Final [Game Resource] Anchor and Mechanics Pattern(s) from Health!
Background
I derived these patterns based on my previous post showing the work for the [Game Resource] Anchor and Mechanics Pattern Exercise. All of this is grounded in the ideas introduced in the post An Atomic Theory of Game Mechanics. All of these exercises are part of the second edition of my game design textbook, Pattern Language for Game Design, which will be published at the end of 2025!
These patterns may be useful, possibly even insightful. Still, I am posting them here not to put myself forward as the author of ‘The Definitive Game Design Patterns’ but to show the kind of learning and insight YOU can produce by following the exercises. My work is about helping other game designers to articulate and share their design knowledge!
Pattern 1: “Today is NOT a Good Day to Die!”
If death is not a desired outcome, provide tools to avoid it.
This pattern is a relatively obvious and straightforward expression of the need to prevent player death in games where that is not core to the intended player experience. It is interesting because it can create significant problems if followed alone without considering the consequences. The second and third patterns address this problem, forming a trio that is, together, very useful.
Design Problem:
In some games where death is possible, it is not intended to be a regular part of the gameplay experience. What can developers do to help players avoid dying?
Pattern Description:
There are many ways a developer can control the frequency of death. One useful technique is to give the player ways to avoid dying. This seems a bit circular, but it is actually practical advice. Determine what causes death in your game, being reduced to zero hit points for instance. Then begin to add ways for players to avoid this situation. Some games have very few ways, other games have many many ways to avoid and recover from damage.
The less that death is part of an acceptable gameplay loop the more options the player needs to have to not die.
Example Games:
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Water is used to restore health in the game; this serves as a fairly standard (if thematic) healing item. However, the ability to rewind time allows the player to go back and avoid ever taking the damage in the first place. Since killing enemies refills your ability to rewind time, this becomes an important alternative to water and allows the player to avoid death, not just from health-related situations but also from falling, which is more common.
Pac-Man
In this game, the player must avoid the ghosts or die. There is a single affordance to avoid death, eating a power pellet; this allows the player to briefly turn the tables on the ghosts and gain a temporary advantage. Death is a pretty integral and expected part of gameplay due to the coin-operated nature of the original arcade game.
Borderlands 2
When you are reduced to zero health, you enter a ‘last stand’ mode where you can not move but can still shoot. If you kill an enemy before a timer runs out, you are restored to life with a small amount of health.
Games with similar implementation: Borderlands 3 — Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor — Rage
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Death is possible in this game but is not a core part of the gameplay loop. The game has at least nine ways to avoid, mitigate, or heal from damage: Hearts, Heart Containers, Fairies, Smoothie Crafting, Healing Potions, Resting in Beds…
Pattern 2: Some things are worse than death…
Finding alternative consequences when death is not optimal.
This pattern guides developers in creating consequences for the player when death is not the primary option. This pattern does not ‘require’ the use of ‘’Today is NOT a Good Day to Die!, but it is one possible way to address the undesirable side effects of that pattern.
Design Problem:
In some games, death is not part of the desired gameplay loop. If developers design their game to allow players to avoid death, how can they create meaningful consequences for the player?
Pattern Description:
If death is not a viable consequence, the developer must decide what other aspect of play they wish to put under threat. Some possibilities include Player TIme, Player Progress, Character Reputation, Player Reputation, or Diegetic Narrative Stakes.
Which of the above possibilities fits a particular game depends on the intended player experience. Player Time might be a meaningful consequence in a game focused on Speed-running. In a dating sim, the Diegetic Narrative Stakes of being rejected by a date might be more meaningful.
The less likely death is as a consequence, the more there needs to be other consequences to maintain the game's stakes.
Example Games:
Torment: Tides of Numenera
In this game, when you die, you go to another realm rather than the game ending. This consumes time but also allows the player to explore this realm, which is important to the overall progress of the narrative.
Games with similar implementation: The Secret World — The Legacy of Kain: SoulReaver
Until Dawn
In this game, there is character death, but because the player switches between controlling different characters, the game continues, and you see the narrative consequences of the death of that single character.
Far Cry 2
In this game, when you are reduced to zero health, you are transported to an alternate realm where you shoot daemons to rebuild your health. This allows the player to continue playing without losing progress, but the repetitive and hectic minigame penalizes failure.
View Some things are worse than death… in the Pattern Library
Pattern 3: We’ve got to do something about this situation!
Adjusting for the Importance of Death as a Consequence
Design Problem:
In some games, character death is a real and constant possibility; in others, death may be present, but ideally, it should be experienced rarely or never by the player. How should the implementation of death and other consequences change based on this spectrum?
Pattern Description:
The less that death is part of an acceptable or accessible gameplay loop, the more options the player needs to have to avoid dying… but the less likely death is as a consequence, the more there need to be other consequences to maintain the stakes of the game.
These are two different levers that need to be adjusted to maintain balance depending on the desired gameplay loop of a game. Each of these is detailed in the parent patterns: “Today is NOT a good day to die!” and “Some things are worse than death…”
The game The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is cited as an example of “Today is NOT a good day to die!” but does not implement “Some things are worse than death…” as a consequence, the player may feel a lack of stakes and consequences by the end of the game when death is very unlikely, but has not been replaced by any other consequences.
Example Games:
Life is Strange
While death is technically possible, the narrative structure of this game and the core time rewind mechanic make it easy to avoid. The only real penalty in the game is the time spent replaying the section of time that has been rewound… and, of course, the narrative consequences of all that rewinding at the end of the game. The very lack of consequence is the rhetorical POINT of the game, and the final narrative consequence faced by the character makes a powerful conclusion to this argument: death literally would have been a better option.
Fable II
In this game you can not die, if you are defeated by enemies you get up again, uncollected experience is lost which is a minor penalty. The primary consequence is that your character acquires disfiguring scars with each defeat.
Outward
Defeat Scenarios are a mechanic in Outward that triggers when the player is defeated, either through combat or other means. Instead of dying, time will move forward by a reasonable amount, and the player will wake up in one of many different possible outcomes.
The received scenario is more or less random, though it is influenced by the player’s current location, quest progress, and the circumstances of the defeat (i.e., which enemy defeated the player). -Via the Outward Wiki
Outward is a very simulationist game; character death would break the immersion of being part of the world. The player is expected to try to avoid death using usual means like armor and health potions, but when they are defeated… In this case, death and a quick reset would be too little of a punishment. Replacing death with an equivalent outcome in terms of losing items and time but folding it into an ongoing story fits the game's needs.
View We’ve got to do something about this situation! in the Pattern Library
Closing Thoughts
I hope seeing how a single Pattern Exercise can generate a more complex cluster of patterns that articulate a dynamic design solution is useful!
