lives or no lives?

[Pgcrooner]

[Savage Rodent]

I still agree with having lives. The way they have been implemented has been terrible though. Losing a life should put you at a sort of checkpoint (like Conker's Bad Fur Day), but losing all of your lives puts you at the beginning of the world instead of the title screen.

[Exaskryz]

[Savage Rodent]

[Fuzzy]

Lives are mostly a concept of a time where games couldn't save.
Like, you know, "game over" - you lost, the game ends here (it is over), start over, game resets to zero.
And with saving in place a game over is *mostly* just like losing all your health (a life), it has lost it's purpose in my opinion.

[Scraps69]

Honestly lives are a bit of an outdated thing really. If you're over 40 and play this game then you should automatically get a game over anyway eh? (I'm just kidding heh I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this lives or no lives)

I'm hoping for a looping game over cutscene where the bootylicious baddy grinds their arse on top of the downed heroes.

[Pearcinator]

No lives! They are meaningless. It's a useless collectable that should be replaced with something better or taken away completely.

Banjo-Tooie I felt struck the perfect balance with collectables. Banjo Kazooie had many but because it's much shorter it didn't get too tiresome. Donkey Kong 64 went waaaaaaay overboard so I think Tooie was the best in that regard. I also love backtracking/effecting something in a previous level that makes you go back to explore (makes all the levels feel connected) but I might be in the minority there.

[Savage Rodent]

[GildasMagnus]

If Playtonic is trying to bring back the magic of the golden age, I say bring back Lives. I don't want to play Ukulele for its modernity, I want to play it for its nostalgia and retro feel. If I wanted to feel as though I couldn't get a game over, I'd play something else. Make my mistakes and successes matter equally.

[Xenoka]

[Exaskryz]

[Pirulo]

It's very simple:

"New Game">"Select Mode">

- "Classic Mode" (lives)
- "Casual/Modern Mode" (no lives)

[Savage Rodent]

[blank]

I think the people arguing in in favor of lives, because they want a more challenging game, are missing how game design works. I'm assuming that Playtonic already have a difficulty level in mind for Project Ukulele, and they are going to design the game to try to achieve that difficulty level.

This means that adding lives is not going make the game harder, it just means that the rest of the game is going to be designed with the lives mechanic in mind. If lives are added, the levels and the bosses and the rest of the game is just going to be easier.

The question of lives vs. no lives is not a question of hard vs. easy, but a question of which kind of difficulty you want. I much prefer the difficulty of challenging levels and bosses to the difficulty that adding lives brings. So I'm going to go with no lives.

[Savage Rodent]

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[Savage Rodent]

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The thing is, I don't really think that the possibility of a game over adds any real risk, at least not if implemented as in Banjo-Kazooie or the 3D Super Mario games. You don't actually loose anything of importance in-game, all that happens is that you have travel through the hub world to get back to the level, and if the game has check-points, you loose your check-point, so you have to play through some of the level again. That's just the game wasting the players time, and a good game should never waste a players time. That's something free-to-play games does to try to get you to spend money.

I'm perfectly fine with making death meaningful, but adding lives doesn't necessarily do that. The notes resetting in Banjo-Kazooie, as you also mentioned, is a perfect example of a way to make death meaningful. That's what I'd like to see: A new and interesting way of making death meaningful instead of just another game with lives.

[Savage Rodent]

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