Made Out Of Meat: Health Systems In Video Games

In this GDC 2016 talk, Catacomb Kids creator Tyriq Plummer explores both the resilience and fragility of the human body, and examines how our physical shortcomings can be applied to games in order to create more interesting challenges and experiences.
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[@thomassteele5748]

I find it amazing that there have been people who have lived through a sign pole being shoved through their head, but some people die from having a tiny blood vessel being pinched.

[@WiseSageBum]

Human bodies are a crazy combo of fragile and durable

[@undeniablySomeGuy]

critical hit

[@biblequotesdaily6618]

some parts can fall off its ok

[@NeostormXLMAX]

because human bodies are a fragile balance of small chemical reactions, there are specific things that can happen without disturbing the chemical reaction and allowing it to still continue, for example, one reason that mercury is so deadly is because the body assumes it to be phosphate and your body attempts to absorb it but because of the atomic weight of mercury it causes a lot of issues in the chemical reactions of humans

[@TheAmbientWarrior]

"You can't defeat your rude neighbor by repeatedly slapping him in the shin until he explodes" Thanks, I'll keep that in mind

[@kylejscheffler]

I think he's just not trying hard enough.

[@drakegaming3085]

is this a spoiler from an Avengers movie? It sounds like a spoiler from an Avengers movie.

[@redaminsleven2212]

unless you're freddy kruger

[@forposterity4031]

I jerk off in front of the window. It's worked so far.

[@bjorntoby3320]

You prolly dont give a shit but does anybody know of a way to log back into an instagram account? I was stupid forgot my password. I love any help you can give me!

[@ryleighs9575]

Favourite line from this presentation: "...and your horse is like really sad cause he's like "I'm sorry guy, I didn't mean to kick you"."

[@Array_Blacklight]

In Banjo-Tooie there's a snow level where you can be transformed into a living snowball and your size actually does grow or shrink proportional to your health bar. In this form you restore health by rolling around in snow-covered ground, growing bigger in the process. So this has literally been played straight!

[@xTobsecretx]

Him: "Before anything, we are physical beings" Me: stops astral projecting - "ah right, almost forgot!"

[@idle.observer]

One of the best GDC talks I've ever watched. Good effort!

[@invntiv]

It's not often that a GDC talk leaves you to philosophize the nature of your physicality in an enlightening yet terrifying way. What a truly insightful bag of meat this man is. And his game is truly awesome too. This channel never ceases to present new and informative talks

[@CurtisJensenGames]

josh mack Yeah, it’s pretty awesome, but I’d say that there are more inspiring talks than you might think. “Dots that Go For Walks” Talked about abstract art, “Meaningful Choice in Level Design” Talked about physchology and neurology, and “Lessons games can learn from Sports” talks about difficulty and reward in life. You should check them out! 😉

[@OnlyZunkin]

I'm glad this guy mentioned Dwarf Fortress. It tackles these issues like no other game I have ever seen. You can end up with everything from missing teeth or an infected finger nail to permanent motor nerve damage in your left hand after a dog bites it and latches on. You could be blinded. You could get legs or arms lopped off or you could suffer less deep tissue injury due to the fact you were fat or buff and the extra tissue absorbed the force from the blow.

[@0hate9]

It should always be mentioned in cases like this that Space STation 13 works a lot like Dwarf Fortress in this way, and is considerably easier to play.

[@wileywilson]

Kingdom Come Deliverance does this really well. Even at higher levels, you can get overwhelmed by several "weaker" NPCs if you are not careful. You cant just tank the damage as a meat shield, you need to position and keep moving.

[@ArtSio443]

because it doesn't use an "hitpoints" system. That thing alone has been a bane on the whole industry

[@MajkaSrajka]

@@ArtSio443 What system does KCD uses?

[@spootot]

I've been thinking about this recently and it's cool to see I'm not the only one ;P

[@andrzejkulakowski]

Same here, same here :D

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

Whoah, so there's now *three* people who pondered this notion. How does it feel to be part of such an elite group?

[@Zolbat]

I'm 5 minutes in and already love this presentation

[@the_Rincewind]

Rimworld IMO has a lot of the simulation approach to health and it is really well done.

[@Samarai-hf9si]

I'd say most Space Station 13 codebases fit into the "simulation" aspect of this presentation. It IS vastly simplified, with damage being mainly divided into four categories (brute, burn, toxin, suffocation), but considering it still manages to simulate blood levels, amputation and replacement of limbs, etcetera.

[@Raggaliamous]

I was thinking of this an engaging ecample of both fragility and... robustness. Plus its wield one's enemies own limbs back at them.

[@atklobas]

This talk reminded me how much I like the health system in wurm. individual body part damage, minor wounds heal, severe wounds get worse, treatment and healing can take hours, location of damage effects stats, and type of wound (cut/bruise) affects what treatments can be done. you can have minor damage all over your body that almost killed you but will heal by itself or have a single hole in your foot that will fester can kill you if you don't get expert care.

[@Gnefitisis]

This talk has squandered potential.

[@PurpleFreezerPage]

YOOOOO Imagine a game where weakening the player is what causes the difficulty curve Like imagine a metroidvania power-set at the start of the game, and slowly taking it away for harder and harder levels

[@misterproject8]

That could be interesting, but there's a lot of potential for things to go wrong. "Buff, don't nerf" is a common design practice for a reason - it's not fun to lose gameplay options, most of the time. That's why most games give the player new mechanics but also create bigger challenges in turn. Still, I'm not saying that it could not be done... it's just that it would need to be very carefully designed and tested.

[@buhbo3250]

I'm thinking something like the character has a progressing disease or ailment, and the faster/better the player performs on the easier levels when the character is mainly healthy, the less the disease progresses throughout the game. If you play horribly or dawdle far too much during the game, the character could end up barely able to finish the final levels.

[@SerDerpish]

That kind of setup sounds perfect for a horror game, but terrible for anything else

[@misterproject8]

@@SerDerpish hm, agreed.

[@dicksonZero]

i once learnt that some blind people learn how to see with sonar with bat-like behaviours. (whether it is true or not) perhaps instead of nerfing only, we can force the player to give up abilities, but let them use the disability in interesting ways, or as simple as levelling up the other remaining abilities. hell we can even unlock a special quest just to train this new skill

[@Kyotita1]

He should try the Romance of the three kingdoms games. Birth, Age, and Death all are involved in that series.

[@TheFinagle]

Once VR comes into its own (matrix like VR not this sudo VR we have now) we WILL be able to have full simulation of every injury from cuts to broken bones down to a sore muscle from the character having over done it at the gym (even though the player didn't 'play' that part of the game) as defined within the games code.

[@SparkingPony]

The problem I see with this talk, is that video games aren't about persons, not necessarily. They're about an experience, almost always an experience you can't have every day. A game, by virtue of being a game, must have challenge, and reward for overcoming the challenge; there's a reason the Stanley Parable isn't a game, its a parable (hence the name). If I want to make a game about blowing away terrorists or aliens or alien terrorists, and the challenge that comes with the danger of going toe-to-toe with terrorists, aliens, or alien terrorist , I'm going to use a very basic template, one that's understandable at a glance: an action hero, a Bruce Willis. The player doesn't need to have some complex story to their avatar, unless said story can enhance the game. If so, maybe I'll choose a Ripley, but even Ripley has to have enough meat to face the same challenges as Willis, unless the game changes entirely to reflex Ripley's fragility. But then I'm not making a game about charging headlong into alien terrorists, I'm making a game about a fragile protagonist trying to survive an extra-terrestrial jihad. I don't want games about "you," I want games about experiences. Even if that experience is being more made of parts, fragile, and resilient than your average protagonist. But that's only one kind of experience, games can offer, I want more than that.

[@urfavoritehumanbean879]

Great talk! BTW, I only noticed he smacked all of the time after ending the presentation, wow.

[@torymiddlebrooks]

Great presentation and the title was spot on

[@maxscribner1743]

Such a great talk, I need this now

[@Aogami20]

This video came out in 2016, I wonder what he would think of Resident Evil 7 and 8's health and recovery systems since they're so visceral. Metal Gear Solid 3 had a pretty robust field surgery healing system with health and stamina for over-time recovery as well. What about games like 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim where characters become fatigued and can't be deployed, or characters becoming injured and needing a certain amount of battles or events to pass before they're available again? I've seen plenty of systems that incorporate time to recovery in that way. The second LISA game also deals with lost limbs, death and human fragility in a very permanent and consequential way.

[@tailsfox45]

this guy is obviously really passionate but man he is not confident. I would love to see him develop those skills and give more talks like this

[@Marinealver]

G-NOME, step outside the Mech and in your space suit, you felt very vulnerable. You hear your breath and if you listen closely you can even hear your heartbeat through the speakers. Even exiting the AI states the vehicle you are in as "Human Warrior".

[@farhadhussain9142]

During this qurantine watching this video just relaxed me

[@TheMasonX23]

"There's not really an easy way to convert back and forth between humans and balls" - tell that to Samus... Great talk though! :)

[@DarkJ0hn4r]

I would love see more games woth the metal gear 3 formula, its not hardcoded and doesnt pain in the ass. if you leg its hurted your speed its down also cant jump properly. if your arm its hurted your recoil increases. if you have injuries your max hp decreases.

[@canhedotricks6078]

this is such an awesome talk

[@aliatef7203]

Why is no one talking about neo scavenger that game had a perfect balance between simulation and abstraction

[@momopirou3107]

Kenshi has a really nice system for that.

[@Ritsuchan95]

Manual Samuel could be a good example of "meatness" on a game's core

[@spencechan]

If I think about the end of the first season of the (Telltale) Walking Dead, or "the University Scene" in The Last of Us. Being in the role of the protector but then have your human vulnerability put you in a situation where you're physically unable to protect really does evoke strong emotions. Sorta indirectly related to the subject of this talk, but yeah, removing the "Unbreakability" of the protagonist is an interesting avenue to explore.

[@AkaiKnight]

Guy talks about how he likes survival games for 30 minutes.

[@dabossman5650]

Batman has an excuse-Very good armour

[@brandonhlm2780]

13:53 thats metal as fuck

[@daviddelrio6841]

Kenshi not beign mentioned enough here bothers me

[@ElZorroXIV]

3 Words: Kingdom Death Monster

[@andrewenderfrost8161]

*Mental note* make the loading screen a hospital bed.

[@foreignuser_]

RIP Catacomb Kids

[@joshuagriffiths92]

did he say bigness? instead of size or height

[@silaselsewhere8404]

The first guy during the QA's voice sounds VERY familiar.. but i cant place it

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

"and your horse is sad"

[@Anonamix]

@27:45 Tell me that wasn't Charles from shoddycast

[@Te3time]

Project zomboid does this pretty well I think

[@theironmullet]

I didn't want a 30 minute preview of your game.

[@zetetick395]

This problem is what destroyed Playdeads *Inside* for me - Death was wholly stripped of any meaning! A damn shame, as the world-atmosphere they created is a magnificent achievement!

[@ocarrace]

good talk but for the love of Christ why did noone get him a glass of freaking water.

[@wildgrem]

thank *_lipsmack_* you

[@vikkio88]

ahaha fucking hell, was thinking exactly the same thing, can't bring myself to finish the talk now because of those noises ahahah

[@IronFreee]

Maybe so that he feels the need to get to the point before dying of thirst...

[@jaimemagnum]

I think it has to do more with nerves, public speaking is tough for most introverts. If you pay close attention you can see he stops doing it in the Q&A section.

[@IronFreee]

@@jaimemagnum Anxiety can make your mouth dry and this guy had a good reason to be anxious...

[@oli4_vh]

I love how a lot of these speakers are just as bad at speaking to a public as me. like 50% has some sort of stage fright and feels/speaks really awkward. but the talks are great none the less :)

[@andrewescocia2707]

they kinda remind me of the eve online fanfest talks i watched , the devs are well, computer guys, sometimes not speaking in their native language. hats off to them tho and thanks for the great talks.

[@suplextrain]

They're bad at speaking to a public because they rarely do it. It's a skill you learn. It comes more naturally to some, but you still have to learn it. Being prepared and practicing said speech beforehand also greatly helps. Finally, speaking slightly slower than you usually do and focusing on articulation also makes your speech better.

[@ConfusedProud]

I thouhght this guy was pretty compelling actually. You can its not his job, but I enjoyed his speaking way more than average.

[@MsJavaWolf]

I find most of them not bad. The average guy in university is much worse.

[@Funkopedia]

@@suplextrain Exactly, and if your job is 95% at a monitor, you have to really make up for the lost experience.

[@davidvino6018]

Amazing talk. The speaker is genuinely interested and passionate about the subject at hand, and it really inspires you to think about alternative health systems. Tyriq, you have a new fan.

[@WatchdogGoon]

We are all made of meat, we mortals. In death we are all Tyriquals.

[@DarkJ0hn4r]

well i think the fps and 3rperson can take the formula of Metal Gear 3, when you recive a shot its a probability to need Heal and wait for injures dissapear.

[@Rezendes]

Agreed! I really want to hear this guy talk more about games, despite his nerves and the lip smacking. He's passionate.

[@Gnefitisis]

You're kidding? He spent too much time saying the obvious but without making any interesting points or suggestions.

[@davidvino6018]

​@@Gnefitisis That was a comment from 4 years ago lmao But yes I still get inspired by this video. I'm not making a game with a health system this interesting (yet, just using numbers for health and armor rn. Doing otherwise might be too complicated for players with 4 characters to manage at a time) but I'd love to work on something like that in the future.

[@stedunn563]

P.S Rimworld is a fantastic game, this has a real feeling of "meatyness" they can lose an eye and as a result they lose shooting accuracy, they can bleed out, they can die from infection, it's quite brutal.

[@sagehanson190]

The other day my guy got his nose shot off by a centipede mechanoid lmao

[@R1ckr011]

Also you can use skin as appoulstry material xD

[@TheValinov]

good old *operation flashpoint* had the best meat simulation i have ever played. getting shot in the legs... crawling to the mission end zone for like 45 minutes! xD

[@ReverendTed]

This is what came to mind for me, as well as the successors like ARMA.

[@jakenielson7837]

These GDC talks are great. I'm surprised they aren't getting more views. It's kind of hard to get this kind of insight into game design in such a digestible way.

[@CurtisJensenGames]

This sophisticated side of KZbin is growing though, thankfully 🙂

[@cosmotect]

Seems like just the right amount of views if you take into count the size of the industry and the amount of people interested in the topic within the industry

[@WalkerRileyMC]

Mostly because a lot of these speakers have some quirk that is a bit annoying to listen to for a length of time. This guy here is smacking his lips after every pause in a sentence. that is annoying as fuck.

[@petersmythe6462]

"We have one thing in common which is what we're made of" A fixed sized pool of hitpoints which are of little consequence until they hit zero?

[@warcrafthumanlord]

This person obviously didn't play Kenshi. I think the amount of joy he would get from the fact that you loose limbs and that healing takes time would be overwhelming...

[@KRIMZONMEKANISM]

You can go further away even. The Fallout games, from the old, to the new, all had a limb system.

[@warcrafthumanlord]

@@KRIMZONMEKANISM Yeah i played them. But for me there isn't really a contest for Kenshi, from potato peelers (machines that flay people alive), to bone dogs playing fetch with your femur bone to skin stealing bandits that wear your face... It's really nasty. Especially since the game is connected to your party and not you yourself all these things are a natural occurence during a normal playtime where your characters can regularly die off or you can attempt to rescue them and perform transplants and other operations...

[@Absurdistcomedy]

You can lose body parts in his game catacomb kids, still survive, and have to hobble everywhere. I think he knows

[@antorseax9492]

Lose

[@Ahrone1586]

@@warcrafthumanlord kenshi is the ultimate game, 11/10. You fuckng right.

[@Kirtahl]

MEAT! I like the diminishing return question. Because It comes to a point that the mechanics overwhelm the players ability to have fun.

[@R1ckr011]

Only for "popular" games tbh

[@paralysekid]

@@R1ckr011 No, it's really a question of genre as he said. Not every player is interested in dealing with so many little details and being cautious of permanent damage all the time. Some games are simply made for a more relaxed time. It has nothing to do with popularity. There are easy games that are not popular, where a heavy recovery system like that would completely destroy the fun.

[@R1ckr011]

@@paralysekid You're not addressing what I said. You're simply dismissing it and providing no actual details. "Popular" games really quite rarely have in-depth mechanics. Three's an increasing trend away from them, with a few counter-examples like the resurgent immersive Sim genre. You can't escape that certain genres will likely never be mainstream.

[@paralysekid]

@@R1ckr011 I understand what you're trying to say, it just sounds a lot like you're simply using an elitist mindset of "these mainstream games are so simple, only my niche genre is superior and has complex mechanics", which I tried to disprove. But maybe I just got your message wrong.

[@R1ckr011]

@@paralysekid Not really. Check out Ross's Game Dungeon. The industry has fundamentally changed. Most industries have, to be frank. An exception might be television which has a whole swath of new streaming services still, but everything else has undergone rather impressive levels of consolidation not seen since the likes of Standard Oil. At least the indie and Rom scene is extremely vibrant. Godspeed to them.

[@nemo84]

Now I can explain better what made me feel an play unusual health systems, like in Hybrid Heaven, MGS3 Snake Eater or Fallout series. And how they worked... or not. Thanks, Tyriq!

[@willccclarke]

Particularly Fallout 1 and 2, not so much the FPS versions :)

[@dani4ever]

The first Fable kind of gave me that feeling, I didn't want to get scars on my character, but I was a kid and the simple mechanic took over my mind way easier.

[@hauntedshadowslegacy2826]

The funny thing is that people complain about games desensitizing kids, but you bring up an interesting concept. If kids get used to the idea of 'oh, my character got hurt and it had lasting effects', they could easily translate that into the real world as 'I made my character do that, and they were hurt, so if I do that, it'll hurt me, so maybe I shouldn't do that'.

[@gregglind]

Oregon Trail has an abstract system that defines the difficultly curve of the game. Games about endurance and will are too rare, but exist in literature: the hobbits in Mordor. I would love to see a game based around building morale and morale buffs: inns, crews, good food, sleep, warm nights, etc. Where finding a good place to sleep matters.

[@ArtSio443]

Darkest Dungeon is pretty good at it. As is the whole "Old-School Renaissance" of DnD trend it's based upon

[@aidangifford1673]

You would probably like frostpunk. It's a city builder that takes place in a massive global cooling event. In the game you have to keep everyone unified with hope and prevent discontent. It's a very interesting take on a city builder

[@stm7810]

It's about group moral rather than individual, but Warfare 1917 is fun because each soldier is a fragile human, but your main goal is demoralising your enemy whilst keeping your own troops motivated.

[@JoelDuggins]

Fantastic talk. The transition to Dwarf Fortress was perfect.

[@phobos2k2]

Made Out of Meat: Water Systems in Mouths

[@makingnoises2327]

OH MY GOD ive always loved catacomb kids, i never bothered to look up the person that made it and he's awesome! great talk!

[@OnyxIdol]

Was hoping for a mention of dwarf fortress!

[@ocarrace]

OnyxIdol he talks about it around the 16 minute mark

[@OnyxIdol]

***** Yeah, I know. What I meant was I'm glad DF was mentioned.

[@timothymclean]

It would be hard to talk about this subject without mentioning Dwarf Fortress.

[@bradpotts1747]

he was all people have thoughts and hopes and weird fuckin bodies but i dont see that ..but...but you already mentioned dwarf fortress

[@NexuizIncarnate1]

@@timothymclean No kidding. Most intricate damage model I've ever seen in a game, even though it could be hilariously wonky at times. I'll never forget taking grandmaster kicking in Adventurer years ago and kicking out the entire starting village's teeth in their sleep without them waking up, but then upon picking up one tooth and throwing it at one of them, they all woke up and started violently retching from the pain. The visual I get from that is absolutely incredible.

[@minch333]

Nice talk! He should play overgrowth. Seeing as health is one of the most fundamental mechanics of games, it would be nice to see more games experiment with the idea, though right now it would probably take a few small games whose focuses would be on exploring their own health mechanics before other games could take inspiration from them. I can see more rouge-lites in the future perhaps taking inspiration from the binding of issac, who came up with the interesting idea of turning your health into a commodity that can be traded in. I would also believe it if it turned out that the new doom game took inspiration from bloodborne's health mechanics showing that killing enemies to restore one's health leads players to play more aggressively. I know these are more abstract than what the talker is calling for, but along with a call for realism, I think there should be a more general call for greater experimentation with health, as it has to be one of the most play style defining mechanics out there and too often games just rely on either health bars or regenerative health to signify harm.

[@DeTaXeSports]

Where is the "this is not a roguelike, its a roguelite" comment?

[@andygomer9300]

This entire talk I was just thinking about Bushido Blade. They really need to remake that game. In that game you didn't have an HP bar, if your leg got injured you could no longer stand or run, and one blow from the enemy could kill you.

[@michaelatanasio223]

"When was thelast time you felt breakable"? Baldur's Gate. The segment where you fight an assassin at an inn before going to the mines and then come back to find another, again at the inn. They attacked you when you were likely to be weakened and vulnerable- outside the inn when you were likely looking to rest your party. They were noteably stronger than enemies usually were at that stage of the game (offset by the city guards that would jump in to help you as long as you weren't a villain). But you were still very fragile and the fight was likely to knock out a party member (again, this was offset somewhat by a temple nearby to revive them). It was the first time I felt... Hunted...in a game.

[@Koniving]

Somebody should play Arma / DayZ... One day I got sick from the rain and went through hospitals, schools, convenience stores, etc. trying to find cold medicine until I decided to lay down on a hill in the middle of the forest and fall to sleep (log out), and 9 hours later I woke up (logged in)...and my cold was gone. Or another time a friend of mine got injured and was bleeding out (DayZ Standalone), we couldn't find bandages or any of the stuff from the DayZ mod, so I thought "look I can't find a bandage, but I found an extra shirt... I wonder if" so I put it into my hands.. and I had the option to rip it, and so I did... and with several strips of cloth now in my inventory I applied one to my friend for a makeshift bandage on his arm. Once spent a week with a broken leg, can you imagine going through a zombie infested city like that? I don't have to, I did. Never found so many uses for useless items before in my life as noise makers and lures to lure them away from me before they find me. Accidentally swallowed disinfectant once when trying to use it to disinfect my wounds. Nausea, blurred vision, vomiting, my friend tried desperately to help but I couldn't hold still and at one point I couldn't tell him apart from the plant next to him. I fell unconscious and he was attacked during this. I remained unconscious, presumably assumed dead, some of my stuff raided. When I wake up I call out quietly, but there's no answer. My buddy is nearby murdered. Due to carry limitations, he still has some of his stuff so I collect it and in the next room I find the guy sorting what he found apparently trying to decide what was worth keeping and what he might come back for. Both of our backpacks are on the ground in front of him. I've got a shovel and a slight problem, my vision is black and white, blurred with trails, and the only reason I can tell the difference between him and our two backpacks is he's moving and I can hear zippers. Undetected, I took a swing...and hit a backpack. Thankfully in another couple of blind swings I managed to somehow kill him. Except... I killed my friend. In the scuffle I heard earlier, my friend was actually victorious. But his mic was muted by accident, so when I called out for him he replied but I couldn't hear it. He didn't "detect" me because why wouldn't he trust me, he knew I was there. Just not what I thought or was about to do. And I got him because he wasn't in a position to fight back and didn't want to hurt me. Meat... hard to find a better representation.

[@R1ckr011]

*slow clap*

[@Spider-Too-Too]

Friendly fire is always an interesting concept

[@Rc3651]

There's something unpleasant about lip smacking, particularly when the focus is on people being meat. Every smack is a reminder of his meatiness. Of his wet, moist meat audibly slapping together and sticking to itself. It's like his meaty meat is meeting meatily right next to my ears, which coincidentally are also made of meat. It's a cavalcade of unsettling horrors all the way down, I tell you I do appreciate the discussion though, I think health system are important and they don't get enough focus! Most people have just switched to regen systems and called it good.

[@batfan1939]

My favorite system, that I've never seen in another genre/type, is the body map seen in pro wrestling games. Would love to see that in an action brawler or shooter, where an injured arm weakens your punches, or injured legs means reduced mobility. You could have injured abs or pecs cause a character wince or freeze.

[@Justowner]

I saw a total remake mod in the source engine which had location damage from bullets, and every time you died you got a full write up on what killed you. Like, round passed through lung into heart, etc.

[@notinthemoodfornames8033]

Great talk, great point, would love to see a bit more discussion on how to balance this need to make "meaty" player bodies (which is quite essential in inspiring empathy and generating suspense) and keeping the gameplay fun and difficulty-balanced (that is, how to make sure your sustained damage don't lead to difficulty spikes that are uncrossable cus most games are not roguelikes and if you place an uncrossable difficulty spike before the player they get mad). Also, dude you talk great but it feels like you're constantly snacking on your tongue or something...

[@colinmcginty3959]

Man, really wish he brought up the game NEO Scavenger. Has a nice balance between simplification and simulation, imo. The combat and enemy health system is also just brutal and merciless.

[@GurtTarctor]

I'd love a proper sequel to that game. I wish more games had that approach to combat and player health, there's probably a bunch of great roguelikes I need to find and play.

[@MajkaSrajka]

Kenshi

[@Lunareon]

It would be cool to see more of these ideas applied to games, especially in VR. Lose an arm? The other hand controller stops working. Lose an eye? Depth-vision disappears. Lose sight entirely? Screen goes black, but you can still navigate by touch and sound. With the help of some more recent inventions, it's even possible to create sensations of temperature and weight. These could be turned into interesting and challenging game mechanics that would work especially well in the horror genre.

[@Wohodix]

Seing how poor the gameplay of AAA is we are very far from this , but yes

[@Moonz97]

This is genius

[@dicksonZero]

wow

[@OnlyZunkin]

Dwarf Fortress models physiology and bodily injury amazingly well.

[@ryleighs9575]

Being a fan, that was my first thought at the title of this talk.

[@MajkaSrajka]

First Deus Ex'es?

[@user-bf5sc8pn8x]

Quick, eat some candy bars to regrow your legs

[@thecoolcarhd4402]

also neo scavenger

[@Lechuga1815]

I think Uncharted did a really cool version of health that i've always kind of assumed for fps games which was that you died in essentially one shot, but the more you get "shot" is just a representation of your luck running out. Like it doesn't make sense that you can take and heal from an endless amount of bullets, but if you aren't getting hit and it just plays like the enemies are missing until you die kinda seems more legit.

[@steveejohnson7932]

The lip smacking is so bad I couldn't watch the video.

[@RobinPortnoff]

Favorite health system in games: Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress

[@petersmythe6462]

One problem I would say from a gameplay standpoint is: chronic seriously debilitating injury isn't fun. Having a character that has to play around their injuries is fun. Having a player that *can't* play around their injuries isn't. If your character will never leave the hospital again you probably aren't gonna play them. If you anticipate that non-speedrunner players will reset if they get a certain debuff, it is a bit questionable if that should even be a debuff at all rather than an instant kill unless there is some way to heal it or work around it.

[@AStrategyGameDev]

Health system where every-time you smack your lips you lose a hit-point

[@Taskun56]

All the people giving him crap for the noises and whatnot should realize something: YOU are here typing away on his channel and mocking him or drawing attention to something you perceive is a failing. HE was on that stage at GDC giving a professional talk to other professionals in the industry. Not only is he succeeding at what he is aiming to do, but he is overcoming the nerve-wracking anxiety that comes with the weight of what he is actively doing. If he makes mistakes he is remembered for them. But he still manages to get his point across and his industry respects and values his opinions.

[@NickLandry]

This. I'm a professional software engineer and I have been doing professional talks for now 22 years. Yet GDC still eludes me (I tried) but this guy made it. He is there. He is speaking at GDC. You guys have no idea what a big deal that is. Kudos to him. Not only did he overcome obvious anxiety to be on stage, but he also had the courage to tackle an unusual topic and provoke philosophical questions. Great job!

[@LotusVette84]

This makes me think about the Rimworld damage/health system. It is pretty detailed, including pain and disease among other things. Also you need hospital bed to heal people, and a recovery time that depends on the injury, the skill of the person performing the doctor role, and the quality of medicine available.

[@jackawaka]

Yeah in a nutshell rimworld is simplified dwarf fortress

[@jennyada1429]

Great talk! MGS3 Snake Eater anyone?

[@Rislear]

What a thrill

[@GelidGanef]

Planetside 2 was a game with an interesting example of a time-cost for injury. Okay, technically, it was a time-cost for death. But in my few months of wandering around the game world as a ronin, squadless, I always found the really high time-cost to run from respawn to the active battlefields really interesting. I know squads have ways around that long run to the front lines, but just taking the hit was so much more interesting to me as a player. Having to learn the geography like that. Having to physically return to the heartland of your country when you got seriously injured, then transit back. It was a really unique take.

[@rogercruz1547]

Long live Headshot mechanics!

[@MungeParty]

Interesting topic but I couldn't get past the constant clicking sound.

[@Dayvit78]

I don't know if it was my biology professor, but someone said, we're electrified meat. It's true, we're meat. But what makes us interesting is the electricity. Without that, we're what's called dead.

[@MrNucleosome]

It's just a talk about what kind of "health" systems exist, but no tips, tricks or anything else useful for calculation, design or implementation. Sorry, but this is the first GDC talk I really disliked. Waste of time.

[@petersmythe6462]

I would say there is one layer of abstraction beyond health, and that is the one hitpoint wonder, i.e. boolean health. You are either dead, or alive. Everything either kills you, doesn't, or has a finite probably of killing you, but you store no additional health state information besides being dead or alive. It might be that a sword hit from above has a 50% chance to instagib vs one from below which has a 20% chance, but, fundamentally, either way, there are only two outcomes. Dead or fine.

[@Gerugon]

Dwarf Fortress

[@wanghaifeng7998]

Deus Ex, Fallout, Darkest Dungeon.

[@ArtoMSaari]

I like the dwarf fortress representation. I think many RPGs could benefit of having multiple thresholds to represent human condition like pain, consciousness, physical trauma and loss of blood. These can be impacted by various ways and can interact as systems. Too much pain will take away consciousness for example

[@meditationsanddimensions542]

I cannot stand a speaker that always gulp and swallow his saliva noisely at the microphone. You can have the best talk ever, but i just cannot enjoy it hearing all those strange saliva and gulp noises.

[@platonp1436]

one of the most enjoyable talks i saw on GDC =) i like this guy, i see real passion for games in what he think and talk about ) PS: doing rouglike too atm ) browser, flash )))

[@R1ckr011]

Oof how's that going?

[@milesbrown2261]

This was a great talk! I loved it! Very well structured, almost poetic!

[@Roxfox]

Not strictly a health system (although a long term consequence for failing at challenges, so technically, maybe it is?) but Sid Meier's Pirates from 2004 played with time in these ways! The game runs on a clock, in part to simulate the Caribbean sandbox, but mostly to keep track of the character's age, as he becomes more sluggish and difficult to play as he grows old, and is forced to retire from sailing at a certain age. So the challenge for the player is to get as much done as quickly as possible before the end game becomes literally too difficult to complete. There are three instances that I can remember where time is spent to recover from failure. One thing is that crew morale can drop based on time spent at sea and gold earned, and the only real way to fix it is to dock and divide plunder, which not only splits your money up and forces you to hire new crew, but your peeps decide to spend six months on land to have some fun. A penalty that you really start to feel if you have to do it frequently. Second, if you lose a battle at sea, you become marooned, and your character has to waste a number of months (randomized I think?) on a tiny island until a passing ship finds him. This penalty can be directly affected by having purchased a signaling mirror or flare beforehand that will increase the chance of being found faster. And lastly, attempting to sneak around in a hostile city and being found by the guards gets you thrown in prison for a few months. There's a chance to affect this time spent, also, as sometimes a guard will accept a bribe after a certain time, or if you've acquired a lockpick ahead of time you can attempt to sneak back out. With the chance of being caught once more, of course, so maybe it's smarter to wait!

[@Dayvit78]

I played that game allllll the time. I love those mechanics. Now that you mention it, it's kinda rogue like when you have to divide up the plunder and start over with a new crew.

[@studionovega1407]

4:13 "our irritating need to do things like eat" yes! this man is thinking like a developer. xD jkjk

[@morganwardfilm]

StudioNOVEGA hunger is the biggest enemy when ur in the code zone lol

[@scorpiusjones5436]

This is one of the most interesting, genuinely funny talks I've seen on this channel. Well done 👏🏻 Also, I ate a cheeseburger while I watched this lol

[@NuclearBadger8]

Kenshi and Project Zomboid come to mind when watching this video.

[@vast634]

Asking in the local pharmacy for a healing potion will get you weird looks.