Why does the fear of death continue to be gaming's primary motivator?

EDITOR'S NOTEfrom Rob Savillo

Kate explores an interesting game-design topic: What is the mechanical value of character death? Peronsally, I'd like to see developers investigate other, perhaps more pertinent, ways to express failure.

This summer's Xbox indie-darling Bastion has finally made the leap to PC via Steam. After watching all of the game criticism circles consistently lighting up about this title for a couple of months, my curiosity had the better of me, and last week I did something I rarely do and jumped on a day-one purchase. I had some time that evening to give it a whirl.

I kind of suck at Bastion.

It's not a game at which one can suck, exactly, and yet I manage to do so. Still, I can tell that many of my woes are simply clumsiness: The mouse-and-keyboard combination isn't necessarily ideal for titles designed with an Xbox 360 controller in mind, and I might need to remap a couple of keys for easier use. Over time, I will adapt to this system, and after a few days -- having mapped my muscle memory to this particular set of mechanics and demands -- I will cease sucking.

However, being terrible at Bastion for the time being has proven useful with insights on character death. The gimmick of the game is narration: You hear what you're doing, what you've done, and what you're about to do, and you hear it with inflection and judgement. Thus, the first time Kid plummets off the side of the path to his doom, the narrator is patient and understanding. The third or fourth time, I feel the narrator's patience begins to wear thin.

On the plus side, there are plenty of jars and such to smash with my hammer while I fail to smash enemies.

The voice of the narrator is meant to be kindly and guiding -- at least in these early segments of the game. (I don't know if it will change or not; I've intentionally been avoiding spoilers and reviews.) When he intones, "And so, Kid fell to his death," you get that brief moment of "awwwww." But immediately -- before you can even feel sad that your inept steering threw this little artistically drawn, smashy guy into the abyss -- you hear, "Just kidding!" and respawn right where you were...right in the middle of what you're doing.

It's an interesting approach to character death. No reloading of old saves (it's on a console-style autosave system) and not really even any thinking of how you could do it differently next time. In a strange way, it's like a single-player zerging tactic: die, respawn in place, and continue.

I don't know what to make of this kind of death mechanic in my game. It's not an MMO, so I don't need to rely on anyone else's help to get up, nor do I owe anyone else an apology for my failure. It's not the deeply branching story of a cinematic character to whom I become attached, so I don't lament his passing. It's not a failed solution to a puzzle, and so I don't have to think about how to get it right the next time.

As far as I can tell, the narrator is the crux of it. After all, he's going to keep telling the story no matter what. That's what a storyteller does. By framing Bastion in that way, it might genuinely be the most third-person game I've ever played. Players don't really get a chance to put themselves inside the head and body of the avatars they're controlling, the way we are habituated to doing. There's an odd level of detachment that somehow makes character death entirely meaningless -- while also giving it sort of the aspect of a milliseconds-long, mid-season cliffhanger.

I'm not sure what I think. I'm barely even an hour into the game and that counts the section I had to play twice due to an unscheduled PC shutdown. (In related news, my next case will have a cat-blocking door or panel over the power switch.) My first hour, though, has made me feel that I care about Bastion's world very much and its player character not at all, which is an interesting and unusual combination. But I want to know what happened, and I'm going to need that narrator to tell me, so play on I shall.

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Tags: tetris, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, World of Goo, Portal, Portal 2, Bastion

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Danny Concepcion

September 02, 2011

I still think character death or some other kind of penalty has its place in gaming. If there are no consequences for not performing, then I believe the game might as well be "on the rails."

The first BioShock had vita chambers which acted like checkpoints. Upon dying, you instantly respawned at the nearest vita chamber. The issue was they didn't actually revert the rest of the game back, so the player could easily perform the zerg rush you mentioned.

Character death isn't so important in Portal because staying alive isn't a central element of the game the way it is with others. If the game pointed out the solutions to the puzzles to you if you took too long, then players would be cheated out of their "aha!" moment.

Similarly, if I ran out of health in Bayonetta and the character stood right back up, I'd feel cheated out of a sense of victory. I could easily just button mash, die, respawn, and repeat the cycle untli I was done with the game.

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Jason Lomberg

I like Heavy Rain's approach to character death -- dead characters stay dead, and the story proceeds without them. Mass Effect 1 & 2 relies on this mechanism to some degree.

Brandon Guerrie

I purposely began to fall off the map several times in Bastion just to hear the narrator repeatedly (though he didn't phrase it every time). It just was something different and unique. How sad indeed.

Michael Escanuelas

September 23, 2011

I can't help but think about Limbo during this article. In the beginning of the game I was killing my character just to see the gruesome ways that he died, but eventually, as dived deeper into the game, I began to feel for him and his quest to find his sister and death became just another annoyance in completing my quest. Great article, It's quite interesting to see how we as an audience take in the concept of death with different games.

Dewan J. Haque

September 25, 2011

It's clear to me that people don't want to let go of 'death' as a motivator- Prince of Persia 2008 proved this to me as tons of gamers cried out 'you can't die and the game sucks because of it'. For me however, instead of dying in that game you were simply 'reset' to try again. There was no annoying wait time or resetting to a previous checkpoint- you were simply put back to the place you last stood on solid ground through an in-game reasoning. I loved it. Most people didn't.

Kate Cox

Which is interesting, because a similar "rewind, don't die" technique made "Braid" everyone's indie darling of whatever year that was. (2010? 2009? My memory's hazy.)

Personally, as someone whose reflexes and physical ability are less than stellar, i'm in favor of anything that reduces resetting and reloading, heh. Particularly in a game that must be played at a fast pace.

Douglas Scheinberg

I want some cat pictures. ;)

Steven Sukkau

September 28, 2011

The story of MGS does not involve me getting stomped by Rex 18 times before Snake defeats it. But unfortunately my story did. Reloading time takes you out of the experience, but it's necessary to differentiate between the "mulligan" and the story the game is telling. Because when i play games likeMetal Gear Solid or Deus Ex HR, i have a "perfect" version of how things should play out in my head. If i get spotted and really bungle a mission then I am compelled to fight to the death and reload. I don't like stumbling through an enemy compound and somehow rushing to the end point to complete the mission. I have to do it right or it doesn't count.

OT Flowers

October 11, 2011

I really dislike dying in games and I do everything I can not to die. Its why i had always primarily played healers in MMOs.

What I would like to see is MMOs actually advance to the level where dying is death like in old PnP D&D.