Scoring Points: Difference between revisions
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While today many games don't even keep track of score - and the ones that do keep track do it for no reason whatsoever - most [[Muggles|outsiders to the gaming world]] still believe points are our coke. The truth is, score was never a big deal. Even ''[[Pac-Man]]'' players were more interested in what the new fruit in which level was.
About the ''only'' genres where scoring actually
Games nowadays use "[[Cosmetic Award|achievements]]". Now ''those'' are [[Serious Business]]. They started with Microsoft's Xbox Live service. All online Xbox owners get an online account, and MS decided to design their system so that accomplishing specific objectives in a game would result in earning an "achievement" that can be viewed on that player's online account, by themselves and other players, even when not playing the game. The idea proved popular, and similar functions were added to the Playstation Network (where they are called "trophies") and Steam. A certain few gamers are hell-bent on getting as many of these as possible, but most understand that anyone can buy a crappy game and get the achievements for it, so for most gamers, it's used to simply compare one's stash of achievements with another, especially across the same game.
'''Points ''about''
* Most games with points will give you a tally of the points and other bonuses you earned in the level via a [[Score Screen]].
* There is [[Pinball Scoring|some sort of inflation]] related to points. Killing one [[The Goomba|Goomba]] gets you a hundred points. You can't get less. Even from a technical standpoint, the extra zeroes are often phoned-in to save on memory; the goomba is technically worth one point, but there are two static zeroes after the score to give the illusion of more points.
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== [[Adventure Game]] ==
* [[Sierra]] had an age-old tradition of giving out points whenever the player did something positive, often for completely arbitrary reasons to inspire players to come back to the game later to try and get all the points. For their more comedic games, the developers would deliberately give goofy, arbitrary scores for some actions, most [[
* If you use the cheat code to win in [[The Secret of Monkey Island]], the game tells you you scored 800 out of 800 points. This is the only reference ''ever'' the game makes to your score.
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== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==
* ''[[Wolfenstein 3D]]'', the [[Trope Codifier]] for the [[First-Person Shooter]], had
* Return of scoring points in first-person-shooters appeared in ''[[Serious Sam]]'' series. In Serious Sam XBOX and Serious Sam II and in certain co-op modes in ''III'', score actually provides the player extra lives.
* Points are used to determine the winning and losing team in VS mode in ''[[Left 4 Dead]]''. The infected team also gains points as they attack the survivors, but in the first game they contribute nothing to the competition, thus they are mostly for show.
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* ''Captain Claw'' is an odd game, what with being a computer 2D platformer. One interesting quirk is that it's score, represented by the treasure you collected, aside from giving extra lives, was there to incite the player to find the secrets of the game since at the end of each stage the game specifically told you the treasures that you missed. The game was more than a tad harder if you went for the secrets, as each required equal parts non-human reflexes and calculations of non-intuitive reflexes to be reached.
* Parodied in [[Kirby Super Star]] after you beat the "Computer Virus" boss.
* [[Pac-Man World]] 2 had
== [[Puzzle Game]] ==
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* ''[[Beatmania]] IIDX'' has two different scoring systems. The more visible one (known to fans as the "money score") maxes out at 200,000 points per song and has a small combo factor that maxes out after 10 notes. Even though songs commonly have significantly more than 1000 notes, this is still enough to render the money score unsuitable for comparison. On top of that, there are several bonuses that may be awarded, including one for a full combo and one for completing the song with the '''minimum''' lifebar needed to pass. (Due to the mechanics of this game, it '''is''' possible to achieve both, and doing so while hitting the best judgment on every note would in theory net a money score somewhat over 210,000.) The other score (known as the "EX score") is based solely on judgments (2 points per Just Great, 1 point per Great) and determines the grade awarded. All rankings, official and non, use this score. Since difficulty in this game is largely about weathering a sudden spike of notes at the end, EX score is usually taken more seriously than whether or not you actually pass the song.
* ''[[Audiosurf]]'' is entirely based on maximizing your score and trying to beat the scores of everyone else who's played a given song. The problem there comes in when you learn that you can generally only win in certain modes, while others (particularly Mono) are limited in how many points they can score, so they can never show up on the scoreboards.
** ''[[Video Game]]/Audiosurf'' has many other problems. As ALL tracks except the radio tracks are user generated, and it's based entirely on the tag of the track, you may be competing against others in a totally different track, or even just slightly different because one person uses a better quality sound file. Not to mention, the ridiculousness of a 10% penalty upon
** When I overfill in Ironmode, it's game over. But the game's not done punishing me yet; it docks ''99999'' points from my score just to drive the point home.
* ''[[Rock Band]]'' has fans. Do well, get more fans. Do bad, lose some fans. While you'll need a few to access certain areas, you [[Double Unlock|also need stars]], and the chances of having enough stars but not enough fans are next to nil (it has good old-fashioned points too, but being a rhythm game, they're important. (They're converted to stars at the end of a song.)
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