Game over
Game over (German The game is over or simply the end of the game ) is the message to the player in many computer games at the end of the game.
history
The short sentence is best known from arcade games and their implementation on home computers . The exact origin can probably no longer be determined. The first arcade game with a microprocessor, Gun Fight (1975), had the game-over display, and it was also used in games with vector graphics . In 1950 there was a patent for a pinball machine that indicated the end of the game with a lamp. It may have been used in mechanical and electromechanical arcade games before , e.g. B. with backlit displays or simple panels with this or similar text.
At the beginning of its use, Game Over marked the end of the game, regardless of whether the player won or failed. Later computer games, on the other hand, offered increasingly extensive video sequences and credits when the game was successfully completed , while game over mainly referred to the failure of the player - mostly synonymous with the death of the game character. In arcade and pinball machines was game over often shown when no one played, mostly in the center and flashing, but not constantly. As a rule, short game segments or parts of the last game were displayed, sometimes with noises, in order to attract customers ( attract mode ).
While in the beginning a game over marked the end of the game and required a restart, over time possibilities arose to delay the end of the game due to failure. With arcade machines of the 1970s, this followed the idea of keeping the player on the device and thus increasing sales. Way out was the Nachwerfen a coin during a countdown, could be revived so that the player character ( Continue function). Other possibilities were extra lives found during the game or, especially with pinball machines, credits earned through high scores or difficult game combinations . In the case of PC and console games, however, from the 1980s onwards, the free or automated saving of the game status ( savegame , checkpoint) made it possible to continue playing after a game over . The game Zork is considered a pioneer of the savegame . As a result, the importance of the game over as the final game end was increasingly lost. The following principle applied to computer games of the early 21st century: “The frustrating 'game over' has given way to a 'I'll go on in a moment'. Death is just a small hurdle that should cause as little frustration as possible. ” (Fabian Mauruschat, Der Spiegel).
The final death (“permadeath”) of the character plays an important role in games of the rogue-like type , in which the player is usually not given the opportunity to bypass a game over of his character. Later games of the type such as Rogue Legacy also used death as a mechanic for further development, in which the demise of the game character is also not reversible, but game successes achieved so far unlock new possibilities in the sense of an evolution and affect the successor character.
Phrase
With the increasing popularity of computer games, the phrase developed into a winged word that was also used outside of the computer game context. It is used colloquially to denote an abrupt end, similar to the one that the character in a computer game can meet.
- ... game over, man! Game over! - Bill Paxton as Pvt. Hudson in Aliens - The Return
- The title of the German version of the novel Gridiron by Philip Kerr is Game over . It describes how the intelligent control of a building turns against people after being contaminated with the program of a computer game.
Web links
- Patent of a pinball machine from 1950 with lamp instead of text
- Patent US6332838 : patent of a 3D game with game-over display of 2001
- Website with screenshots of game endings
- Game over at Gun Fight (1975)