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Health (game mechanic)
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Health is a game mechanic used in computer and video games to give value to characters, enemies, NPCs, and related objects. This value can either be numerical, semi-numerical as in hit/health points, or arbitrary as in a life bar.
points, also known as life points, HP, damage points, or just health (among other synonyms), is a finite value used to determine how much damage (usually in terms of physical injury) a character can withstand.
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Encyclopedia
Health is a game mechanic used in computer and video games to give value to characters, enemies, NPCs, and related objects. This value can either be numerical, semi-numerical as in hit/health points, or arbitrary as in a life bar.
Health points
Hit points, also known as life points, HP, damage points, or just health (among other synonyms), is a finite value used to determine how much damage (usually in terms of physical injury) a character can withstand. When a character is attacked, the total damage dealt is subtracted from their current HP. Once their HP reaches 0, the character will be unable to fight. In role-playing games, health is often abbreviated by two letter initialisms such as HP.
In some role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, a player character's hit points are determined by character level. The hit points of monsters are decided by rolling "Hit Dice". Characters with high constitution will have an advantage when hit points are assigned. A character whose hit points are reduced to zero is considered dead or incapacitated. Other games sometimes lack levels, hit points, or both.
In certain editions of the game, player characters with 0 HP are not dead, but rather knocked unconscious. Within the range of -1 and -9, they are considered to be mortally wounded and dying, and their HP will steadily drop until it is stabilized. At -10, the character dies. Depending on the rules, a character who suffers 50+ points of damage from a single blow may die as a result of "Death from Massive Damage". The player must then make a "saving throw" of the dice in hope of countering the damage. Failure to do so results in the characters dying, regardless of their remaining HP.
In many console role-playing games, the objective is to deplete the hit points of enemies while maintaining the health of player characters. Hit points can typically be refilled by using a restorative item, staying the night at an "inn", or utilizing healing magic. Generally, characters are killed or rendered unconscious as soon as their hit points reach 0.
History
Dungeons & Dragons co-creator David Arneson described the origin of hit points in a 2002 interview. When Arneson was adapting the medieval wargame Chainmail to a fantasy setting, a process that with Gary Gygax would lead to the game Dungeons & Dragons, he saw that the emphasis of the gameplay was moving from large armies to small groups of heroes and eventually to the identification of one player and one character that is so essential to role-playing as it was originally conceived. Players became attached to their heroes and did not want them to die every time they lost a die roll. Players were given multiple hit points which were then incrementally decreased. Arneson took the concept, along with armor class, from a set of American Civil War naval rules.
Life bar
A health or life bar is used to display a character's health in many video games. A typical life bar is a horizontal rectangle which begins full of color. If damage is taken or mistakes are made, the colored area gradually reduces (some also change colour, typically from green to yellow to red, as health is reduced). When the bar is completely emptied, the result is game over (death, being knocked out, etc). There are many variations on the life bar:
In Street Fighter and other fighting games, the bar does not instantly immediately decrease when damage is taken. Instead, an area representing the damage is marked in red, and the health lost quickly drains away. This is useful in assessing the amount of damage caused by an attack.
Some games use an incremental bar, composed of many smaller bars. Each attack will remove a certain number of these bars. This system is used in the Mega Man series.
Icon-based health
Icons are another method for measuring health. In the The Legend of Zelda series of video games, the player's health is represented as small hearts, which are located near the top of the screen. Weak attacks against the player will take only a fraction of a heart (usually one-quarter or one-half) and stronger attacks may take many whole hearts at once. Several games make use of similar heads-up displays. Super Mario Bros. 2 uses small red icons (in 16-bit versions of the game, they're changed to hearts) in the top left corner to designate how many hitpoints the player has remaining, and Bram Stoker's Dracula uses small flasks of liquid.
Other games, such as Deus Ex, show a HUD of a human body, which is green to begin with. As the player takes damage, the respective region of the body turns yellow, orange, red, and eventually disappears altogether. For the head and torso, this is fatal.
Some video games also feature a recharging health bar (sometimes depicted as an energy shield). In these games, the player character cannot usually take as much damage as a player with a traditional life bar, but health regenerates over time (Usually when the player is hiding from enemy fire). Notable examples of this are the Halo series, Call of Duty 2, 3, and 4, Destroy All Humans!, Gears of War, "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas", "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent", and Red Steel. Some games, notably the Ratchet and Clank series, increase the maximum amount of health a player can carry as they progress through the game (usually to enable them to take on harder challenges in later levels).
Other variations
Incremental health
In the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the player collects rings, which are used as a life indicator. They are shown as numbers at the upper left side of the screen. Whenever an enemy touches the player character, Sonic, his rings scatter in all directions. If the player is fast enough, Sonic can reclaim some of the rings before they flicker and disappear. Sonic is at his most vulnerable when his ring total is at 0, at which point any further damage will cost him a life. Sonic's rings differ from most health mechanisms in that having multiple rings offers no extra protection; however many rings a player possesses, all will be lost with one hit with the exception of titles such as Sonic Blast, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic and the Secret Rings, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Unleashed.
Percentage meter
In the Super Smash Bros. series, instead of health bars featured in most fighting games, percentage meters are used. When attacking an opponent or being attacked by an opponent, the percentage meter rises based on the damage inflicted; as the percentage meter increases, the character gradually becomes easier to knock away with strong attacks, possibly getting knocked out of the arena and, thus, losing either a life or a point, depending on the mode of play.
Health represented without HUDs
In order to immerse the player in the gaming experience, some developers do away with the health bar (and other on-screen displays) completely and try to present a character's health in other ways, such as showing a character limping or displaying visible wounds when they are injured. In the Resident Evil video games, health is shown both with the player character limping and pressing his/her wounds in pain, and with an EKG display in the inventory screen. Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie has no life bar; instead, the screen flashes red, and vision becomes blurred (more damage indicated by a deeper red coloration). In recent games, characters usually slouch over and breathe heavily as a result of low health when left idle, blood stains or wounds may also appear on characters to show they are injured.
See also
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