Deathmatch (video games)
Deathmatch, also known as free-for-all, is a gameplay mode integrated into many shooter games, including first-person shooter (FPS), and real-time strategy (RTS) video games, where the goal is to kill (or "frag") the other players' characters as many times as possible.
After a session has commenced, arbitrary players may join and leave the game on an ad hoc basis.
The goal for each player is killing the other players by any means possible which counts as a frag, either by direct assault or manipulating the map, the latter counts as a frag in some games, some not; in either case—to attain the highest score—this process should be repeated as many times as possible, with each iteration performed as quickly as possible.
The armor variable affects the health variable by reducing the damage taken, the reduction in health is in concept inversely proportional to the value of the armor times the actual damage caused; with the obvious differences in various implementations.
Most modern deathmatch games features a high level of graphic violence; a normal modern implementation will contain high quality human characters being killed, e.g. moderate amounts of blood, screams of pain and death, exploding bodies with associated gibs are common.
However, the setting of the game is usually that of a fictional world, the player may resurrect in the form of mentioned respawning and the characters will usually have superhuman abilities, e.g. able to tolerate numerous point blank hits from a machine gun directly to the head without any armour, jumping extreme inhuman distances and falling extreme distances to mention a few things.
All normal maps will contain various power-ups; i.e. extra health, armor, ammunition and other (more powerful than default) weapons.
all other things being equal, the player who controls the strongest power-ups (collecting the items most often) is the one that will have the best potential for making the best score.
MIDI Maze was a multiplayer first-person shooter for the Atari ST, released in 1987, which has been suggested as the first example of deathmatch gameplay.
[2] Sega's 1988 third-person shooter arcade game Last Survivor featured eight-player deathmatch.
[3] Another early example of a deathmatch mode in a first-person shooter was Taito's 1992 video game Gun Buster.
At id Software, the team frequently played Street Fighter II, Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting during breaks, while developing elaborate rules involving trash-talk and smashing furniture or tech.
It has been suggested that in 1983, Drew Major and Kyle Powell probably played the world's first deathmatch with Snipes[citation needed], a text-mode game that was later credited with being the inspiration behind Novell NetWare, although multiplayer games spread across multiple screens predate that title by at least 9 years in the form of Spasim and Maze War.
On August 6, 1982, Intellivision game developers Russ Haft and Steve Montero challenged each other to a game of Bi-Planes, a 1981 Intellivision release in which multiple players control fighter planes with the primary purpose of repeatedly killing each other until a limit is reached.
Once killed, a player would be respawned in a fixed location, enjoying a short period of protection from attacks.
Destroying all the enemies is the only way to win, while in other modes some other victory conditions may be used (king of the hill, building a wonder...) The first-person shooter version of deathmatch, originating in Doom by id Software, had a set of unmodifiable rules concerning weapons, equipment and scoring, known as "Deathmatch 1.0".
Rise of the Triad was first released as shareware in 1994 by Apogee Software, Ltd. and honed an expansive multiplayer mode that pioneered a variety of deathmatch features.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic released by Raven Software in 1995. Notable power-ups that are featured in most consecutive games are i.a.
