Famicom Dojo Podcast: Welcome to Die

by Sean "TheOrange" Corse, filed in Famicom Dojo Podcast, Podcasts on Aug.12, 2011

When did video games start using “lives”? More importantly, when and why did they stop? With this changing, what does it mean to die in a game? Vinnk and SeanOrange examine the games that pioneered this mechanism, and take a look at when and why it started changing. Was it with games like Myst, or did adventure-style games always buck this trend? Has the fall of arcade gaming lead games to be easier, and therefore no longer need “lives”?

(Listen to the episode after the jump)

Direct Link: Famicom Dojo Podcast 12: 3DS Price Drop? We Called It

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http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/13

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Tags: 5 Minutes to Kill Yourself, Al Lowe, Braid, Frotz, Infinity Blade, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Karoshi, Ken Williams, Leisure Suit Larry, Mr. Karoshi, Myst, Roberta Williams, Robot Unicorn Attack, Sierra Games, Torchwood

Langland

That was an Awesome line and scene in Scott Pilgrim too.
Langland

That was an Awesome line and scene in Scott Pilgrim too.
Crade Lit

The thing with Console games is basically the marketting is the opposite of arcade games.� The faster you are done with the game, the sooner you buy another one.� However, you still need to feel like you are getting your money’s worth.� I think this is the origin of the “dying is an inconvenience”.� The game still needs to feel challenging without taking you several years to beat.�

For the record, *I* want to play battletoads “anymore ever”.� Battletoads is awesome.� Also, one day I will beat ghosts and�goblins!� I will not buy another game until I beat�ghosts and goblins!��:)

http://www.famicomdojo.tv/ Sean “TheOrange” Corse

I dunno, I spend WAY more time on console games than arcade games — unless you mean going back to arcades again and again to play those games because you can NEVER BEAT THEM! �Hahaha.

Racing games in arcades are kind of a different animal, I guess. �There aren’t “lives” in them so much as credits. �Successfully completing a race doesn’t necessarily mean you get to move on to the next one without pumping in more quarters. �We didn’t really think about that difference. �But I think that’s more of a recent development, isn’t it? �(Initial D comes to mind.)

Crade Lit

It’s true I spend more time on newer games I guess too, but it’s often (not always) a situation where I will play a new game alot for a couple weeks until I beat it.

I just mean with arcades, they want you to never finish the game because you pay to play, and when you finish you basically don’t pay anymore, with consoles they want you to finish�because you pay to buy and will buy again when you are done (more or less).� There is hardly ever any games anymore that people “can’t” beat.� The old school console games were more arcady in that they make you restart all the time.� Can you imagine if you had to restart dragon age whenever you died? hehe

I was thinking of oldschool arcades.. I haven’t�really played�much for�new ones,�new arcades are kinda.. different I guess.� I still remember visiting japan a couple years ago�and seeing one girl trying to win soup from a claw machine and another guy beating the heck out of�a really loud taiko drum controller, a couple river-dancers and�a line-up of empty race cars�:)� All the arcades around�here (in canada) ever seem to have is 5-6 big game hunters a zombie shooter and a broken fighting game.

Crade Lit

By the way, I love what you guys are doing, I’m just discovering your site (through famicomworld)�and I’m already a big fan!� Much better than working!

http://www.famicomdojo.tv/ Sean “TheOrange” Corse

Ha, thanks! 😉

Crazy

I hate that stupid card game.

Also, “There is no cow level”
Anonymous

King of the Monsters 2: The Next Thing

Best sequel title ever.
Anonymous

By the way the Text Adventure program we mentioned in this podcast is normally 99 cents. �But today it dropped in price to the more affordable “Free”. �If you have an iOS device or are thinking of getting on in the future, I’d pick it up. �Link is in the show notes.�
KazClawy

Lives in arcade games evolved from the “balls” on pinball tables. Also pinball tables started the concept that you can win extra tries (balls) if you play well and each certain score threshold.

Anonymous

Yeah. Good point. �I Should have brought up pinball. �3 balls. �3 Chances. �The whole �concept of chances. �And the ones in pinball likely evolved from sports. �I guess this can go way back.�

Zach Lindblad

The book “Racing the Beam” has a great example of an early design choice to have lives. Apparently for most of it’s development cycle, Pitfall gave the player only one life. David Crane, the game’s creator, saw no problem in this, since pitfall had an actual ending, he wanted to assure that getting there would be the ultimate�challenge. It was only due to Activision’s grondbreaking new studio policies of not locking a single programmer in a closet for a few months to make a game, as Atari was still doing, that multiple lives were added. after playtesting, the other programmers at activision forced Crane to add 3 lives. Crane estimated that it took him 20 hours to add in the extra code to count and draw the number of lines, since that game’s ROM was already at the maximum size of 4KB.
An�excellent�book about 2600 development, shows how design was dictated by technology and culture in that era.

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