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You are on your last life. What do you prefer your life counter displaying: x1 or x0?

How do you prefer your last life to be displayed?


Results are only viewable after voting.

OmegaFax

Member
x0 ... signifies that there are no more extra lives. x1 always throws me because I don't know if I'm on my last life or I have another go.
 
Well theres your problem, it's not an extra lives counter, it's a lives counter.

But it is an extra life counter, at least in some cases, and I prefer it that way. There's no reason it should have to explicitly state that. In fact, I'd say the opposite - it should explicitly state if it's NOT an extra lives counter. It's counter-intuitive to count the life of my on-screen player in the counter as well. That means it's the only counter up there that doesn't go to zero.
 
One of the great things about x0 is when you're not sure if it's there or not, as the x1 life fades into oblivion you hope to the gaming gods that the fabled zero life can bestow you with one more chance at redemption and on its reveal a feeling of relief washes over you. Then immediately following this things get tense, now you know for sure that this is it, the last shot, there's no more lives left to lose.
x0 has a feel of finality and adds a greater sense of weight to the proceedings.
 

softie

Member
In most games where you have a lives indicator, you gain extra lives by collecting an item that looks the exact same as the indicator. Losing a life substracts one from the counter to bring your ass back on the field, just like a phoenix feather. So it makes sense to associate the counter with the amount of items you have left "in your pocket".
When you have zero left, you won't have another chance to come back, so better stack this shit or you'll be gone. That's why 0x makes sense.
 
x0

I see the counter as extra lives. If I'm on my last life i want to see x0 because i have no more lives left. Any game with x1 confuses me
 
I like 0x, that way there's no confusion if I have 1 or 2 lives left. If I'm still alive and I have 0x, I know for sure that I'm on my last life.
 
Apparently I'm in the minority. Math, people. 0 x anything is always 0. If that's true, how am I still alive playing if I have 0 lives. Including the one I'm supposedly playing with at the moment.
 

Eusis

Member
Apparently I'm in the minority. Math, people. 0 x anything is always 0. If that's true, how am I still alive playing if I have 0 lives. Including the one I'm supposedly playing with at the moment.
Backup lives. How many more times you can die without getting game over. Basically it's all about if you want to include the live you're actively using.
 
x0 all the way.

I played Crash Bandicoot a lot when I was younger and that used x0. Also I always knew it signified extra or spare lives. I felt tricked when I first played Super Mario World a few years later and getting a game over with x1 left.
 

Vecks

Member
It depends on the wording for me. If it says extra lives, then 0 would be fine. If they aren't called extra, then I'd prefer 1. Either way it wouldn't make much difference to me though in the end. Having a low number of lives will make me more cautious all the same.
 
Backup lives. How many more times you can die without getting game over. Basically it's all about if you want to include the live you're actively using.

Yeah that's pretty much right. Or if they're explicitly called 'extra lives,' in which case it would make sense to support 0x.

It's so funny this is a topic. I've often thought about it lol.
 

Wichu

Member
x0 for me. Counting starting with 0 is the way forward.

...yes, I'm a programmer. How did you know?
 

GooeyHeat

Member
"x1" would be perfectly fine if it was universal, but it isn't, so only "x0" makes sense
I was about to say the same thing. I actually like x1 better just because... I don't know, but as long as x0 exists we should use that to clear things up.

One good trick is to always check how many lives you start with. 3 and 5 are common starting amounts, so if you start at x2 or x4 you probably have x0, while is it says x3 or x5 then x1 is probably your last chance.
 

Seik

Banned
Oh shit, it actually became a poll thread.

:lol

Welp, still going with x0. It nakes sense since you just used your last extra life and don't have any left.
 

III-V

Member
Prefer the x1.

Its really a question of how you count it.

Is it lives left? That would be x0.
Is it lives to live? That would be x1.
 

Espada

Member
Goddamn it, I voted for the wrong one!

Anyway, x0 always made more sense to me. You have a stock of lives (chances/attempts), and if you have no more than zero is the logical way of showing that.
 
The best thing about this debate is,
even when the x1 people don't get their way, they're still better off and never have cause to complain. :p
 

jtenma

Banned
I cant believe this conversation has gone on for so long lol! XD

But like I said earlier in this thread: anything times 0 is = 0.


Therefore;

1 character x1 = 1

1 character x0 = 0

Because of this, I prefer x1. Because it is your current player character times 1. I think of it mathematically.


EDIT: What everyone else said about x0 being better I also agree with though. There is no confusion. But I think there is confusion because everyone was reading it wrong.
 
x0.

In a perfect world where everything made logical sense, it would be x1. But since some video games do x1 and some do x0, I prefer x0, since when I'm on x0, I KNOW for SURE that it's really my last chance.
 

LX_Theo

Banned
x0. Not because I think it makes more sense for showing what is happening, but because its a good fallback where people can have that extra life instead of having one less than they thought they had.
 
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