For some games, permanent death means game over, but for others it means the game is just beginning. It's not just a way of tormenting players, and it boasts a whole other level of depth over its infinite lived counter parts.
Permanent death is a feature that some games use in which the death of the character means that you must start from scratch. This is not always a bad thing, and it's one of my favourite game features. But it has the potential to be a great thing. It not only challenges the player, but combines the essential risk and reward factor with the player's natural desire to move forward in the game, mixing them together to make a very interesting feeling.
But it can't always be used. I've seen it done in some games where permanent death just means, that's it. But that isn't what permanent death is about. Permadeath games, and I'm going to use some examples in a minute, are about having your previous playthroughs form a sort of skeleton to base your future tries around. By giving the player some kind of goal that each character shares that continues after each death is really what permanent death is about, with an achievable goal behind hundreds of lost characters and dead adventurers.
Spelunky, as I mentioned in a previous article, is a game I've been playing that was only recently released. It sees the player dive into a randomized cave system in an Indiana Jones style 2D platformer. The only catch here is that once you die, you're out. All your items and hearts and gold are all gone upon death. But there is hope, like any good permadeath game has. Not only do you learn strategies and start to feel the flow and pace of the game (that just comes natural to all games) but when you each the end of each section there's a man who offers to make you a shortcut between the sections. You have to make it to this checkpoint multiple times, bringing him items he needs to clear a shortcut. This means each of your lives mean something if you can get to that shortcut, and start at a later point every time.
In games where there is no permadeath and you just start from a checkpoint have been getting more complicated recently. People have come up with a theory that each time you die, say in Call of Duty or whatever, and then you're suddenly back in the fray, you aren't immortal, come back to life; this is an alternate timeline where the character has yet to fail. Each death means you're flung into the eyes of that same person, but in a timeline where he's still kicking at it. By the end, there's about 100 dystopic future timelines where the Nazis win and take over the world because your guy failed. Because you know. One guy could stop the Nazis. My point is, this system, whilst being the norm in the gaming industry right now, could really use an overhaul. It could use a game that actually talks and thinks about that theory. Or it could use some permadeath like the one in my next example.
IVAN is another of my favourites. Permadeath of course, it follows the story of a random character (You gotta love randomized gameplay. If you don't you're a very sick individual.) from a small island village that needs to take a message back to the mainland capital city, but the only way to do this is via the underground tunnel system that has countless enemies, booby traps, and just downright silly things that can kill you. IVAN means "Iter Vehemens ad Necem" which quite literally translates "the violent road to death". Each life will see you navigate this tunnel system, and successful lives will see you get to the capital and the later dungeon. The point is, IVAN has a permadeath system. Each character is in the same universe and timeline, and you get a score after each playthrough, and can see your top 200 lives on the scoreboard that comes up after every life. What's interesting about this permadeath though, is that you can literally find the corpses of your previous characters, usually surrounded by a ghost or the monster that killed you, and can take their gear or items such as essential food and wands or weapons. It gives your current character just that little bit more hope as he pushes ever onwards, and I personally think this system is fantastic. You know your attempts matter if you yourself benefit from your old characters demise.
Dwarf Fortress. Maybe I just like talking about Dwarf Fortress, what's it to you? The point is, it's got a system similar to my beloved IVAN where each adventurer left behind can be found again to increase your chance of survival. But Dwarf Fortress does a few other things I like in this ever continuing struggle for permadeath. Dwarf Fortress documents it. Statues or pictures on walls and floors depicting people that have died tells us a story, or some that tell stories about what they did when they were alive. Other than that, Dwarf Fortress has the reclaim feature, a handy little thing where you can reclaim for dead fortress, or you can visit it with a specific adventurer and get gear from your dead military. I pretty much just wanted to say Dwarf Fortress again. Dwarf Fortress.
Haven and Hearth. Yes, it has permadeath. Yes, it has features that carry over from your permanently dead characters. Yes, it has a rubbish playerbase full of bear-cape-clad morons who kill you for no reason. But anyhow. Haven and Hearth is a survival game in which you earn experience points for discovering new things and studying items. Then when you are inevitably killed by someone, your character dies and leaves a permanent skeleton on the world, and your new character is labelled as a 'direct descendant' of that dead character, and obtains a percentage of their skills and only they can take gear off the character's dead body without stealing. Through other means, players can summon the power of the ancestors, all of your dead characters, and stack all of their strength and skills onto their own. This is a nice touch. It's a shame everybody's too busy killing each other to, you know, actually use it.
The point is, permanent death doesn't mean "LOL I gatta start over, lolol", because that isn't fun. Losing your data isn't fun. You think Pokemon would be fun if you couldn't save? That's what some people think permanent death is. Erasing your game. But as said before, permadeath should form a skeleton, enriching your current character's time in the world, hearing about past characters' achievements, finding their body, taking their gear, harnessing their skills, fighting their ghosts. I love permadeath. It's another feature that makes me keep playing, but it has to feel like you're not starting from scratch.
I've heard that the creatively titled Wii-U title "Zombie-U" has a permanent death system, and your last character even turns into a zombie. That, to me, sounds incredibly tempting, leaving me wondering what else this game could bring to the permanent death arena. But I digress.
Apart from Spelunky, all of the games I mentioned are a free download from their respective websites because I am a cheap parasite that refuses to stimulate the economy with all of my dollars.
Dwarf Fortress can be found here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
IVAN can be found here:
http://ivan.sourceforge.net/
Haven and Hearth can be found here:
http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/
I suggest you give each of them a go, because they're all very special little gems in their own rights, and they're free and the biggest one is like 56MB, so why wouldn't you?
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