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Instant death

Video game concept

The player dies from single damaging hit of any kind, the equivalent of having never more than one life/hit point.

1540
games
113
platforms

Alternate name: 1 hitpoint

Crystal Castles (Atari 400/800)
Crystal Castles
A800 1988
Anarchy (Commodore 64)
Anarchy
C64 1987
Popeye (TI-99/4A)
Popeye
TI99 1984
Zorgon's Kingdom (VIC-20)
Zorgon's Kingdom
VIC 1984
Uridium (Amstrad CPC)
Uridium
CPC 1987
Blagger (Acorn Electron)
Blagger
ELEC 1984
Chuckie Egg (Atom)
Chuckie Egg
ATOM 2012
Conveyor-Belt Capers (ZX Spectrum)
Conveyor-Belt Capers
SPC 1984
Penetrator (Commodore 64)
Penetrator
C64 1984
Bird Week (Nintendo Entertainment System)
Bird Week
NES 1986-06-03
Spectipede (Commodore 64)
Spectipede
C64 1984
Pac-Mania (Arcade)
Pac-Mania
ARCD 1987
Related:
* 1 life
* Permanent death
* Harmful touch
* Fragile protagonist
This can be pushed to the extreme with permanent death, no saves and no lives.

This often extends to enemies as well, but some games torment players by having enemies (outside bosses) that can survive more or being even completely immune to any amount of shooting.

Can be considered for games without death as well, as some form of instant loss at slightest mistake (games like Tetris wouldn't count, as such).

Popular tags

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Parent groups

Artificial difficulty, Game-like elements, Hardcore elements, Health

Games by year

78808284868890929496980002040608101214161820 200501001500

The first Instant death video game was released in 1978.

Mastertronic, Atari and Elite published most of these games.

Related site

Related trope at TV Tropes (One Hit Point Wonder)

Platforms

ZX Spectrum 159
C64 155
Linux 130
Amstrad CPC 91
NES 80
MS-DOS 66
MSX 61
C16/Plus4 58
Windows 55
Arcade 45
Atari 400/800 40
Apple II E 34
VIC-20 33
Amiga 32
Mac OS X 29
BBC 27
Memotech MTX 27
Mac OS Classic 26
Atari ST 23
Electron 19
BeOS 18
Famicom Disk System 16
Atari 2600 14
TRS-80 13
Tandy Coco 12
Master System 10
Atari 5200 9
NEC PC8801 9
Dragon32 9
Sharp X1 9

Most common companies

Mastertronic58
Atari47
Elite33
Gremlin Graphics28
Namco26
Firebird23
ASCII21
Software Projects21
Nintendo21
Parker Brothers14
Quicksilva14
Sega14
Ocean13
A&F Software13
Grandslam12