Mechanic · health & lives

Lives

A count of tries the player has left: losing one restarts the attempt, and losing the last ends the game.

stubAlso: life, extra lives, stock, game over, tries, remaining livesUpdated 2026-10-23
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Lives give a player several attempts. A life is lost to a hit, a fall, or the clock, and when none are left the game is over unless a continue restarts it.

  • Restart pointFelix the Cat (1992). In the first stage, a lost life restarts it from its start.1

See also

Mentioned in

Games

GameYearHowNote
Felix the Cat1992Restart pointin the first stage, a lost life restarts it from its start
Every claim about this mechanic, by game (2)
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels 1986The status bar numbers, game setup, lives and game over (PrintStatusBarNumbers through RunGameOver) are Super Mario Bros.'s with a new GameOverSubs dispatch among them and these changes: the status bar's digit tables lose the second player's entries; UpdateTopScore checks one score where Super Mario Bros. checks two; DigitsMathRoutine drops a compare with zero before its BEQ; DefaultSprOffsets loses the sprite 0 data; InitializeArea loads the player's physics (LoadPhysicsData) and sets the secondary hard mode flag from 4-4 on and in all of worlds A to D (HardWorldFlag), where Super Mario Bros. sets it from 5-3 on or once the primary hard mode flag is set; SecondaryGameSetup sets the name table and switches on the status bar's IRQ split, where Super Mario Bros. sets the second player's lives and switches on the sprite 0 check; InitializeMemory also spares $0100-$0108; PlayerLoseLife reads its own halfway pages and no longer swaps players; RunGameOver opens the continue-or-retry menu (or, in world 9, ends the game) where Super Mario Bros. ends the game on Start or when the screen timer runs out and then hands over to the other player if they have lives left. GetAreaMusic and Entrance_GameTimerSetup keep every instruction, though the level timer's digits moved from $07F8 to $07EC.Code
Felix the Cat 1992A hit at power level 0 ($03C6) sets $03CD to $FF and Felix's y speed to $F7:00, upward; above 0, it sets $03CD to $B4 and takes 1 from the power level instead. Walking right from the start of the first stage at power 0, the Mesen probe sees Felix hit at x 281, the lives digits ($03A5-$03A6) lose 1, and the stage restart with Felix at x 48.Verified

References

  1. ^A hit at power level 0 ($03C6) sets $03CD to $FF and Felix's y speed to $F7:00, upward; above 0, it sets $03CD to $B4 and takes 1 from the power level instead. Walking right from the start of the first stage at power 0, the Mesen probe sees Felix hit at x 281, the lives digits ($03A5-$03A6) lose 1, and the stage restart with Felix at x 48.Verified“Felix the Cat (USA)”revised
    How we know

    In the cartridge (“Felix the Cat (USA)”): fixed bank $F98E-$F9E9: take 1 from the two lives digits $03A5-$03A6 with a borrow; when they run out, set $33 to $18; fixed bank $CCE2-$CD23: if $03C5 is 4 or $03C6 is 0, $03CD = $FF, $0616,X = $0F, $06F2:$06DC = $F7:00; otherwise go to $CD24; fixed bank $CD24-$CD3B: $03CD = $B4, then DEC $03C6. We don't reproduce the bytes.

    Measured by a script in MesenCE 2.2.1 (build 4b8a196), on Felix the Cat (USA) (SHA-1 b57b1c6e6933…). It fails if the result disagrees with the claim.

    The numbers come from the run; its author, an AI model, checked the script measures what the claim says, 2026-10-25.

    Revised after a check by a second AI model, 2026-10-25.

    In the claim ledger