Five ways to punish a player in a way that makes sense
Kotaku editor Kirk Hamilton has compiled a list of five mechanics by which games turn a player’s failure or mistake into a meaningful experience.
1. The game resets the progress, taking the player more time
The most frequent punishment of a player for mistakes. The character dies, the mission ends – and the player returns to the last save, checkpoint or the beginning of the level. Thanks to this, players learn from mistakes and start playing better.
This mechanic is so old that it’s hard for us to imagine games without it. The cycle “failure – skill development – success” is so familiar that it does not even seem like a punishment. But a lot depends on how much time the player loses due to the reset of progress and whether he gets something in return. If the loss is too great, then after a failure, he can simply quit playing.
2. The game forces you to risk the resource that the player has managed to accumulate
This method is becoming increasingly popular thanks to complex games like Dark Souls and bagels. In Dark Souls, players can only be pumped in some safe places, between which any death means the loss of souls – a resource that plays the role of XP. After the first death, souls can be returned, if you die again, they will be lost forever.
When a player is defeated in bagels, he usually loses everything he has accumulated and starts the game anew. Sometimes there are games in the genre where not everything burns down when defeated, but in any case, the player loses a lot.
Gradually, irretrievable loss becomes habitual, players learn to assess risks, act more carefully and attentively. This approach usually gives players a wide space for decision-making – in each specific game situation, you have to choose whether to take a risk or play more carefully.
3. The game gives a limited number of attempts or time
The approach popularized by multiplayer games is the creation of special events or missions that are available to players for a limited time. If they fail to complete these missions on time, they will never succeed.
From time to time, something similar is used in the single. For example, the Hitman remake was regularly replenished with missions of the Elusive Target mode – you could try to pass them only once, after failure they disappeared. Even in the Complete First Season version of the game, these missions were not included.
This approach is very good for motivating the player and making the mission something special. But an attempt to go further and build the whole game around such a mode is likely to result in frustration of players dissatisfied with the constant loss of access to content.
4. The game forces you to compete or cooperate with other people
Defeat is perceived quite differently if the player is defeated not by a computer, but by a real person. Such defeats are less painful, they often take the player’s feelings to a new level: rivalry appears, players take into account the experience of previous collisions. Defeating a live opponent who has won the previous ten fights has a stronger emotional effect than defeating some computer boss.
Cooperation with other people is no less effective. The joint passage also gives the gameplay a lot of meaning, and the general defeat, most likely, will not upset the group, on the contrary – the players will discuss their mistakes, come up with a new strategy and want to try it out. Take a look, for example, at how the addition of multiplayer brought No Man’s Sky back to life.
5. The game spoils the save file
The rarest and most experimental approach that several recent titles have used. The save file for the player has traditionally been a very valuable, almost physical object. And if something went wrong with the saves, it usually caused a painful reaction.
However, intentionally changing or deleting a save can be a game mechanic. So, Nier: Automata at the end of the next passage offers the player to delete the save and all progress in order to get the true ending. And Undertale, for example, does not allow players to start a completely new game, transferring there the consequences of decisions from old saves.
In fact, this is one way to break the fourth wall between the game and the player. This method is very risky, but with the right design solutions, it can make the gaming experience shocking and unforgettable.
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