Design Round Table 0: No More Health

It seems to me that these systems almost necessarily cause gameplay to be sliced up into reasonably short, controlled encounters of at least some minimum intensity. A regenerative health system basically gives the player a damage threshold: get through an encounter under this threshold, you live and can move on to the next encounter. Otherwise you die. Killing the player is accomplished by overloading this threshold in a short period of time, which means you can't build suspense in the player via prolonged needling little encounters that keep them at low health (I guess you could if you were very careful and played very closely to the limits of your system, but it seems much harder).

Certainly it can be a more forgiving mechanic, especially if the player is not forced to move on after an encounter and can wait until they recharge. This can help appeal to the more casual players, and adding other elements to the gameplay -- something as simple as a time-based rewards or scoring system -- can help provide incentive for the more hardcore players to not wait around and/or to encourage not relying the 'damage threshold' and to consider more classical 'my health is sacred' tactics.

I think it works pretty well contextually in most of the games I've seen it in -- "war" games, where it feels natural that combat might be divided up like this. But if you look at Halo and then look at Marathon, both Bungie games, I don't think Halo's health system would have worked in Marathon, for example.

I suppose I would caution designers from looking at changes in certain game mechanics over time as some sort of "advancement" in design. Game mechanics to me are like ingredients in a pantry where the careful preparation, combination, and organization of some can make a delicious dish. Diced tomatoes may be great for marinara pizza sauce but not all pizza sauce has to be tomato based.

I suppose there's no stopping the "me too" stampede when Major Publisher A introduces a mechanic that speeds up gameplay and Major Publisher B decides they need to implement a copy cat feature because the faster gameplay is deemed more addictive. I think the trend in mainstream gaming is a disturbingly cynical one that is turning the industry into what the big boys always wanted... Hollywood. So like it or not, say hello to mindless, frenzied gameplay for the people who are addicted to shows like "24."

Sorry for going somewhat off topic. I guess the original point I wanted to make is that the new fad mechanic doesn't mean the old mechanic is obsolete. Even bell bottoms came back into style. And that's what we're really talking about wrt game design anyway, styles.

I don't really like the current approach (regeneration) as it drastically slows down the pacing of the game. The idea behind it though is quite good: take away the old arcade system of lifes and turn it into something more analogue, realistic. The 'hiding behind cover' part also feels more realistic than charging at the opponents while shouting. But then again, what's realistic about jumping on moving mushrooms while traveling through pipes? Games fun first, realism (if any) second.

Slicing the game into manageable pieces... well, it does make the game more accessible, obviously, but I feel it steals quite a bit of story consistency and forces 'ambush' gameplay (ie, you move and whenever you stop that means you'll be ambushed, will have to kill everybody to move to the next location).

Example solution: give the player ability to replenish health by attacking -player switches to bit weaker weapon with which he's more agile and hitting opponent sucks the health down. It would keep the game pace fast and even accelerate it in periods of danger, which I think is better than slowing it down to 'kill one enemy, hide, regenerate, rinse, repeat'.

Whether it simplifies games in a good way is entirely dependent upon the design of that game.
Regenerating health has the effect that can make the game more casual friendly while also getting players to take more risks since they know their health will regenerate. This can lead to the run to cover tactic, though, as the player will seek safety for their health to regenerate. However, non-regenerating health can lead to the same tactic as the player is trying to avoid taking any damage and if health is in short supply the player is more likely to take cover and exploit weakness’ in the game’s AI to get ahead. I think it’s less that the player’s health is regenerating that leads them to run and cover tactics but more that the game designers tend to have enemies hit harder to be a threat to the player (they can no longer whittle the players health down, little by little).

In the case of a very action focused game (such as COD), I think the regenerating health is a definite boon. It allows the player to focus more on the action at hand and less about managing their supplies leading to more intense action. However, in a game were resource management is part of the experience, I believe regenerating health would be a detriment. Imagine if Left 4 Dead used the health generating mechanic. Most likely the zombies and special infected would have to hit much harder to be any threat to the players. So, rather than experiencing maps where the players literally limp across the finish line, pleased with the way they managed to pull through as a group, most maps would be either the players getting shredded by the infected or flying through the map with no problem.

In general I like regenerative health as a gameplay dynamic. As with most things whether it is fun or not depends on details of implementation and context of other gameplay elements. So I'll describe the ideal health system in context, as well as some bad versions.

Ideal regenerative health system:

- Player has one stat for total health, a separate stat for speed of regeneration, and these stats are separately controlled by allocation of points. Spending points on high regen should be beneficial to a player who prefers a frugal, constantly-fighting-monsters playstyle, while spending points on high health should be beneficial to a player who prefers epic PVP and boss combat and is willing to spend game currency on health-restoration items.

- Players should have an ability to convert mana (or energy) to health and health to mana, adding some economic strategy to the situation. Health and mana could also be convertable to a burst of speed, a burst of attack power, or action points if the game has these.

Bad dynamics to be avoided:

- The player should NEVER be sitting around for more than 30 seconds waiting for health and/or mana meters to fill. This is the most common problem of health regen systems. It is especially a problem in games where all characters have the same regen rate but higher level characters have way more health to regen. It is also a problem in any system where it is possible to have a low regen rate for whatever reason. To avoid this problem, here are some approaches:

1. either the base should be no regen and the first purchasable or earnable level of regen should be a high one

2. or the base should be a high level of regen which players are encouraged to sacrifice in trade for some other ability

3. or regen rates should multiply when the player has been out of combat (or is sitting/kneeling) for a few seconds, then multiply again if they continue this for a few more seconds

4. or all players should regen quickly when not in combat and the actual regen stat should only apply during combat

5. or healing foods should be available very plentifully in the game but unable to be eaten during combat

6. or all players should get a full-heal ability which cannot be performed during combat, takes 5-10 seconds to execute, and basically replaces the boredom of 'resting' with something more interesting like a rain dance emote.

I, personally, don't like the current overuse of regenerating health. Though I think it is more because regeneration time are quite quick that allow this situation:

You're in the middle of a skirmish with a group of enemies. You are blasting away at them as they quickly bring your down to the 'dying' stage. You dive for cover and a few moments are back to full health. You now return to the blasting away part and them subsequently returning you to near death. This cycle continues until either all of the enemy are dead or a lucky shot from the enemy drops you to 0. There isn't much suspense unless you willingly run into the midst of the enemy.

For me, if a game designer wants to implement a regenerating health bar, it should a a large chunk of time to fully recharge. Using a slow health regen, enemies are more likely to start hunting you down rather than just using suppression fire, which would increase the pressure for the player to do more than just pop in and out of a hiding place.

When I design combat I use regenerative health on the ENEMY. This forces the player to actually fight, be it melee combat, shooting, or space shooting. In space shooting, the regenerative part of the health is actually a shield. As long as the reactor is not damaged, the shield could recharge even if the physical body of the ship is damaged.

This mechanism requires the fight to be above certain intensity for it to count. The player cannot bring down an enemy by repeating n papercut attacks. If the player cannot hurt the enemy enough during a fight, the player needs to think of a different way to fight, or to go a different path.

The player character can also regenerate health. The reason is that I want the player to pick their fights, then fight. When the player could not defeat an enemy an fled, then I let both side regenerate. So fleeing is a reset switch, not a tactic. Suppose there are two enemies in a room and I want the player to figure out how to defeat both enemies, and the player loaded up on one enemy and fled, then I would respawn the defeated one because the challenge I give the player is to defeat them both, not one at a time.

I think the initial question is asking for a general response on a topic where the discussion should not be general. The context and the design goals matter.

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Does this mechanic simplify action games in a good way? Is the reduction in manageable resources a boon or detriment to players? Are the hit-and-run (to cover) tactics that regenerative health systems not only encourage but often demand beneficial to most of the games that this mechanic is employed in?

You could talk about whether a gameplay mechanism supports a design goal well. But you need to define what the goals are. In general, you cannot assume that games from the same genre have the same design goals. But that is what the questioned seemed to be implying.

If argument is what this thread wants (instead of just a list of opinions and experiences), then someone needs to define one set of goals (ideally also a context), and ask the pros and cons of regenerative health with respect to that goal. Ideally, once the arguments are made (pros and cons), a test game could be coded and people vote or see for themselves whether their assumptions match their expectation. (Do they really like what they think they like?)

Otherwise, I think you would get a collection of experiences from different contexts designed under different goals for different audience that don't necessarily mesh well into one meaningful argument perspective.

For instance:

Design goal: Let player feel the danger of each fight in a sequence of fights. During each fight, the player should worrying about dying NOW, not whether there is enough HP to do the last fight.

In this case, regenerative health is one way to do it, but the design goal suggests that the rate of regeneration should match the duration of one fight. This simply means that for each fight, the enemy must have the ability to kill the player. A way where a designer would violate this goal, is to give the PC must more HP than necessary for one fight. In that implementation, the player would not feel sufficiently threated by the immediate enemies.

If you want to retain the tradition HP, then you would balance the combat such that each fight has the possibility to take out all of the HP of the PC. But after each fight, the HP of the PC recharges (PC is allowed to drink at a foutain). For this goal alone, the two implementation are equivalent.


Design goal: If the player can defeat an enemy, I want the player to have hope to continue and fight the next enemy, even though the PC had not done well. I want the player to feel the emotion to keep going, keep risking, and not to give up until it actually ends.

Directly, this goal suggests that the combat (each fight) should be designed such that it is possible for the player to defeat an enemy without a single injury. So that on one hand, there is some notion that the PC is battered, something is injured, on the other hand, there is some buffer that allows the PC to believe that there is a chance to win if he continues. This situation does not need regenerative health to achieve, but suppose you want to use regenerative health, then you would intuitively balance it like this:

Each fight on average would destroy the shield of the PC, but after each fight, the shield would recharge. When the PC is not doing well in a fight, the enemy would hit the actual body of the PC, and that would deduct a non-regenerative health. That non-regenerative health is the player's emotional prompt of accumulated danger. Everytime the player completes one fight, the shield regens, the HP of the PC might decrease. But the player would still think that "if I do well in the next fight, the enemy will only take out my shield, I need to be more careful, but I am still ok." In this design, the HP of a PC is not a tactical resource to be managed. It is a presentation tool to prompt the player to situation his emotion at a certain state. In this implementation, the combat ability of the PC does not decrease.

For this design goal alone, a normal HP bar (with no heal) would do the same. But the balance of the combat would be done such that it is possible for the player to win each fight without getting a single hit. For this goal, the two implementations would be equivalent.


Suppose you want to achieve both goals in your design, then you would balance the combats so that in each combat, it is possible to win perfectly and also to die. Either mechanisms (with regenerative shield, or with traditional HP), would work. For a game with a minimum damage received by the PC per fight, the traditional HP bar would not work, because the design would not satisfy the second design goal.

[Edited by - Wai on April 7, 2009 9:38:45 PM]

I think FPSs should have more than one form of health to begin with. Someone gets shot in the arm they aren't dead, but they may lose the use of that arm... get shot on the torso or legs it makes you travel slower and makes you lose blood. Lose all your blood, which can regenerate you die...shot in the head you die. Its more realistic and fun in my opinion if FPSs were built that way rather than have one life bar for the whole of a character.

RPGs that use the regenerating health mechanic are quite a bit easier that those that don't and it can be abused in most of the games as they allow you to modify it to the point where you are practically invincible usually.

so I think, like someone else said, that you need to analyze what is already there and determine whether it's a good idea to put it in one way or another, rather than saying it's the in thing to have so it needs to be there.

Regen health is a system that came about because people were getting tired of those funky little health bars at the bottom of the screen and because the idea of fair had to be there because players wouldnt react well to being killed outright... i say "phoooey".

If I get shot by a gun i should not simply have to sit in one place for 10 seconds not being hit to be back to full health... it creates the superman effect. Where you take on a large group of guys bit by bit, get hurt a lot, run away and hide while you 'dehurtifiy', and come back and try it all again. It removes a lot of the challenge, it somewhat slaps you in the face for not timing your runs and limits somewhat the 'strategic importance' of watching your 'health'

Give me some bandages and make me sit down and bandage my self up, or have the medic come over... have the screen slowly fade out to indicate approaching unconsciousness... get a leg hit and for the rest of that 'life' you cant run as fast... an arm hit, less accurate... Head shot... game over.

well theres my 2c well and truely spent...

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Original post by mittens One of the ideas I've been tossing around doing for a while now is one where I present a given topic or mechanic in game design, get designers (professional or aspiring) to talk about it for a week or two, and then I would put together a conclusions article with aggregated responses and thoughts on all sides of the discussion.

Love the idea.

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Does this mechanic simplify action games in a good way? Is the reduction in manageable resources a boon or detriment to players? Are the hit-and-run (to cover) tactics that regenerative health systems not only encourage but often demand beneficial to most of the games that this mechanic is employed in?

On the whole I think it's a negative. It waters down gameplay, robs the player of skill building opportunities and cuts out yet another dimension in a genre that doesn't have much left to cut.

I think the most compelling argument for regenerative health is that it simplifies gameplay, which should make it easier on newbies and brings in less hardcore players. But simplicity isn't always better. What would happen, for instance, if this same mechanic was applied to ammo? Victory would be more often determined less by skill and more by the luck of the recharge. (The mods to games that do this tend to degenerate down to aim and luck, cutting out tactical planning, conservation and all the other fun skills of "the hunt.")

The search for health can be a very interesting diversion in an FPS. It can flavor encounters, making some situations more desperate or requiring stealth or diversionary tactics. It can also, as it was in Doom, be a source of meta gameplay in and of itself, requiring players to risk environmental hazards or rewarding them for quirky exploration.

What I most dislike about regenerative health is that it feels condescending. It's a dishonest way of telling me that I suck. If a game wants to kill me, I prefer that it just get it over with, rather than slow me down with lots of "wait gameplay" involving a screwed up red interface or irritating alarms. Don't coddle me when I've done a bad job. It's like giving out A's in class for attendance. How am I supposed to get better?

I am all for bringing in new players and widening a game's appeal. But to abuse an old metaphor, I think it's important to give players the stars to shoot for even if they only hit the moon.

IIRC booth republic command and kill.switch had almost regenerative health, ie your health regenerated to 25-50% and healthpacks got you back to 100. It never really allowed for that I-only-got-1%-health-where-is-that-medpack feeling of constant quick-saving.

About the realistic regenerative health, I tend to think of it more like consciousness. Your hi-tech armor absorbs all of the damage but there is still some kick left in the bullet. Get hit enough times and you get knocked out, but if you stay down and take a few deep breaths you are good as new.

There's a time and a place for regenerative health bars. At the moment, it's going through a fair 'popular phase', which will eventually either revert, become the expected (is it already?), or be supplanted by another new system.

Personally, I feel that the system has it's merits. In a game that warrants quick encounters with equally matched opponents (e.g Call of Duty 4 multiplayer), wherein the player has the potential to be eliminated reasonably quickly, giving the player the ability to regain their health prevents them from suffering immediate game-impacting permanent health loss if they are glanced early after spawning - and thus they are also not immediately forced to predictably move to locate health pickups. It serves in some respect to assist in levelling the playing area in an often sprawling, maze like arena, and prevents lucky or random shots from killing outright, but with a lower player health, a misjudgement or tactical error can easily lead to death.

Should the player have a much higher immunity to damage, or outclass it's opponents (e.g Noone Lives Forever 2 Singleplayer) the effect would be very different, and regeneration would have to be much slower. It becomes much more punishing in the immediate - but will over an extended period of time become resolved - which in turn changes the nature of how a player may approach their respective situation. This can also be measured with a risk/reward of the inclusion of a health pickup, that would require moving out of the current position, and potentially into enemy contact, or a more cautious approach allowing the player to slowly regain health over time.

In something, such as a platforming game, we traditionally see health measured simply as a number of hits - in the case of both the classic Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Mario Brothers titles, the player is only capable of taking two or three hits based on their current status. This is significantly more punishing, and ultimately more frustrating - increasingly so as the games difficulty ramps up. This trend has changed over time, however, and the arcade style emphasis on such games is declining as the genres progress and define themselves further.

However, such a system certainly has no place in some competitive arenas. Consider Unreal Tournament 2004, and the common one-on-one deathmatch. Ultimately, a regenerative health system could only detract from the nature of the game. Experienced and veteran players are very much familiar with the strategic and tactical nature of determining one's path through the chosen environment, denoting that damage and health critical pickups are only available at certain intervals. Failure to adopt an appropriate means to control these powerup points and deny them to the opponent is a very prominant emphasis in what would otherwise be a much more bland and imbalanced game; since otherwise the player could not be encouraged to move; since they can find a suitably strong position to sit in, and remain within it, given that they are able to always regenerate their health. Without the ability, they can occupy this position, but will be forced to abandon it should they take damage - and in the case of many a good level design, health pickups are in the more vulnerable and frequently passed through areas of the map.


In short, a health based system exists based upon the intended approach for gameplay mechanics, and is a strong candidate for serving to define and balance it. Regenerative health systems are one such mechanic, which can be used to emphasise certain purposes, and therefore should only be used in those circumstances where they are suitable.

1. The purpose of playing a game is to learn to play the game better (and incidentally you learn abstract thought that may be relevant to more serious pursuits).

2. It is possible to play a game without ever making a mistake.

3. Getting hit too much (game-specific) constitutes a mistake.

4. The more room for error the player has, the more of the game's potential is put to waste.

This makes regenerative health systems bad for games. On the other hand...


1. The purpose of playing a drug is to distract you from the real world.

2. The less you play a drug, the more you remember the real world.

3. The more time your character spends dead, the less time you spend playing the interactive medium.

4. The more room for error the user has, the more effective the drug is.

This makes regenerative health systems good for mainstream titles.

I think that regenerative health systems are definitely a step in the right direction when it comes to simulating firefights in action games. This is because in many circumstances those systems are fantastic at simulating the real life feeling of being fired AT but not being hit which makes up the majority of 20th and 21st century combat.

In a real firefight (disclaimer - I've never been in a real firefight) many more bullets are fired into walls, the ground, the air than actually hit a target. The oft quoted statistic is that in the current US wars the US is firing a quarter of a million bullets for every insurgent they kill. ( http://www.correntewire.com/250k_bullets_fired_per_insurgent_killed ) All these bullets are getting fired in order to scare the shit out of the targets, and get them to not move or fire back while the US figures out how to safely kill them. It usually works because getting shot at is FUCKING SCARY. ( http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html#photo5 ) They also fire so many bullets because it is really REALLY hard to shoot someone. If you've ever shot a gun, you know that it's a little bit harder in real life than it is in games to get an accurate headshot at 50 yards.

However, getting shot at (not hit) in a game is a non-issue. It doesn't really phase most gamers because it's just a game. With their music up, they may not even know that a bullet just zipped over their head. It doesn't feel scary because you're not punished for almost getting hit. So how can a game properly simulate the feeling of getting shot at, of needing to be behind cover, that makes first and third person shooters look and feel realistic?

You can do it by make it a lot easier for the bad guys to hit the player, but allowing the player to respond to getting shot without a long term punishment. Against 5 or 6 enemies the player will stick his head out of cover but quickly be overwhelmed at the volume of fire and duck back down - not because he was afraid of the amount of bullets being shot at him, but because his health was getting low due to being hit.

As an added bonus on top of the simulation, regenerative health highly encourages player experimentation within a game system and within specific combat puzzles. The player can say "I'm going to try shooting them from back here with the shotgun" and find out that doesn't work without any long term consequences. He can try flanking the enemy from a direction that doesn't have enough cover, but has the chance to realize the problem and retreat without having to then run back 50 yards to his medkit. It allows a lot more trial and error without too harsh a punishment, without taking the player out of the experience with a game over screen or picking up a magic medkit.

Once we can properly get the player to fear bullets flying near his head we will be able to replace the regenerative health system, but until then it's a pretty good way to simulate modern ranged combat.

I disagree. I'm quietly confident that a player will learn to fear enemy weapons fire, and keep their head out of it more, if they are more likely to be permanently punished for their mistakes.

Case in example; Prey. In conventional singleplayer FPS game mechanics, the player has always had a simple single health statistic, represented by a bar or numerical value. Early in Prey, a new player will fear death, as it's drummed into a game player's subliminal instincts to avoid it and associate it with failure.

In Prey, this is fucked, because if the player dies, they play a quick minigame, and respawn where they died with more health than before. It's not long before death becomes a tool to be abused in a manner not-befitting of the game play, rather than avoided as a punishment for failure. The feedback is all wrong.

I guess it depends on whether you want your game mechanics to challenge the player or provide the player with an experience. I believe the games industry and the world at large is moving closer to the latter experience.

I believe that for the general populace the death mechanics in a game like Prey or Fable 2 or even Bioshock are preferable to those in a game like CoD4 or GTA4. People don't usually want to be forced to replay portions of a game, and this is especially true of a portion of a game that is so difficult that it causes the player to die.

It seems to me that forcing the player to replay only the most difficult and potentially frustrating portions of the game due to death is simply a bad design decision, but one that we have not yet found a solid solution to.

I guess we're getting offtopic into death mechanics now though.

To respond to your initial point, even with regenerative systems there are permanent penalties to getting shot too much - you die. It's important to find a balance in punishment between too harsh and too light. Prey may have been too light, but a game with gameplay like COD4 but no regenerative health system could be too harsh.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it is extremely difficult to communicate to the player exactly what circumstances will cause him to be shot. If I stick my head up will I have 3 seconds to fire, or will I be shot immediately? If I am shot immediately, does that mean I am never allowed to poke my head up at that spot, or is it just the randomness of the AI's fire that caused the shot to land so quickly? The player has no idea, and because he needs to find a health pack every time he makes a mistake he is discouraged from experimenting in order to find out more about the combat systems.

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Original post by DrewMarlowe I guess it depends on whether you want your game mechanics to challenge the player or provide the player with an experience. I believe the games industry and the world at large is moving closer to the latter experience.

All media provides an experience. You're going to have to be more specific than that.

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It seems to me that forcing the player to replay only the most difficult and potentially frustrating portions of the game due to death is simply a bad design decision, but one that we have not yet found a solid solution to.

Are you saying that people shouldn't have to learn anything from the games they play?

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To respond to your initial point, even with regenerative systems there are permanent penalties to getting shot too much - you die.

You're missing the point. If you take one bullet by mistake and then hide behind cover until your health regenerates, there is no permanent penalty. That encourages poorly thought out courses of action.


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By the way, what's wrong with combining wide Cones of Fire with short healthbars (1-3 hits until you die) to get the suppressive fire effect?

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Original post by Wavinator What would happen, for instance, if this same mechanic was applied to ammo? Victory would be more often determined less by skill and more by the luck of the recharge.

There are actually a few games that do this to varying extents.

Mass Effect essentially gives the player an infinite supply of ammunition restricted by a regenerative system; fire too much at once and you'll have to wait a while to fire again. I feel this isn't neccesarily a bad thing - while it may not fit with all games equally and has both pros and cons to be weighed it does gives the player that same consideration as going into combat with a limited clip-size but without the hassle of managing supply over the course of the entire game. Really it boils down to the same effect as on health, segregating gameplay into smaller chunks and seemingly increasing accessibility for a more casual audience.

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The search for health can be a very interesting diversion in an FPS. It can flavor encounters, making some situations more desperate or requiring stealth or diversionary tactics. It can also, as it was in Doom, be a source of meta gameplay in and of itself, requiring players to risk environmental hazards or rewarding them for quirky exploration.

This is the point I was initially going to raise when I started reading through the topic myself: a system with health pickups can lead to interesting situations where a player makes a mad, basically suicidal run into a group of enemies with the goal of reaching a health pickup just before death, or where a weakened player can be tempted into navigating difficult environmental obstacles.

As a few people have already mentioned, you can also increase tension by sniping at the player constantly with weak attacks that keep them at a mid to low level of health.


A health pickup (or some mechanic for increasing the total level of health - think Zelda's heart containers, or the large potions from Prince of Persia) can also make a good reward in systems where they're allowed.

My final project for a game design program I took was a first-person shooter that ended up relying on a play on health regeneration. Plot and its repercussions aside it was based on the idea that you could absorb an enemy's fire type and fire it back, and also a mobile cover option. The player absorbed the shot with a shield which, well, also worked as a traditional shield with a damage threshold(which would regenerate over time if 'broken').

The player has a normal attack with a gun that the vanilla enemies shoot as well (besides the quirk that it functions more like a minigun, speeding up and overheating), but the shield meant they could absorb the (this was in UE3 btw) shock balls some enemies shot and the bursts of liquid fire that others shot.

The kicker is that players could heal themselves (the player has his own health bar and a Halo 3-esque overshield) by absorbing the normal shots, but it also damages their shield weapon (assigned to L2), which they use to absorb and protect against the special fire types constantly. When the player fired back an absorbed fire type they would get a second or two of slo-mo, so they could plan movement (and watch people explode). As a sort of skill move, players could also melee attack with their left hand (mapped to L1, while shield was R1 and fire was R2).

It ended up encouraging an active but careful arcade-style offense. Players knew they'd be overwhelmed if they stayed back and used the shield too much, so they would move around a lot while actively dodging and absorbing the special shots. They would take some damage and get in hairy situations, but if they kept their heads about them players could usually hang on and build back life, or manage to get their overshield back up. And we never got any sort of advanced AI working, so we just piled on the enemies -- 'hairy situation' usually meant you could only see a hail of gunfire onscreen. Skills with the basics of FPS play was all that was required to stay in one shape in an arena scenario. When they messed up they could regain life by skillful play.

You can see a video here:://student.vfs.com/~gd09nick/portfolio.html&feature=player_embedded

I think regenerative health has somewhat cheapened the shooter experience, even if it is a comforting safety net. What we did was try to change up how players went about staying alive in an otherwise conventional shooter space; get more health by getting shot, but do it smartly or else. Getting health can be more of a central aspect of a game's play, rather than simply being a take on a finite life system, or one that is totally regenerative. You live, then you die and try not to die again -- that's the sort of behaviour most sorts of life systems encourage. Regenerative health means you worry about staying in a line of fire too long; it makes you more ballsy.

Even shooters with regenerative health, at harder levels of difficulty, make it more difficult by subjecting the player to more one shot kills. Binary is hard, ambiguous health is not *as* hard. Really finite or regenerative health systems are just an easy stopgap for more involved life systems. We might see life systems advance when more games cease to be about just shooting; just adding and subtracting damage to ascertain if the player can keep playing. Maybe a game could tackle staying hydrated in a survival game or scrounging food in an apocalyptic wasteland -- making life preservation an equally important but more subtle part of the game.

[Edited by - nickhalme on April 10, 2009 12:12:08 AM]