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Sin And Punishment In Games

Posted by simoniker on from the saving-good-saving-more-better dept.

Thanks to NTSC-UK for their article discussing how games punish players for dying. The article starts: "Repetition has always been considered to be a pretty basic form of punishment and is still quite commonly used form even today. Fail a task, go back to the start of the level. Fail too many times and you go right back to the start of the game." It goes on to highlight save/restart points as changing this dynamic, saying that "...the most controversial aspect of the save point's growing role in videogames was the confusion between its two roles: acting as a marker which players are taken to when punished, and as a point where players could stop in order to resume play later on." Is there such a thing as being able to save too often?

4 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. eh? i thought punishment was.. by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Funny

    an iron ball chained to your leg.

    there's various ways to get rid of it including burying it(dig a pit and push a boulder into it) eating it(polymorph into something that can eat metal), scroll of remove curse & etc.

    seriously though, there's no such game as nethack as far as punishment goes. you play unprepared for everything, you die and start again. and die again and start again. that's not the punishing thing, it's the addictiviness of it, just imagine playing a random rick dangerous game for 10 years and still liking it, there's just something that must be bad in that kind of thing.

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  2. If repetition is punishment ... by Lumpish+Scholar · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... what does that mean about playing Everquest?-)

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  3. Mr. Surly strikes again! by Asprin · · Score: 3, Funny


    Hrrrummph! As usual, everything in RL is backward from video games.

    Do you people even realize, if RL had savegame capability, how many times I would have blown away the idiot at Taco Bell who can't get my order right beause he's too busy IM-ing his girlfriend to be interrupted with customers?

    Save points as punishment, indeed! *NOT* having save points is the *REAL* punishment!

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  4. Re:Too much of a good thing... by mhesseltine · · Score: 2, Funny
    Then there are games that are unwinnable without your cheat. I've seen a few where the only way to make money was gambling, but unless you saved after each win, and restored after each loss you will lose the game.

    Why did I just have a flashback to "Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards"?

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