Do You Think Infinite Lives is Cheating?

[KayJay]

If you had infinite lives, you'd have no real impetus to get extremely good at traversing multiple levels without failure. Having limited lives forces the player to be more strategic and truly learn the intricacies of the gameplay, in such a way as to persevere by skill rather than attrition.

That's the thing, though. I only want to be good enough to beat the level, i don't really care about learning, or mastering, the level. If the level is tough on it's own, that no matter how many lives i have, i'll have to be strategic, to avoid dying.



the way i see it, is that lives limit the amount of times you can try something. Honestly, they do take the edge off sometimes, however.

But i see what your saying.

[DeadPark]

If you had infinite lives, you'd have no real impetus to get extremely good at traversing multiple levels without failure. Having limited lives forces the player to be more strategic and truly learn the intricacies of the gameplay, in such a way as to persevere by skill rather than attrition.

i think infinite lives still has this. maybe to a lesser extent, but...

well take sonic for example.

running super fast, crash into enemy, die...
running super fast, jump over enemy, spike wall, die...
running super fast, jump over enemy, jump over spike wall, fall into pit because you missed the platform...

you still have to memorize what's coming up, you just don't have to go ALL THE WAY back to the very beginning of the game after every few curve balls.

[Exhuminator]

Thing is, life-count based games use the fear of lost time as a palpable punishment. It is the fear of having to spend all that time again to reach the last point of failure, that is the impetus for striving for maximum skill efficiency. I could muck my way through a game with unlimited lives ungracefully yes. But if I have to make it through with only 3 lives, I will have to play much more competently and mindfully. On the flip side, it's true that limited lives were a way to greatly increase difficulty, so that a game that you could beat in 20 minutes with infinite lives, took weeks if not months of practice to beat in under 3 lives.

If you've ever played a really hard game that used lives, and you were on your last life on the last stage fighting the last boss, you surely felt ice cold adrenalin coursing through your veins. And if you beat that last boss, the overwhelming rush of accomplishment and joy you felt in doing so gave you a euphoric feeling that lasted all day. You felt a real sense of pride in this accomplishment. But if you lost to that boss, the feeling of crushing despair would wreck your ass for hours. I don't believe that those feelings would congeal as concretely if you were working with unlimited lives. In that sense your victory is achieved not by mastery, but by sheer brute force.

Do I think infinite lives is cheating? If it's not part of the natural game design the developers intended, then yes, it is.

Do I think infinite lives is bad? If you just want to experience the content of the game, and not so much it's challenge, there's no harm in that. As long as you don't delude yourself into thinking you actually beat the game on the same level as someone who did not cheat.

Do I think finite lives is good game design? Depending on the context of the game, yes. Because victory is something to be savored, and the greater the battle the better the flavor.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Does R-Type Delta use checkpoints? Checkpoint shooters seem like they could still function as a challenge even with infinite lives/continues, since you usually have to start over vastly underpowered when you die.

Yep. That's part of what makes it so hard. (The game usually throws a few power ups at you right after each checkpoint, but it is still really, really tough.)

[DeadPark]

Do I think infinite lives is bad? If you just want to experience the content of the game, and not so much it's challenge, there's no harm in that. As long as you don't delude yourself into thinking you actually beat the game on the same level as someone who did not cheat.

i will agree with you there. i have great respect for people who can beat those older game legit. and even if i do beat the game with infinite lives, i would never hold myself to the same level as those guys.

i know i'm not as skilled of a gamer as them, but i would never see the second half of the games otherwise. i just don't have that mentality to became PERFECT at any game. i still legitimately die on the first goomba in mario almost every time i play. i know he's there, i know to avoid him....but he still gets me almost every time.

[Exhuminator]

the first goomba in mario almost every time i play. i know he's there, i know to avoid him....but he still gets me almost every time.

Dude. That goomba has killed more players in the world than any other digital being throughout modern existence. It is outright the single most deadly, most dangerous, most lethal and brutal destroyer of video game players that has ever existed.

Stone. cold. killer.

There's no shame in dying to this bastard. Goomba #1 is the Dark Souls of anthropomorphized fungi.

[Key-Glyph]

That first goomba.

If a person frowns upon infinite lives, though, shouldn't they feel the same about using save states for practice? If the infinite-lifer goes back and plays through the game in one legit sit afterwards, that should be accepted by the same standards, right? Or is there something about infinite lives that's considered less kosher? I'm just wondering if anything that carries a hint of childhood Game Genie-esque manipulation inherently rubs people the wrong way (as opposed to manipulating your OS or something), or whether there's simply an assumption that the infinite-lifer doesn't go back and clear the game in one go.

Again, I don't think any game manipulation is "shameful," so it's all the same to me. I'm just interested in how everyone draws their lines, because it gets really complicated for some folks. It's a bit fascinating.

By the way, Sarge really elegantly described save states as "compressing the learning curve," which is the best description of the benefit that I've ever heard. Just wanted to point that out and thank him for putting words to it.

[prfsnl_gmr]

If the infinite-lifer goes back and plays through the game in one legit sit afterwards, that should be accepted by the same standards, right?

Right.

I don't use infinite lives cheats, but I do use emulators and save states. I only "save" at places where the game might normally allow me to do so, however (at password screens, between levels, etc.), and I use them to "back up " the place I left off when I had to stop playing. (With a demanding career and two young children, I just don't have time to beat Blaster Master in one sitting!) I very occassionally use them to "practice" difficult sections before starting another "legitimate" run at a game. I do not consider my use of save states cheating, but if someone wants to think that they are better than me because they only play games on original hardware, etc., then I will be happy to nominate him or her for the 2015 "biggest loser" award.

[Erik_Twice]

That's the thing, though. I only want to be good enough to beat the level, i don't really care about learning, or mastering, the level. If the level is tough on it's own, that no matter how many lives i have, i'll have to be strategic, to avoid dying.

I think that's a problem because to me these games are nothing but learning and mastering. There's no value in getting to the next level whatsoever, what makes these games interesting is in how you learn to tackle each challenge, consistently and safely.


Also, that first Goomba is placed to force you to time the jump well on purporse.

1) If you run without checking you are going, you'll run into it.
2) If you don't keep the buttom pressed, Mario won't jump high enough and you'll jump right in front of it.
3) If you jump correctly, you'll be very close to the power-up block and you are verly likely to hit it.

Very carefully designed game, this Mario thingy

[Exhuminator]

Save states can be used as artificial checkpoints (barely cheating), or as persistent error absolvements (cheating).

Let's say I make a save state at the beginning of a boss fight. If I die, the game puts me back at the beginning of the stage. I don't have time for that, so I made the mentioned save state. I won't load the save state unless the boss kills me. And I keep going until I kill the boss fair and square otherwise. Not really cheating, time compression, sure.

However. Let's say every time I make a successful hit on the boss, I save state. If he hits me, I reload to that last successful hit. I keep going like this until I beat the boss without ever losing any life. Technically I beat him, but I did so by sequentially crossing between thirty parallel dimensions where I didn't screw up in order to pull it off. That's called save state abuse. And that's nothing but cheating, and has nothing to do with compressing time.