Main > Main Forum
Am I on my last man, or next to last man?
leapinlew:
Attached are 2 screen shots. In Asteroids, it displays 3 ships in reserve but that includes the ship your using now. In Galaxian, it displays 2 ships in reserve, but the ship your using is not included in that total.
Asteroids is an example of showing 1 ship if you are on your last man.
Galaxian is an example of showing 0 ship's if you are on your last man.
Which is the correct way?
pinballwizard79:
Galaxian's method is the optimistic approach & my preference.
protokatie:
I always hated playing a new game and seeing 1 for lives left, dying, and then seeing game over. I was always like "Crap! I was under the impression I had 1 life LEFT!"
Meh, doesnt really matter tho...
jharris:
--- Quote from: pinballwizard79 on September 19, 2008, 09:38:23 pm ---Galaxian's method is the optimistic approach & my preference.
--- End quote ---
I think the reasons (for showing that last life icon) might be an unintended programming detail. For example, maybe the program counts three lives as "0, 1, 2" instead of the way we do it ("1,2,3"). Maybe the atari programmer dude was aware of this and thought players would appreciate seeing that last life as an icon on the screen. Who knows...
TOK:
Hate the Asteroids way... Probably wouldn't matter if you didn't play a lot of games that did it the other way, but it sucks to lose your last guy thinking you actually have another in reserve.