Limited resources, mistakes that cost dearly, relentless enemies… permadeath is both hated and admired, because it always brings us back for more. Now, if losing a character, a ship, or a base is hard enough, what would it be like to lose and never be able to play again? That’s the concept behind Upsilon Circuit, a game with “permanent permadeath”.
What do games like Dwarf Fortress, FTL, RimWorld, Don’t Starve have in common? The answer is that you feel like throwing the monitor out the window every time you lose, because there is no way to go back. Well... maybe there is the occasional exception in RimWorld’s case, but I’ve seen many of my bases razed by pirates after dedicating entire weeks to building and defending them. Despite the frustration, the effect of permadeath is very important for players. You keep thinking about what you lost, how things went so wrong, and what you can do to avoid it in the next run. But that’s the key: There is a next run. So what would happen if there weren’t one? How would each player accept the fact that they can’t go back and get revenge for the previous defeat? How does one come to recognize that the game has simply… ended?
Some of our readers might remember You Only Live Once, a game that can only be played once, no matter if you press F5 to reload it. However, there is another one in development, Upsilon Circuit. This title presents itself as half RPG, half show. On one side there are the participants, eight in total on the only server in existence, and on the other we have the audience, which intervenes directly in the story. Every time one of the participants gains experience and/or resources, both will be administered by the audience. And when one of the players falls, they will have no way to return.
From a certain point of view, Upsilon Circuit reminds us of works like Sword Art Online, whose original story has players dying if their characters are defeated in the virtual world, Gamer, the film starring Gerard Butler, and of course the original Rollerball. We’re not yet sure how well Upsilon Circuit will work, and for now it has no fixed release date, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on it. It’s a different proposal, and if it’s well received by users, it could change a lot of things in the world of video games.
