Survive

The goal of trying to avoid being killed by game events or the actions of other players or agents in a game.

Many games have effects that capture, destroy, kill, or eliminate game elements depending on the theme of the game. As these events are usually negative for the players who control the game elements, they have the expected goal of trying to make these units Survive.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Examples

Survive goals typically manifest in two different ways in games. One is a hostile environment, primarily through enemies or monsters, threaten to kill players' characters. Example of this can be found in Asteroids, Space Alert, Space Invaders, and the Left 4 Dead series. Another is that players have to negotiate continuously depleting resources, as for example in Oxygen Not Included. Roguelikes, e.g., Unexplored, and more generally Survival Games typically provide both types of challenges with varying ratios. Examples of Survival Games include Dead of Winter, Minecraft, No Man's Sky, Project Zomboid, Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress, Terraria, and Valheim.

Relations

Time Pressure Time Limits Enemies Internal Rivalry Single-Player Games Player Elimination

Can Instantiate

Continuous Goals, Quests

Can Modulate

Eliminate, FUBAR Enjoyment

Can Be Instantiated By

Avatars, Lives, Last Man Standing, Maintenance Costs, Rhythm-Based Actions, Units

Can Be Modulated By

Conceal, Steadily Decreasing Resources, Preventing Goals

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

An updated version of the pattern Survive that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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