retries such as Rayman. When you die, you are reset to a checkpoint. Not the entire game nor the entire level. Just the start of that particular section. Braid is arguably too lenient. Any time you die, you can just reset to the exact spot you were when you jumped and misjudged that leap. It works in Braid's case as you have to get things exactly right and a reset to the start of the screen would be infuriating. We as players don't mind trial and error so long as it feels like we're getting somewhere. If I crash a plane, I don't want to start over to where I was 2 hours ago. I want to stay right here and try that ceiling boss again!

      A game can be too easy without a death penalty. If I were practically invincible, then I would just blaze through everything in the game. Knowing that I can't die doesn't give me a very big thrill. Imagine a raid in World of Warcraft. You die in the fight, resurrect on the spot with no one else doing Battle Rezzes, you just have infinite retries. All of the fights would be completed, but they would be the least entertaining aspect of the entire game. Let us know that failure is very real and is a big part of getting better. Without failure, can we truly know what success is?