Been toying with Battlevoid Harbinger, a very basic game, a short-session roguelike kind of thing. And I notice that, although brutal, it rewards you upon failure in a way that consolates you nicely. The xp you gain upon death helps you unlock different, bigger, more powerful spaceships, so whenever you explode, there's, beyond your "aww", a little "yay" of anticipation for the next available ship.

Made me think about the few games where the player's death is somewhat rewarding.

There are games based on dynasties, where you inherit goods or traits from your former character (Sunless Sea, Rogue Legacy, etc). There are games where unlocked elements are available from the get-go in the next session, be it in the world's early levels or in your inventory (like The Pit, or Desktop Dungeons). And there are games where death animations -or messages- are so cool that they make dying a joy (as in Undying, or sierra-on-line adventure games).

So, general round-up. Which are the games where dying (or failure) provide such nicely motivating compensations ?

Metroid makes things a lot easier by dying.

You can either spend 30 minutes mucking all the way across the planet or die and be immediately reborn on the other side of the planet.

Descent 3 is hard as nails... but unlike the earlier Descent games, it provides you with unlimited lives.

Hence, with quite many enemy encounters, especially certain bosses, it makes sense to just charge in guns blazing, not caring about your own survival, as long as you can deal at least some damage to your enemies, Then just come back from your respawn point and do it over and over again...

The only drawback is that when you die, you drop all your extra weapons and powerups, so you need to pick them up every time so it is not a good idea to die somewhere where you have problems picking them up (like right next to that powerful boss). Or alternatively, don't pick them up and try to deal with the enemies with your basic laser weapons, until it is safe to pick your powerups back. They'll stay there where you left them.

Not sure if that is a rewarding death, more like a necessity because it can be the only way to advance. No reason to try to be careful.

Bookmarking this, that is one aspect that i enjoy in roguelikes, i recently played Skyhill and was disappointed that the only thing that carried between deaths was certain perks in case you've reach determined floors.

In Terraria, anyone ever load up with gold and they intentionally get killed so that you can get a really cool looking tombstone to decorate your fort with? :P I love the obelisk one. I stuck that bad boy right on top of my palace one. XD

I am eagerly waiting to discover the philosophy of Tides of Numenera on that subject.

On topic, I think I remember that in the early Totalwar Games, having your dynasty leader(s) die an honourable death helps keeping the headcount of your family in the single digits, hence protecting your legacy from harbouring a herd of cowardy degenerates.
It's mechanical : fewer family members makes you muster everyone on the frontline, saving them from decades of brothel/tavern attendance and .... 'management'.

Yes, but now you only have 30 health and it takes a long time to recover it unless you can find an E-tank that you haven't already collected.

STASIS comes to mind; If you haven't found every single death animation by the end of the game, you didn't really played it. Also, don't forget about dying in Mortal Kombat; who doesn't like a spectacular, gory fatality?

Love the implementation in Sunless Sea. Also love how the game makes you waste countless playthroughs as you slowly (well, *I* slowly - because I'm dumb) realize the importance of certain actions over others.

When I finally realized I should have had a kid and a will for AGES I felt like such a dolt for all my poor playthroughs prior.

Also, based on the "Haul" thread, and the fact that I've been playing it too, it seems like a lot of people ended up with BattleVoidStations Harbinger.

And again, judging by you and I - fired it up right away too. As a matter of fact, I'm about to brew a cup of coffee and fire it up for a bit of after dinner action. Surprisingly fun game - I'm glad I didn't balk on it after I thought it looked too slow / boring in Let's Plays.

I actually started it minutes ago (I must say the intro spaceship is the coolest one I've ever seen so far, even beats the Nostromo, the Sulaco and the Lewis&Clark). I have sort of deliberately avoid dying so far, though... We'll see how long this lasts...

Where is the Sulaco from?

Also, I only played the demo but you're right, it is a fantastic rendition of a spaceship / station gone wrong. Such an oppressive, desperate, lonely and helpless sort of atmosphere. Sort of a "What in the hell happened here, and there's no way I'm getting out" vibe. I'm sure it gets panned, but I thought Pandorum sort of captured this as well (a movie, not a game).

The Sulaco is the USCM spaceship from Aliens. And I was just talking of the outside design so far, these hair-like cables/antenna thingies are brilliant. I haven't explored the inside enough yet to really compare with the corridors of Pandorum, etc.

But yeah, the atmosphere is great.

That's great, have a nice time with it, it's a great game! Oh, and you'll die.... you'll see.. :)

Aliens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMvxBkRmst8

Although in the original Metroid, it was quite annoying for me to spawn with only 30 energy, when I have multiple empty energy tanks to fill up... ;p