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[ink.inc]

While working on my game, I realized just how many satisfying, entertaining, tremendously horrible ways there were to kill off your players. These are a few that I came up with/borrowed from other media.


-Getting pulled into a meat grinder
-Getting shanked and pinned to a wall (specifically like Wash from Firefly)
-Decapitation (a classic. never gets old!)
-Splattered by falling rocks
-Splattered by wall trap
-Pulled apart like in District 9
-Gettin 'Sploded
          -eating grenades
          -piercing, explosive ammo
          -run over
-Pulled Underwater
-Getting sucked into a jet engine while sky diving
-Melted in Acid

List a couple of your faves!

[Jonathan Whiting]

Nethack deaths are the best, I quote: "trying to tin a cockatrice corpse without gloves"

[Ashkin]

Although rare, getting swallowed by a shark/large fish that jumps out of the water and eats you in midair can be terribly satisfying.

[Sorano]

For some reason, I am always disturbed when my character gets petrified. It greatly unnerves me, I think it's awesome.

[fraxcell]

I love the totally crazy deaths you can get in Spelunky or Dwarf Fortress. Like in Dwarf Fortress, I'd find some skeleton of a Dwarf who got trapped in a pit a few months or seasons after he died, or in adventure mode, where you're heart gets ripped out by a wolf or your brains start coming out or something.

[ness io kain]

Nethack deaths are the best, I quote: "trying to tin a cockatrice corpse without gloves"

YES.
A huge part of why I keep playing that game is all of the awesome deaths. I'll never be good enough to actually make it far in the game... So I play crazy and take risks, because I don't care if I die as long as I die gloriously (or hilariously, which is probably even better).

[moi]

pressure room with a rocket launcher in the middle and a depressurization button on a outside wall (with a window)

[Sorano]

Dying from asphyxiation in the vacuum of space.

So traumatizing.

[slembcke]

Ragdolls can be satisfying (not even death necessarily) when you have a lot of corners involved. UT2k4 had a basketball like game mode. In order to jump through one particular hoop, you had to jump out over a deep pit riddled with girders. After scoring you got to watch the ragdoll play a game of plinko on the way down. Also satisfying is the vaporization effect.

For the Disney web game we worked on, we wanted to put portals at the bottom of pits, but it was decided by the suits that it was too confusing. Basically instead of dying, you fall into a portal that seamlessly plops you back out into an earlier section of the game. It was a pretty sweet effect when we had it though as there was always a swirling hole through the blackness directly below you.

[MaloEspada]

Play Tower of Heaven. There are some kickass deaths there.

[PsySal]

Once in nethack I was killed by my own children, who were gargoyles. I polymorphed into a gargoyle, laid a bunch of eggs in a room in minetown, locked the room, forgot about it, came back, "why's that door closed?", opened the door, started to get attacked by half of 9 gargoyles, zapped them with wand of sleeping, bolt missed the gargoyle, missed a gargoyle, hit the wall, bounced, missed a gargoyle again, missed the first gargoyle again, hit me, and do you want your possessions identified?

[ness io kain]

Play Tower of Heaven. There are some kickass deaths there.

True, but that's mostly just the animations... Conceptually, they're all smiting. Are we talking about cool ideas or cool execution?

PsySal, that's amazing.

[TheLastBanana]

Having your flesh melted off by acid is always pretty terrible.
Also, dying in lava.  Not like, singing your buttcheeks on lava like in Mario 64, but an actual animation of somebody sinking into lava and bursting into flames.  Screaming is probably involved.

[Sir Raptor]

Nethack deaths are the best, I quote: "trying to tin a cockatrice corpse without gloves"

I once died in that game from kicking too many walls. Seriously. I died from kicking walls.

[ness io kain]

Oh, yep. That happens to me all the time. Sometimes I do it on purpose.

[PsySal]

Aha, you know you can s)earch for doors right?

[Aquanoctis]

Has anyone seen these? They're from Heart of Darkness:

And that game is E-rated...

Also, the deaths from Limbo look quite...inventive? They're pretty gruesome considering it's a black and white 2d platformer.

[ink.inc]

Has anyone seen these? They're from Heart of Darkness:

And that game is E-rated...

Whoa. Those are... inventive. This was an E rated game?

[ness io kain]

That video was amazingly inspiring, Aquanoctis!
The next time I do a game that requires death animations, I'm going to try to make them at least half as cool as those are... If I even succeed on that level, I'll be happy.

Aha, you know you can s)earch for doors right?

If I'm going to die early anyway, which way is going to be more fun?
Like I said, I take stupid risks. 

[TeeGee]

The old 2d Prince Of Persia games were pretty much a festival of gruesome and creative deaths.

I vote for getting splattered after trying to fly a magic carpet without opening the ceiling first as the most creative player death ever.