Timeline for What is the purpose of having lives?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 11, 2012 at 21:38 | comment | added | ZeroOne | "[L]ives add tension. If falling off a cliff doesn't mean anything (namely, there's no punishment), then you won't feel bad when you do it." So you see "invulnerability" as the opposite of having lives? I thought the opposite of lives would be a life. Try NetHack if you want tension. ;) | |
| Jul 24, 2011 at 22:29 | vote | accept | Jeff | ||
| Jul 17, 2011 at 18:08 | comment | added | Tetrad | @poke I think you're misunderstanding the point. Without getting too philosophical, what is death without lives? There are a lot of games with deaths that don't have the concepts of lives. The point I was making is that without limiting how often you can die, death becomes meaningless. If you want death to mean something (not to imply that death should always mean something), you need to have ramifications for dying. Hence, lives as a resource. | |
| Jul 17, 2011 at 12:57 | comment | added | poke | I think this answer only explains why there is “death” within games. But under “lives”, I understand a number-limitation of how often one can die without losing a lot process in the game. | |
| Jul 16, 2011 at 21:47 | comment | added | Tetrad | I use the word "research" in a pretty loose term. With the advent of achievements a lot of companies have added trivial progress-based markers. You can use that data to see what number of online-enabled players have completed an early level and compare that to the number who have completed the end of the game. As a public example, only slightly more than half of players beat HL2:Episode 1 steampowered.com/status/ep1/?gamesHelp#HighestMapPlayed | |
| Jul 16, 2011 at 18:24 | comment | added | Randolf Richardson | +1 for mentioning some research (references would be awesome, but not needed because what you wrote makes sense), and for pointing out that lives aren't appropriate in all games. | |
| Jul 16, 2011 at 18:11 | history | answered | Tetrad | CC BY-SA 3.0 |