The Case for Lives

09/05/14

Every once in a while, while I peruse the Internet instead of doing things that are both more fun and more rewarding, I come across some bit of literature that talks about how lives shouldn't exist in games anymore.

Are lives still a useful game mechanic?

Having gone back and played a lot of the older games with lives in them: yes. And this isn't nostalgia, as most of these games weren't games I had played when I was younger (and even the games that I had played were games I barely remembered).

Lives are a piece of a tiered health system. Layered carefully, it is an intelligent means of structuring how a game punishes your error. That games lately don't use them intelligently does not indicate that they are an outdated mechanic. The actual problem is that features in modern games destructively interfere with the lives system, making them pointless or frustrating.

These features are:

• All previous content is available
• The game notifies you of available secrets and compels replaying levels until all are found
• Level-design that doesn't take lives into account

Letting any previous level be played at any time is a serious design choice that says a lot about your game. Yet, it seems that all games do it now because they can. I think this can break a game on several levels. In fact, it can break levels.

Let's look to Mario on how this works. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World are very similar games, but they also have many differences. A significant difference would be that in Super Mario Bros. 3 you can not replay conquered levels, and in Super Mario World you can replay any available level.

This design difference actually breaks Super Mario World in a lot of ways.

• Special things aren't so special
  • Want blue Yoshi? Go to any level you know how to get him in
  • Want the cape? Go to a level that has easy access
  • Want lots of extra lives? Grind levels where they're easy to get
  • Start + Select out after you get what you want
• This destroys replayability
  • Special levels with special items are replayed constantly for available secrets
  • Levels with multiple endings are replayed immediately to get additional path
  • Fun but otherwise straight-forward levels are rarely if ever revisited
• Narratively, it doesn't make any sense
  • Didn't I "beat" this level, why has nothing changed?
  • What does beating a level do, then? Why can I move on now?
  • Shouldn't the level be different in some way?

Compare this to Super Mario Bros. 3

• Special levels are super special
  • Secrets can be got at once between beating the level and replaying the world
• Fully exploring any given level requires additional playthroughs of a certain amounts of the whole game
• Narrative is conserved
  • Beaten levels are conquered, there's no level to play anymore
  • The enemy can conquer you, and regain territory

Yeah, Super Mario Bros. 3 may gain additional frustration due to lost progress of Game Overs, but the game considered that. Not only are there checkpoints for lives, but checkpoints for Game Overs: defeating the middle castle in each world unlocks a shortcut that bypasses the first half of the world's levels.

Yeah, you'll have to replay levels, but you can't normally do that, and you may be able to find new secrets on this playthrough. You are also allowed to replay the areas that explicitly give powerups and lives to help you on your journey. You are given an opportunity to prepare yourself for the challenge you previously failed. And most important of all: levels are short, and if you've master the content you can get to the part you're bad at really quickly.

And, also, you're practicing for that part you failed. Earlier challenges of the game combine in interesting ways to make harder, later challenges in the game. Replaying earlier, easier content tightens skills necessary to beat the harder, later part.

So, lives have their good points and their bad points. A good game with lives highlights the good and mitigates the bad, and it can really add to the experience of the game.