permadeath

English

Etymology

perma- +‎ death

Noun

permadeath (countable and uncountable; plural permadeaths)

Wikipedia

1. (video games, slang) Permanent death, where the player cannot continue but is obliged to restart the game from the beginning.
   • 1996 April 21, Sax, Jay, “Re: Best features of a mud.”, rec.games.mud.diku, Usenet:

     And yes, especially 'special' mobs coming back is a bit of a stretch. But then the players coming back is a stretch too, no? (yes, I know, many have implemented some form of permadeath).

   • 2001 February 4, Cortese, Rick, “Re: Permadeath Debate Today”, rec.games.computer.ultima.series, Usenet:

     If you are doing your job right designing a game, the newbie experience should be almost good enough that people don't care about permadeath any more then they would picking up a new novel.

   • 2004 June 15, Lee Sheldon, Character Development and Storytelling for Games, page 401:

     I don't consider permadeath a reasonable solution for most virtual worlds.

   • 2007 January 12, Dillinger, Ray, “Re: Roguelike developer diary”, rec.games.roguelike.development, Usenet:

     Permadeath is simply a way to encourage the playing of more than one game so they can try everything.

See also

• instadeath
• instakill