Is it a Bug or a Feature? A question asked more frequently than you might imagine. This section looks at some challenges and pitfalls in game design. A game can be more than the sum of its parts or just as bad as its worst hiccup. Warning: Bug Or Feature contains strictly personal opinions. Your mileage may vary.

Welcome to the first edition of “Bug or Feature?”. Cue the fireworks and big-ass, flaming logo.

Alright, there. Let’s settle down. This is serious business. An evil walks among us. An insidious ne’erdowell, a gameplay “feature”, known only as “Three Strikes and You’re out”.

Shhh.. I see one prowling over there.. Let’s hide and observe.

New Super Mario Bros

Shhh… Look at him… Do you see the mustache? Do you see the bug? No? Any features then? No, please don’t get mad… Yes, yes, yes… I know. Mario is a hallmark of video game history. How dare I question my betters???

Well, maybe because they’re stuck in design choices from the 80′ies!

Nintendo’s excellent track record in regards to innovation only makes things worse, since “The Big N” has countless of worshipers, all spewing out cheap clones of their games, containing the exact same shortcomings, in feeble attempts to get a piece of the dear plumbers action.

Now that I’m all worked up, we can get down to the point. Let’s have a quick look at the way the players progress in New Super Mario Bros:

In this, as in most other Mario games, you start your game with 3 lives.

In order to rescue dear Princess Peach you have to get through (clear) several “Worlds”, each consisting of a series of “Challenge Areas” (a single or scrolling screen area, containing many obstacles, platforms, enemies etc.).

If you die it costs you one of you lives, and the game resets you to the start of whatever “Challenge Area” you are currently struggling to overcome.

Great. No Biggie. Just try again! If it was only that simple…

When The Third Time Isn’t the Charm

See, when you die the third time, and lose your last life, you don’t get to restart the current challenge. Instead, the game catapults you further – way back – to the start of the World. In New Super Mario Bros. this can represent more than 15 minutes of gameplay. Actually, the further you’ve gotten towards the end of the World, the more ground you lose.

This is what I call, a clear cut case of “Three Strikes and You’re Out!”

So, what’s wrong with this. Adjust your binoculars and let’s zoom in.

First, let me clearly state; there’s nothing wrong with killing your players. It’s completely okay to “punish” players, by making them re-do challenges, when they fail. It’s accepted by all players, that they will “lose some ground” or have to redo a challenge if they fail it. That’s an integral part of a game being a game – Failure is an option.

So nothing wrong with that…

But ask yourself, what does the game designer accomplish by suddenly upping the ante, and punishing the player much more than previously, after a (seemingly arbitrary) number of failures?

Why would you ever want to throw the player further back, than you have just recently done? You make it painfully obvious that she has to cover a lot of the same ground again (and again, and again), just to get back to where she would have otherwise restarted, and then progress to the area where she died (ages ago).

Why not always restart players at the same distance to the current challenge?

It definitely is open to discussion exactly how far back you should push a player, when they die, and how much time and effort they should have to spend to cover the lost ground. But the decision to - only some times – push the player even further back than normal, why is that even considered to be an option?

The only meaningful reason is: To support the feature of having “lives” in the game.

The “lives” feature would be meaningless if it didn’t have any effect when you lost all of them. Then it wouldn’t DO or count for anything. So, you reset a player a bit if he loses a life, but what do you do when no lives remain? Obviously that calls for some EXTRA EVIL punishment to the player, for performing ever so badly in the game. They should be reset the hell back. Right?

Well, guess what. No. They shouldn’t. At least not if you want most players to remain happy and not get frustrated while playing your game. Google “New Super Mario save system” if you are in dobut about that.

The Price of Failure Should Be A Constant
Some might argue that it creates more tension in the game, as the consequences of failing (in terms of “lost time and effort”) gets more and more servere, the further you get. I don’t buy that. It’s a cop-out to strip away the players progress in order to make your game “exiting”. It only creates increased fear of failing – and eventually frustration when you do fail.

Once you establish the punishment for failing is a slap on the wrist, it feels kind of like “cheating”, when the game brings out the rusty-spiked, metal-plated bat, and smacks you to the far side of the world. It adds insult to injury so to speak.

Besides, if “fear of failure” was a winning formula, surely Steel Batallion must be the greatest game ever. It completely wipes your save games if you die! Fail to eject from your burning Mech-robot-thingy, and your saved games are deleted. Such great fun for the player! Oh, and if you DO manage to eject, you must spend “supply points” to get back into battle. Run out of supply points and – you guessed it – the game wipes your saves.

(Actually, I find this so insane, that it whips around to the other side and becomes effin’ cool. Big props to Steel Batallion. Still, I’d hate to see this save game system incorporated into any of my favorite games.)

Add to this, that New Super Mario Bros. actually DOESN’T allow you to save between every world. You can only save after clearing special castle worlds (which is about every 6th world). This can lead to several hours lost if your DS decides to run out of power while fighting the boss in World 5-6. And even if you don’t lose your battery down a pool of sharks with laser attached to their head, but just happen to lose your last life while fighting the Boss, it’s still all the way back to beginning of world 5-6.

Did I mention that the player does evetually get THE OPTION TO SAVE ANYWHERE in New Super Mario Bros. But you only unlock that feature AFTER completing the entire game!

I believe “Wha… But… Say… Whaaat?” is the correct reply to that statement.

Lives Belong in Arcades

So why do so many games insist on having “lives” and resetting the player like there’s no tomorrow when she dies? I’m guessing it’s mostly a historical thing.

Old Arcade games from the late 1970′ies used to only give the player one “go” – one attempt to win the game = one life. If you died you had to pony up, and toss in another quarter. The message was: “Beat this game or too bad, you need to start over”.

Eventually, lives were added to give the player more chances. On home consoles save games were not a regular feature yet, so the challenge became: “Beat this game in x tries”.

When save games were added it became: “Keep trying until you beat this game, and we’ll remember how far you got”.

Nifty! Players got a chance to see much more of the game, and even turn off the power and resume the game at a later time.

When we add “lives” to a modern game, fully equipped with a save system, the sentence becomes muddled again:

“Beat this game in x tries, however if you fail you can still try again. That is; just as soon as we get finished punishing you for playing badly, and reset you to a point where you have to redo a lot of the stuff you just did – Please do try not to die!”

Many developers, especially of 2d platformers, which seem to retain a strong historical connection to early arcade games, doesn’t seem to have noticed that save games have been invented, and the legacy of the arcades stays with us for good and for worse.

I’m also guessing that some developers might feel they HAVE to incorporate lives as a feature to stay true to their franchise? I can just imagine Myamoto-san yelling: “The big, green 1up mushroom STAYS IN!”

My personal opinion is that you shouldn’t bother having lives in your game; they are a completely outdated feature, provided you have some sane form of save game system in place. I’m really hoping this is one of the issues Nintendo decides to adress before releasing New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii.

Feel free to discuss below! Comment are very welcome.

Tags: game design, lives, mario, Nintendo, save

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 10:05 am and is filed under Bug or Feature?.