What's your opinion on death in adventure games?

[Pet Terry]

I think Pleurghburg is a good example how to use death in adventure games. The scenes in which you are in danger to die are made so that something tells that you have to save now...

[strazer]

I was really enjoying Pleurghburg right up until I was shot, even though I was a police officer carrying a gun of my own, which OF COURSE I went for.

My last save was about an hour previous. Grrrr!

Lol, same thing happened to me. Haven't played it since. I didn't know you could die so didn't bother to save that often.

[Babar]

For some reason I really hated the "Retry" method of solving Deaths. Like when you die, you are immeadiately taken to the point just before the cause of death. Like in KQ7. That just annoyed me. They even gave a little "hint" that usually solved the whole puzzle.

[Mats Berglinn]

I don't like deaths in adventure games anyway, anyhow, anywhere. That's why I like Lucas Arts games because you can't die in those games (with a few exceptions like Maniac Mansion and Zak McKraken).

When I played the Adventures of Fatman demo and I pressed the self-destruct button in the Fatmobile because I thought it was somekind of joke but no! You just sat there while the FatCom (or what it's name was again) counted down and KABOOM!!! That's just plain stupid way to plant a death on.

Deaths in my games haven't been, is not nor will ever be a part of my games style. No way, no how! I just hate those death things. It's just a stupid excuse for annoy players. Thank goodness that death-scenes are only at certain places in Pleurghburg because otherwise it would be very annoying.

[Ryukage]

I agree that death can be really unfair when handled improperly, but a game in which I know I cannot fail doesn't produce enough tension to make me care whether I solve the puzzles or not.

This is especially important in survival, horror, detective, and other types of games where the main character is ostensibly putting his or her life on the line.  If the player isn't afraid of being killed or trapped, the plot looses its teeth.

So, in my opinion, even if a game is crafted such that you cannot lose, that fact should generally not be made evident to the players; in fact, the players should be led to believe that death and failure *are* ever-present possibilities, so that they continue to care about the consequences of their actions.

[Snake]

It's just a stupid excuse to annoy players.

It's an excuse for some game writers, not the ultimate reason to slap it in there with every game that has it or is going to have it.

I think death, if it fits with the game itself, is perfectly fine. Like some said before, just as long as the player as some knowledge about it. With knowing, they can prepare for those situations. Pointless deaths are stupid and I've never been a big fan of the "Retry" option. I personally prefer the multiple save idea, although I make it a point not to rely on them too much.

And yes, walking deads can kiss my ass too.


--Snake

[modgeulator]

I think the end of Full Throttle demonstrated the perfect way to handle death. You screw up, you die, Ben says "Damn, let's try that again" and they throw you straight back into it. No breaks with reloading games, death screens, etc, etc really helped keep the tension up too.

[Meowster]

Okay. Hm.

This is a dodgy subject because I know a lot of people swear by Sierra and, let's face it; if you swear by Sierra, you swear by death in adventure games.

I guess the way I stand on the issue is this; I've never really thought of Adventure Games as a genre that handle death well. I don't mind dying in FPS's, or in Platformers, or RPGs. It adds to the gameplay, because essentially those games are about survival. Adventures never really struck me as a a genre that required you to survive to accomplish the goal of a level, because for a start, there just wasn't enough interactivity. Not the right sort of interactivity. I admired the way it was done in Full Throttle, but I didn't see that as death so much as I saw it as some kind of more interactive puzzle of some sort.

Sierra games, especially the early ones, if I recall correctly, were keyboard controlled. This gave a slightly different sort of interactivity to the mouse interface, which meant you could do things like run from enemies. However, you could also do a lot of stupid shit like pull rocks on top of yourself and walk off the edge of cliffs. I suppose this gave Sierra games a lot more of an interactive feel to their worlds because there was literally so much to wander around and get lost in, and so many ways to die.

Whereas with LucasArts games, it was more linear. Sure, you could solve the puzzles in any order you wanted for the most part, but the end result was always the same (With an exception of FOA).

I think FOA got the whole Death thing just fine. I didn't mind dying in FOA, because it was far and few between, and you knew when a potentially dangerous situation was coming so you could save.

But for the most part I think that there just isn't enough of the right sort of interactivity in adventure games to incorporate a lot of death. You have to ask yourself; what's the point in dying? In RPGs and FPSs, the dying element gets your blood pumping. You have to fight those bad guys, stay alive for as long as possible, etc. You're there, in the action.

But with Adventure Games the only real dying you can do is by clicking the wrong button, which doesn't really get your adrenaline running unless you're some kind of freak, and therefore serves no purpose but to piss off your player severely when he or she reads a sneering message asking when the last time they saved their game was.

Why didn't you package your games with a little machine that flips people off, eh, Roberta?

EDIT: Yes, linear was the wrong word.. I meant to go back and change it when I thought of the right one, but then I forgot, and then I couldn't think of the word at all.

[MrColossal]

Lucasarts games being more linear? How are they more linear than old Sierra games?

Maniac Mansion had many different endings before FOA and the end result wasn't always different. Sure the game ended but that's the same for FOA.

I think Sierra games handled death quite well in some respects. If you walked your character off the side of a cliff you will die. Granted the other deaths like "Woops surprise you're dead!" were annoying but as far as I can recall the majority of deaths were from obvious instances. If you delay too long in Space Quest defeating an enemy it will kill you. If you cast a spell wrong in King's Quest it will kill you.

There may not have been the write amount of interactivity in adventure games in the past but now it can be added. AGS is a powerful bitch and if you can do something new and fresh and clever with your deaths then go for it. Just let the player know please

[timh_009]

I was planning in my game to give a dialog warning when a char enters a dangerous room like.
"Geez Tutch this sure looks dangerous. If  I was playing a game right now I'd save"

well not exactly like that but you know so the player is warned.
I liked LucasArts game swhere you couldn't die. But if you want a game to be suspenseful like Pleurghburg then you have to have the chance to die. get it? I don't

[Captain Mostly]

I once saved my game on top of the cliff in Broken sword, just in tiny pawse in the action before some bald guy kills you. So narrow was this window of opertunity for me do do something that by saving I left myself no time to escape. Thus I fucked my saved game up completly, and had to start all over again, because there was no way I could get past it in the time I had left. I was quite cross, but I don't think it was unfair. I was just stupid.

[Meowster]

I think I did the same for the end of Beneath a Steel Sky. In fairness, they could have disabled game saving for those parts.

[Ytterbium]

Okay, so I get the feeling that death can add to a game's atmosphere. But I find going to the save menu annoying. I'll only include death in my games if there is a quicksave key with three alternating quicksave slots.

Oh, and pardon my stupidity, but what's FOA?

[Gilbert]

FOA - Indiana Jones and the Fate Of Atlantis, sometimes unofficially called Indy4

[Kinoko]

I'd have to say that my favourite games are easily long games where you can't screw things up or die, you just have to think, eg Lucasarts games. I don't really mind deaths in games at all (like sierra games) if, like has been said before, it's done well. One of the most frustrating games for deaths was Maniac Mansion - you could die just from ... pulling a vase or something. Very very frustrating, but it gave that game almost all of the great atmosphere I love it for. I was always on edge playing that game.

The worst thing about a game is when you can play for a significant amount of time after having screwed it up, not knowing that you've been on the wrong path for ages and there's nothing you can do. I prefer deaths to that, at least then you know straight away and you don't have to go back so far (as long as you HAVE been saving).

[Meowster]

You couldn't die from pulling a vase in Maniac Mansion... I think the worst part about maniac mansion was not KNOWING when you'd screwed yourself. You could wander aimlessly for ages, without being able to progress meaningfully because you were stuck. At least, I think so. I got stuck so I never finished it. Or maybe I wasn't stuck. Hm?

[Kinoko]

Well, it was just an example of how silly some of the things that would blow the house up were. There was definitely something you could do to the vase on the piano that would blow the house up.