UC Santa Cruz

Games are a unique interactive system in that failure is expected, and oftentimes, welcomed by its community. When playing a game, people enter a state where they must be open to accepting a role, a different world’s rules, and the challenges that come with overcoming failures while working towards set goals. With the continued relevance of games that offer brutal punishments for player failure, such as roguelike games with permadeath mechanics, it was critical to examine the underexplored space of the design of failure and how it impacts the player experience. I then selected the genre of platformers for its high density of player death to observe 62 games to develop the Fail and Retry Taxonomy using grounded theory methodology. This was broken down into five major cyclical components, starting with Obstacles, FailureConditions, Aesthetics, Player Progress Changes, and Reset Locations. To validate its use, I developed a simple platformer to conduct a study with four Respawn Location modifications: Permadeath/Reset to Start of Game, Reset to Start of Level, Reset to Checkpoint, and Reset to Savepoint. After quantitative analysis, I provided several failure design implications towards specific emphases on respective player experience constructs and tailoring towards goal- and challenge-oriented players. I then conclude with potential applications and future research directions.