Hi
Im doing a coop (share keyboard) adventure-rpg game. Sort of mix between diablo, stalker and fallout /fallout tactics. You explore, collect and kill monsters. Travel is done quickly on a map (like in fallout tactics, for example) and zones are entered and gameplay switches to topdown to blast enemies and move in labyrints (like in 'A link to the past' or your favourite zombie-shooter).

SO... how about death? The game is fairly arcade-style so death is involved. What seems best?

RESPAWN
Like in diablo. You die but thats okay. You start at latest safehouse and can heal there. No manual save. Progress is auto-saved all the time. If you die in a zone you go back and the guys you already killed is still dead. Problem: a lot of walking maybe. But each zone will be fairly small and map-travel is fast.

RELOAD
Dying is NOT ok man! If you die you must reload a previous state in the game. Problem can be that the player always saved before each "zone" and reloads to much to get best "result" of a hard encounter. Save will only be allowed on the map, not within zones.

Your thoughs?

Thanks a lot
Erik

Ahh the old saving debate everyone has their own view on this problem. Personally I don’t like saving don’t want to think about it or have to manage save states. But many games force me to do because of the strict punishments imposed by failure.

If I can be killed easily in game I’d prefer to be sent back to the last check point without having to worry about it. With the lose of no more then 10 minutes of play time.

I'd say it depends on the type of game you're. I'm not talking about genre here (such as adventure-rpg), but style of play. Do you want to be hard on the player, or do you want it to just be a game?

I typically would state use respawn and reward a player who doesn't die. This is different than respawning and punishing a player who does die. But I wouldn't necessarily state avoid manual saves. You could allow manual saves while at the same time having temporary respawning saves.

It really depends on the game style. If its a diablo style game, and you don't allow saves (or only auto save each time you complete a city), then that is a problem to me. 1) I don't have the time to sit at a level all day long. 2) It will feel like grinding if I have to go back through everything.

However, on a game that is more skilled based (contra, mario, smash tv, etc), I kinda like not having frequent save points. I have a bigger sense of accomplishment for beating a level (or game) if I know I can't continuously restart from the beginning of the level.

If the two players are sharing the keyboard, are they sharing the screen as well? If so, what does the second player do when the first one dies? Can he resurrect the dead player, or does he have to trapse back to somewhere else in order to collect the respawned player?

If it's a split screen game, then it's not so much of a problem as the surviving player can continue without interruption.

With a Diablo style game dying is almost a certainty, so you don't want to punish the player much for dying.

So I would give them a choice:
1) Go to a relod point: You loose all gold and XP you would have got, but the monsters will still be there for you to kill to get it. The only thing the player has lost is their time.

2) Respawn: You respawn at a respawn point (eg back at town) and you loose some xp and gold, but not the items, however, the monsters you killed are still dead so this sort of counts as a permenent loss of gold and XP that you can't get back, but the player does not loose their progress (so minimal amount of the player's time is lost).

By allowing the player to make a choice, you are saying that you acknowledge that different players have different desires and you don't want to exclude either.

In other words, you are saying that the aim of the game is not to deal with the interface, but to play the game.

Upon player death:

If the second player makes it to the next zone -> the first player is automatically revived at the start of the next zone.

If the second player dies while in the current zone -> both players are revived at the start of the most recently visited map.

When one player dies, he'll be cheering the other player on to get them both to the next zone.