We developed a simple 2D platformer game that only differed in respawn point locations: the start of the game (permadeath), the start of a level, the last reached checkpoint, and the last manually saved point. Specifically, our research investigated the relationship of death and respawn-ing mechanics-precisely the location of respawn points-to player experience (PX) constructs, such as mastery, challenge, autonomy, curiosity, and immersion. We were motivated by this to explore how altering the consequences of death on player progress affected aspects of the player experience. In games, failure that leads to death is a trope that players are all too familiar with. Finally, we discuss how the different dimensions and mechanics highlighted in our taxonomy have implications for key aspects of player experience, as well as how they could be used to improve the effectiveness of related techniques such as dynamic difficulty adjustment.
A grounded theory approach was then employed to develop the taxonomy of game death and respawning, resulting in five notable dimensions: (1) obstacles, (2) death conditions, (3) aesthetics, (4) changes to player progress, and (5) respawn locations. We observed gameplays of each individual game and noted the processes of death and rebirth, respectively. Games selected varied equally across positive, mixed, and negative overall reviews in order to provide a broader range of mechanics, both good and bad. In order to create this taxonomy, we collected and catalogued examples of death and respawning mechanics from 62 recent platformer games released on the digital distribution platform Steam after January 2018. This chapter presents our exploration into the space of player death and rebirth through the creation of a generalized taxonomy of death in platformer games-one of the genres that features player death and respawning most heavily. We posit that this is a rich, underexplored space with significant implications for player experience and related techniques. While techniques such as dynamic difficulty adjustment have addressed tweaking game parameters to control the frequency of player death occurrence, there is a surprisingly limited amount of research examining how games handle what happens when a player actually dies. At the heart of failure in many game genres is player death. Failure is a central aspect of almost every game experience, driving player perceptions of difficulty and impacting core game user experience concepts such as flow.
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