I found this out thanks to my stubborn nature when chided by my wife. In a sandbox game filled with hard-to-find secrets, making death a minor inconvenience encourages risk-taking and adventure. What gives with that? The Glory of Cheap Death
So a bullet wound or bottomless pit usually leads to a reload or level restart.Īnd then along comes a game like Super Mario Odyssey, where getting mauled by a Tyrannosaurus only loses you 10 coins, which you can go back and recover 30 seconds later.
If death lacks consequences, players feel no tension. While you never want the player to quit in frustration, you also want to make them think. Common wisdom in video game design says that you can’t make death cheap.
