History Main / ScoringPoints

Nowadays, this is an UndeadHorseTrope. Most games stripped score out entirely except if scoring is relevant -- such as games with short, replayable levels, most commonly {{Shoot Em Up}}s and {{Rhythm Game}}s, where beating another's high score or getting a good rank/grade is a big part of the game. Then there were the [[EndlessGame endlessly repeating games]] where score was the only practical way to measure success: Creator/{{Activision}}'s UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} games always would have specific guidelines in their manuals for what score you should aim to attain to get their special patches or t-shirts for having become a pro at it if you could send them proof. {{Pinball}} is a good example that has survived (somewhat) into the modern age. {{Casual Video Game}}s are also very score-heavy; you'd be hard-pressed to find a ''VideoGame/{{Bejeweled}}'' or ''Videogame/{{Peggle}}'' player who isn't trying to beat their best scores. {{Roguelike}}s, also, interestingly enough, often have a score system of some sort; since {{permadeath}} often make players want to keep track of their best runs, though often [[MinimalistRun low scores are sought after here]]. Points also make up a common win condition in BoardGames even if some gamers find it boring.

* The ''VideoGame/ProfessorLayton'' series gives you picarats for completing puzzles; getting a wrong answer makes a given puzzle worth fewer picarats the next time you attempt it. This carries over into ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonVsAceAttorney'' and also adds Phoenix Wright's trial segments being worth picarats for a successful completion, with bonus picarats awarded for each unused penalty.

PinballScoring is when scores achieve ridiculous amounts. ScoreMilking refers to ways to easily crank up your score.

* Points might, sometimes, add to something useful, [[EveryTenThousandPoints like extra lives]]. But, as soon as ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'', these were often replaced by another variable, like "coins", "rings", or "crystals", [[LawOfOneHundred which usually give you an extra life for every 100 you collect]].

* ''VideoGame/ToejamAndEarl'' gave the player 1 point for every tile on the map that's flipped over and 2 points for every present opened. The score actually served a practical purpose, though, acting as ExperiencePoints to let the player level up and increase their maximum health. ''Panic on Funkotron'' retained a practical scoring system, though this time it awarded the player extra lives EveryTenThousandPoints.

* In ''VideoGame/AntarcticAdventure'', you could score points by jumping over obstacles, capturing flags or fish, and completing levels. These points didn't really do anything; you didn't get an extra life EveryTenThousandPoints because VideoGameLives didn't exist here. The sequel ''Penguin Adventure'' did away with points.

** Later 3-D Sonic games would also use the points as the basis for their ranking system (though there were often some cases, and even a few entire games, where the ''only'' thing affecting your rank is how fast you are - this ''is'' [[SuperSpeed the Sonic series]] we're talking about!) 2-D Sonic games up until ''Sonic Advance 2'' [[EveryTenThousandPoints gave you lives for every so many points instead]], until ''Sonic Advance 3'' did away with them entirely, then ''Sonic Rush'' brought them back and used them for a ranking system.

** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'', points actually did something. The "N spade" memory MiniGame was activated [[EveryTenThousandPoints Every Eighty Thousand Points]].

* The ''VideoGame/StepMania'' fork ''Etterna'' uses what's known as Millisecond Scoring (MSS), or [[https://etternagame.github.io/wiki/Wife.html Wife]] scoring (now in its third version, known as [=Wife3=]). It is similar to the "Dance Point" system used in ''[=StepMania=]''[[note]]2 points for Perfect or Marvelous, 1 point for Great, 0 points for Good, -4 points for Boo, -8 points for Miss[[/note]], but beyond the 2 points earned for a Marvelous, the point reduction is based not on discrete note judgements, but on a parabolic curve and by how many milliseconds the player's timing is off. The motivation behind this is that the developer of this scoring system finds judgement-based scoring to be too punishing over mistakes that are close to borders between two judgements, and so a more granular variant was invented. Wife scoring also {{nerf}}s [=OKs=] freeze notes to be worth 0 points instead of 6, and missing them now takes away 5 points instead of leaving score unaffected.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', the points are certainly (generally) given on the magnitude of the early games in the Mario series, as though they were [[IncrediblyLamePun pointless]], but they're actually a stand-in for XP.

* The standard rules for [[{{Calvinball}} Nomic]] include rules for winning by scoring points, but they're deliberately boring to encourage the players to change them (changing the rules is the real [[IncrediblyLamePun point]] of Nomic).

* ''VideoGame/MortalKombat1'' is the only game in [[Franchise/MortalKombat its series]] to have a scoring system. Bonuses could be earned by such (future) series staples as a FlawlessVictory, a [[FinishingMove Fatality]], or finding and beating the GuideDangIt secret character.

* The ''VideoGame/StepMania'' fork ''Etterna'' uses what's known as Millisecond Scoring (MSS), or [[https://etternagame.github.io/wiki/Wife.html Wife]] scoring (now in its third version, known as [=Wife3=]). It is similar to the "Dance Point" system used in ''[=StepMania=]''[[note]]2 points for Perfect or Marvelous, 1 point for Great, 0 points for Good, -4 points for Boo, -8 points for Miss[[/note]], but beyond the 2 points earned for a Marvelous, the point reduction is based not on discrete note judgements, but on a parabolic curve and by how many milliseconds the player's timing is off. The motivation behind this is that the developer of this scoring system finds judgement-based scoring to be too punishing over slight mistakes, and so a more granular variant was invented. Wife scoring also {{nerf}}s [=OKs=] freeze notes to be worth 0 points instead of 6, and missing them now takes away 5 points instead of leaving score unaffected.

* The ''VideoGame/StepMania'' fork ''Etterna'' uses what's known as Millisecond Scoring (MSS), or [[https://etternagame.github.io/wiki/Wife.html Wife]] scoring (now in its third version, known as Wife3). It is similar to the "Dance Point" system used in ''[=StepMania=]''[[note]]2 points for Perfect or Marvelous, 1 point for Great, 0 points for Good, -4 points for Boo, -8 points for Miss[[/note]], but beyond the 2 points earned for a Marvelous, the point reduction is based not on discrete note judgements, but on a parabolic curve and by how many milliseconds the player's timing is off. The motivation behind this is that the developer of this scoring system finds judgement-based scoring to be too punishing over slight mistakes, and so a more granular variant was invented. Wife scoring also {{nerf}}s [=OKs=] freeze notes to be worth 0 points instead of 6, and missing them now takes away 5 points instead of leaving score unaffected.

As games moved from the arcades to the home consoles and home computers, initially many games still had points there, even the ones that had endings, but as said above, players didn't care and went for the ending. It helps that in the home version, you couldn't show your high scores to everyone until the days of the internet, and also, many games that came in cartridges couldn't even save your high scores after you turned off your console unless the cart had a save battery[[note]]The same happened in arcades when the cabinet was turned off, except later on when it was possible to save high scores[[/note]].

* Some games have GameplayGrading, which often revolves around points (unless it's based on time or damage instead). One can say "I got an A!" rather than "I scored 7,278,100 points!".

** The game uses accuracy-based scoring, and weighs each type of note differently: up to 500 points for hitting a Tap note, 1,000 for a Hold note, and 1,500 points for a Slide note. Breaks are weird, in that not only can you get up to 2600 points per note, but each of the combo-incrementing judge ranks has a few "sub-ranks" that have a slight influence on your score (50-150 points). Score is also expressed as an "Achievement" percentage with two decimal places, and you need an Achievement rating of 80% or higher to clear the Song. Achievement can go slightly above 100% depending on how you hit Break notes[[note]]more specifically, 100% is based off of an all-Perfect run where all the Break notes are hit for 2500 points each[[/note]]; it's even possible to get 100% ''without'' getting an "All Perfect" as a result.

** [[spoiler: In fact, the highest score you can possibly get is in the negatives.]]

Opinion varies from gamer to gamer, even in the early days of arcades. On one hand, for example, many ''VideoGame/PacMan'' players were more interested in what the new fruit in which level was and those who play most video games couldn't care less about high scores since they generally dismiss them as mere bragging rights. On the other hand, "high score" ''can'' be SeriousBusiness and there are huge communities of people competing for who gets the better score in some games.

But, as games began to develop plot, even the [[ExcusePlot excuse kind]], gamers changed. They became more interested in things like the ending {{c|utscene}}inematic, the new areas and [[PowerCopying powers]] to explore, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick the new hookers to kill on every corner]], and OneHundredPercentCompletion; most games nowadays use "[[CosmeticAward achievements]]" to track these kinds of things. Those things are also sometimes measured in "points", but of the permanent kind; this trope is about a score counter that resets itself after each GameOver.

* In ''O.N.G.E.K.I.'':

* ''VideoGame/PanelDePon'' (''Puzzle League'') has a scoring system that awards 10 points per panel cleared, 1 point per row added manually, plus much larger bonuses for [[{{Combos}} chains and combos]] based on size. The original ''Panel de Pon'' and ''Tetris Attack'', however, had a bug where the 14th and subsequent hits in a chain would not yield any additional bonuses, instead of the 1,800 per hit that was supposed to be awarded starting from the 13th hit; this was fixed in later versions. The original has a {{Cap}} on the score counter at 99,999 while sequels have 6-digit counters to max out at 999,999 instead; some players try to SpeedRun to hit the cap as fast as possible. The game also encourages score attacks with a Time Trial mode, which gives you 2 minutes to score as high as you can.

Nowadays, this is an UndeadHorseTrope. Most games stripped score out entirely except if scoring is relevant -- such as games with short, replayable levels, most commonly {{Shoot Em Up}}s and {{Rhythm Game}}s, where beating another's high score or getting a good rank/grade is a big part of the game. Then there were the [[EndlessGame endlessly repeating games]] where score was the only practical way to measure success: Creator/{{Activision}}'s UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} games always would have specific guidelines in their manuals for what score you should aim to attain to get their special patches or t-shirts for having become a pro at it if you could send them proof. {{Pinball}} is a good example that has survived (somewhat) into the modern age. {{Casual Video Game}}s are also very score-heavy; you'd be hard-pressed to find a ''VideoGame/{{Bejeweled}}'' or ''Videogame/{{Peggle}}'' player who isn't trying to beat their best scores. {{Roguelike}}s, also, interestingly enough, often have a score system of some sort; since {{permadeath}} often make players want to keep track of their best runs, though often [[MinimalistRun low scores are sought after here]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Humankind}}'', victory is determined solely by who had the most Fame when the game reaches an End Condition. You get Fame by earning Era Stars, building Wonders, and completing other events and objectives. By default, the game usually ends after the hard turn limit, but some other conditions like someone completing every technology, conquering all other nations, or [[DownerEnding rendering the planet uninhabitable from all the pollution]] can also trigger it. Therefore, it's very possible not only for the person to have triggered an End Condition to ''not'' be the winner, but for a player who's already been ''eliminated'' be the winner.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Humankind}}'', victory is determined entirely by how much Fame you have when the game reaches an End Condition. You get Fame by earning Era Stars, building Wonders, and completing other events and objectives. By default, the game usually ends after the hard turn limit, but some other conditions like completing every technology, conquering all other nations, or [[DownerEnding rendering the planet uninhabitable from all the pollution]] can also trigger it. Therefore, it's very possible for the person to have triggered an End Condition to ''not'' be the winner.

* The entire goal of the ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' series once you've beaten the story mode is trying to get as many points as possible, with 1 point being gained for every microgame completed (or in some, survived with at least one life left afterwards).