No Extra Lives

No Extra Lives is a game I was going to submit to the 2008 Slamdance Games Festival, back when it was actually going to happen.

Click Here to download No Extra Lives

Notes: This game is a bit of a beta, as I'm still learning to use Game Maker. You'll notice a few bugs, such as jumping in a tight corridor, or that you can climb up on tombstones if you press them against something. Just know that I've noticed these bugs, and that I plan to do something about them.

For this game, I wanted to play with convention of games which has lately been dying out: lives. In No Extra Lives, the player uses death as a tool in order to solve puzzles. A player's lives are a resource to be used sparingly.

For the levels I was inspired by games like The Adventures of Lolo and Portal. No Extra Lives is a puzzle-platformer in which players must make their way to a goal by using their lives to overcome obstacles. I wanted to make each level feature a different aspect of the main mechanic, much like how Portal's levels build upon the bizarre physics of the game.

Thus there are tombstones to be moved, lasers to be avoided or to not be avoided, and situations in which the player must avoid some obstacles just in order to loose a life at another. The best way to experience it is to play it, so download it and run it.