Checkpoint

Be VVVVVVery grateful these exist!

A point within the action of a video game to which the player can return after play has been interrupted, especially by player character death.

Consoles made this method popular in the dark ages when they only had a few megabytes worth of flash storage (if that) and so couldn't do proper save/load like hard-drive-equipped PCs could. Nowadays we have consoles with hard disks and cheap flash memory, but checkpoints are still alive as an efficient method for enabling savegames without spending lots of resources implementing a dynamic save system, or for simply challenging the player.

Checkpoints may either be explicit, in the form of some sort of door the player must pass through or a station they must touch, or can occur implicitly as the player reaches some point in the narrative or geography of the game. Sometimes, more often in older games, the player isn't informed at all when they reach a checkpoint. One of the more common forms of check point is a flag.

Games can include several classes of checkpoint which vary according to which sorts of play interruption return the player to that checkpoint. For example:

• A Save Point is a checkpoint the player can return to upon loading a saved game.
• In games which allow the player to stockpile extra lives, there can be minor checkpoints to which the player returns if they have lives in reserve, and less frequent major checkpoints to which they return when they exhaust their stockpile. Returning to a major checkpoint having exhausted extra lives is often called a "Continue". Continues may be unbounded, or may have their own stockpile independent from extra lives. On arcade machines, continues can often be purchased for more coins.
• A game may set independent checkpoints for player death and for failing to complete some task (as in Super Mario Bros., where death returns the player to a minor checkpoint, but running out of time returns them to the beginning of the Game Level. Versions of the game which allow continues return the player to an even more senior checkpoint, which occurs at the beginning of each "world" grouping of levels).
• In racing games, checkpoints split the course into separately-timed sections, and if there is a time limit involved, it usually extends the time limit.

Generally, in games which are organized into levels, a checkpoint occurs at the start of each level. Minor checkpoints may occur within the level. In such games, the Game Level checkpoint is usually a Save Point.

Checkpoints are often coincident with a change of scene or location, as this is a technologically convenient place from which to restart the action of the game.

Often, checkpoints will fill up your Life Meter, Mana Meter, ammo, or otherwise replenish your resources; this is what we call a Healing Checkpoint.

Game Shows in the Millionaire style have a similar mechanic. Getting a question wrong will send the contestant back to the last check-point's winnings; the difference is that in most cases, the contestant's run will end there.

A subversion is a Treacherous Checkpoint. Also see Checkpoint Starvation, when checkpoints are few and far-between or nonexistent. Compare Autosave and Death as Game Mechanic.

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Examples:

Action Adventure Game

• In Alwa's Awakening, inside rooms marked with star symbols you can find lamps which light up when approached, indicating Zoe will respawn by them when she dies. They are called save points but in fact the game saves progress anytime you collect an item or make some other progress.
• ANNO: Mutationem: The N533 springs are established as checkpoints once activated. In other areas where Jos van Corn is selling items before a major fight is applied one as well.
• In Crimson Glaive Sigma, you can find camera drones which will fly away if you approach them, providing a point at which Aimes can respawn (at a fraction of their health) that lasts until you find a proper one or give up.
• Kid Baby Starchild has checkpoints consisting of a golden statue of a winged one-eyed egg on a pole. Little Dude will respawn at one when he loses all health.
• Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas: Checkpoints in this game are old computers left over from the Arcadian era. If you die, you respawn near one.
• Ōkami has the occasional golden gate, usually located just before difficult encounters. Amaterasu can continue from the gate if she dies. Unlike the mirrors, the player cannot resume the game at these gates after quitting to the title screen or shutting the console off.
• The PS2 game Primal uses teleportation gates called "rift gates." These are a last resort checkpoint only. How it works is that if Jen (the main character) runs out of energy gems and health in a monster form, she will revert back to human form. If she runs out of health as a human, she's be put into a "near death" state in her physical body (the game takes place in a spirit world). At that point, you, as Scree, will have to race to the nearest rift gate to bring her back. Although there is no visible clock, this is a Timed Mission, so if you don't make it, Jen dies. (If you do, then once Scree brings her back through, he will admonish her, "Take better care of yourself!")
• Psychonauts automatically saves a check point Before Raz undergoes the climactic battle with the brain-tank and then with his own subconscious. Its location is listed as "The Point of No Return". Justified in Black Velvetopia: Getting caught by the Bull in the street effectively knocks Raz back to the previous checkpoint.

Action Game

• In The Matrix: Path of Neo, there are the save checkpoints typically in the middle of levels and a few feet before bosses.
• Nelo: You know you've reached one when you see "Checkpoint" flashing on the bottom left corner of the screen.
• Rad Rodgers has checkpoints in the form of floppy disks.

Adventure Game

• The entire Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People series has only one point in which Strong Bad can die, but in order to reach this point, you have to touch a check point (as video game reality has merged with the main Homestar Runner world), so his death isn't even permanent. However, he can't keep any items he picked up between touching the check point and dying, so the puzzle is how to get the item he wants safely across — which involves having Strong Mad throw the check point to various locations. Twice.

Beat 'em Up

• Ninja: Shadow of Darkness have checkpoints resembling Japanese folding fans, which flips open when you grab one.

First Person Shooter

• In Battlefield-type shooters, you often have check points on the map that can be captured by either team. When a player's character dies, he can respawn in any of the captured check points. This allows players to jump back into the action instead of having to run all the way from home base to where they died. Naturally, sometimes you must spawn at the home base anyway (especially if there are vehicles there that you wish to pilot). This works in Star Wars: Battlefront as well.
• In Borderlands, saving is handled through passing by New-U stations. Bigger ones offer the Fast Travel function, and it's in them that you'll spawn if you exit and re-enter the game.
• Call of Duty used checkpoints in the form of auto saves since the beginning, but this had the problem of occasionally putting you in an Unwinnable situation if this was your only save and the game decided to save right before you died. Later games went to a checkpoint-only system.
• Dark Forces has (unmarked) points at which Kyle Katarn will respawn if he dies after reaching them, provided he has an extra life to spare.
• Disruptor places a checkpoint about halfway through most levels. These aren’t visible, but a computer-like female voice will announce “Continue point reached” when you reach one. At that point, however, a three-lives system comes into play, in which you can only retry from the checkpoint three times before having to restart the level altogether.

• Prodeus has nexus points that revive the player on that spot if active. This allows players to continue just where they left off.
• ULTRAKILL has checkpoints that help to continue the player mid-level upon dying. Layer 4 introduces reusable checkpoints.

Platform Game

• 1001 Spikes subverts. In the first level, there is a small flag that crumbles once player reaches it. Then the player is told there are no checkpoints.
• Twentieth Anniversary Pac Man World, a 3D platform game for the original PlayStation featuring Pac-Man, has a shiny Pac-Man icon as level checkpoint.
• Adventure Island:
  • Dying in the first game with a spare extra life will send Master Higgins back to the level start or the last numbered signpost (of which there are four in each level) he has reached. These signs are absent in Adventure Island II and III, though.
  • In New Adventure Island, checkpoints take the form of flags of the Hudson Soft bee.
• In The Adventures of Lomax, crossing a rope hanged between two sticks saves your progress on a level.
• In Aladdin (Virgin Games), checkpoints take the form of blue vases that flip around to reveal the Genie's face.
• In The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures, checkpoints take the form of the Nerd's Nintoaster. On Hard as Balls difficulty, they're invisible. On higher difficulties, they're not there are all.

• Bug features unique checkpoints for each level. Insectia uses a flower that opens, Reptilia, Splot and Quaria use signs, Burrubs has a snowman who raises a flag, and Arachnia uses a pillar that lights up on fire.
• In Castle Of Pixel Skulls, lighting torches up activates them, giving the skeleton a place to respawn upon dying. Interestingly, activating another torch causes the previous one to go out.
• In the Crash Bandicoot platformers, checkpoints come in the form of boxes with yellow C's on all sides. You activate the boxes by attacking them, and should you die, you will be returned to the last checkpoint you activated. The Checkpoints in the original game have a crucial flaw however: they won't remember the boxes you hit, meaning to get the Gem you'd have to break all the boxes without dying (this was fixed in the second game). The games also feature distinct Save Points; Checkpoint Boxes only appear in the levels, Save Points only occur in the Warp Rooms (or, in the original, during Bonus Rounds or when getting a Gem/Key).
• Crossbow Crusade: Coffins act as checkpoints from which the Player Character can respawn should he die. They're activated when the cross on the front is white.
• Daze Before Christmas has Christmas bells as checkpoints. Touching one makes it ring for you.
• The checkpoints in Donkey Kong Country are barrels decorated with stars in the SNES trilogy, and spots occupied by Professor Chops in subsequent games.

• Electronic Super Joy uses flags as checkpoints that emit "Oh yeah" every time they're activated or used to respawn the player.

• Frogun features checkpoints marked with a flag.
• Fox N Forests: If you give Retro the Badger a set amount of coins, he will activate the checkpoint for you.
• Garfield's Nightmare: The poles that have barber-styled stripes serve as respawn points in case Garfield loses a life.

• Jazz Jackrabbit has yellow signs with red checks on them that change to white with Jazz's face on them when shot. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 replaces these with jack(rabbit)-in-a-boxes (with red checks on them).
• In The Jungle Book, checkpoints are marked by Junior (the son of Colonel Hathi). When you arrive he is holding a flag, which he then plants in the ground and starts dancing.
• Playing Jumper Two on easy mode provides yellow gems in some levels which the player can pick up to create a new spot to restart the level from if Ogmo dies.
• Kao the Kangaroo:
  • The first game is unusual in that checkpoints are collectibles, and you can set them up yourself anywhere in the level.
  • The second game has more normal checkpoint in the form of bells that save your progress when you pick them up. Same goes for the third game, but in the form of tents that Kao goes into to take a nap.

• LittleBigPlanet has an interesting variety of checkpoint. Walking by one activates it, and each checkpoint has a set number of lives. If a player dies and uses all the lives, they have to restart the entire level. The life count is reset after activating a new checkpoint. Also, the game has not one, but four types of checkpoints: Entry Barrel (also the initial spawn point; four lives), normal Checkpoints (also four lives; not as fancy-looking as an Entry Barrel), Double Life Checkpoints (eight lives, and has two glowing rings instead of one. All Checkpoint types have one (or two) rings around them that show the number of lives. When it's flashing red, you're on your last life and must get to a new checkpoint or reach the Scoreboard fast!), and the Infinite Life Checkpoint, which has one ring but allows infinite respawns, and has the infinity symbol on it. Another interesting twist is that (in local multiplayer at least, possibly also in online multiplayer) players share lives. Each player death means one less for the whole group. But there is a bit of a breather: If all but one player dies when a Checkpoint is flashing red, but the last player reaches a new one, all players respawn. Prize Bubbles (the items that hold new collectibles, like stickers and objects to use in level creation) are stil retained even if the player has to restart a level. The Try Again action (which sends a player back to the last Checkpoint by literally popping the Sackboy) uses one of the available lives. All Story mode (and most player-created) levels, excluding Survival Challenges, have a "No Lives Lost" prize if a player survives a whole level without dying or resetting. (Survival Challenges don't have this because to finish the level, the player must die.)

• Mail Mole: Checkpoints in this game are indicated by a giant envelope.
• Levels in Maldita Castilla are divided into multiple screens, the beginning of each one serving as a point from which the level restarts when Don Ramiro dies.
• Metroid Dread has invisible checkpoints just before and after entering E.M.M.I. Zones, before and after boss rooms, and after travelling between regions, in case the player hasn't used a Save Point in a while.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King, a video game Prequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, has Jack save his progress by talking to pumpkin-headed scarecrows.
• Pankapu: When the checkpoint is activated, a collection of yellow pieces comes together to form a circular ring connected by magic lines. When activated, they restore Pankapu's health, and act as respawn points when he's out of health.
• Panky the Panda feature circles above white triangles. They're blue when inactive, an red when active. If Panky dies, he respawns at the currently active one.
• In Pitfall! II, player deaths slide the player back to the last checkpoint they crossed, shown as little red circles on the ground.
• Primal Light: Bonfires serve as checkpoints in the game. Lighting them up activates them.
• Purple features purple hexagon signs with a question mark which when touched will display an icon representing the level, indicating a new spot to restart the level from after losing a life. They can be turned back off by attacking them.

• Shovel Knight has glass globes as checkpoints; when you die, you respawn at the last checkpoint you touched, or the beginning of the level. The twist here is that you can break checkpoints. You get treasure for doing so, but you can't respawn at a broken checkpoint. There's a Feat for completing a stage after breaking every checkpoint, and another for breaking every checkpoint in the game.
• In the Gameboy Advance port of Infogrames' The Smurfs (1994), due to Checkpoint Starvation in the Super NES and Mega Drive versions, golden Smurf hats are added into the levels to serve as check points.
• Being that it is an Endless Game, Smurf: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle has your next Smurf start at the beginning of whatever territory you lost your last Smurf in.

• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The original Super Mario Bros., as well as The Lost Levels and the first Super Mario Land, have each an implicit minor checkpoint about halfway through each Game Level (except the last level of each world, every level in the last world, and all bonus worlds in the second game).
  • Super Mario Bros. 2 provides a checkpoint every time the player enters a door, reaches a new area after boarding a rocket, or enters a boss room upon entering the Mask Gate's mouth.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3: Compared to the previous games as well as all of those released ever since, this installment has no checkpoints in any of its 90 levels (though it's hardly a problem since the levels themselves are usually short). The game does provide a checkpoint after the player clears a fortress. Beating the fortress unlocks the door on the world map, allowing access to pipes that skips over parts of the map. This is very helpful, because getting a Game Over resets all of your progress, including all of the levels your previously beaten.
  • Super Mario World: The concept of checkpoints evolved into a gate through which the player has to run to activate the checkpoint — if the player misses breaking the tape across the gate, death will return them to the beginning of the level.
  • Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins has a bell that has to be rung for its midway checkpoint (which is not to be confused with the bell at the end that triggers a bonus game if rung).
  • In the New Super Mario Bros. series, the checkpoint has the form of a flag that turns from a Bowser icon to a Mario/Mushroom one when activated (and acts as a Super Mushroom if Mario is small). In the case of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, checkpoint flags are usually placed right before a Wonder Flower. Interestingly enough, Super Mario Galaxy 2 became the first 3D Mario to use this kind of checkpoint (without the Power-Up effect).
  • In Super Mario Maker, the sixth delivery of new game features includes an Arrow Sign. Shaking it turns it into a Checkpoint Flag. Up to two of these flags can be placed onto the course. Uploading courses with Checkpoint Flags requires you to clear them from the flag(s) onward. Note that the ability to turn Arrow Signs into Checkpoint Flags wasn't present when the game was originally released, but it (among others) was added in a free software update released on November 4th, 2015 (the 3DS port, as well as Super Mario Maker 2, have them present in the base content).
  • The Yoshi's Island series uses star-made rings that not only provides a respawn point in case of demise, but also offer ten stars to the health gauge.
• Sonic the Hedgehog once had a standard lamppost-style checkpoint in his levels. Moving into 3D, the two Adventure titles turned this into a similarly-looking gate (which returned in the 2006 game). Other games throughout the series use similar objects, but the limited 8-bit games instead depict checkpoints as breakable computer monitors (like the items throughout the series). Also, if you make it to the checkpoint in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with enough rings, the lamppost-thing will activate a bonus stage, necessary to collect the chaos emeralds and become Super Sonic.

• Tiny Hands Adventure: The checkpoints in this game are purple crates with "Safe Zone" written on them. They can be activated by breaking them.
• Toy Story has flags as checkpoints.
• Vivid Conceptions: Every time the protagonist collects three seeds and gains a new power, it counts as a checkpoint.

Puzzle Game

• Ballance has checkpoints in the form of round bowls flanked with a pair of torches, which light up with purple flame when your ball passes through. If you lose a life you respawn at the checkpoint, but if you lose all lives you need to restart the level. (Extra life bonuses DO respawn when you lose a life, thus theoretically allowing you to remain immortal if you are careful.)

Real Time Strategy

• StarCraft II has checkpoints after each objective is accomplished.

Role Playing Game

• Demon's Souls has one checkpoint that spawns at the end of every boss fight, dividing each level into 3-4 sections.
• Tofu Tower (Naka): After completing an interval of 20 floors of the tower and exiting the tower undefeated, when entering it again, Tofu can skip to the 20 x Number floor instead of starting from Floor 1.

Shoot Em Up

• In Hydorah, crashing your ship while having a spare life will rewind the game to the beginning of the current screen.
• Moon Dancer sends you back to a checkpoint every time you die, and any points since that checkpoint are rolled back, to prevent players from abusing checkpoints for score. That said, because this game also has point-based extra lives, dying right before the threshold for an extra life can give you what's basically unlimited retries until you make it to the next checkpoint.
• Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom has frequent checkpoints under the justification that the characters have been granted Combat Clairvoyance. This is somewhat necessary as the game is incredibly hard.

Simulation

• In APICO, beds and benches serve as spawn points, and holding R (or any button that you reassign this to) for 5 seconds teleports you to the last bed or bench you used.

Survival Horror

• Arizona Sunshine: Sometimes, the words "Checkpoint Reached" will show up on the bottom of the screen.
• Today Is My Birthday: The indication that you've reached one is the word "Checkpoint" appearing in the bottom right corner of the screen with a circular arrow spinning above it.

Third Person Shooter

• The James Bond Licensed Game 007: From Russia with Love features a Save Point at the beginning of each level, and a checkpoint within each of the (typically short) scenes within the level.
• In Fur Fighters, you have your standard checkpoints throughout the levels and the telepoints where you change characters that also acts as a sort of Save Point.
• In Otto Matic, you can find and activate radar dishes so that Otto can respawn by them should he die.

Wide-Open Sandbox

• Minecraft: Although there's technically no progress or game "levels", beds function as checkpoints in the Overworld. If you right-click a bed, it will set your new spawn point next to it, if there's nothing blocking it in. If the bed is destroyed or obstructed by something, you'll respawn in your original default spawn. Respawn anchors function the same way as beds do, but in the Nether. However, unlike beds, they have to be charged up with glowstone blocks (to a maximum of four), and it depletes a charge with each respawn. If you attempt to use a bed or a respawn anchor in the wrong dimension, they'll explode.
• In The Saboteur, completing mission sub-objectives, such as arriving at the mission location (which can be far from the mission provider), provides points from which the mission can restart in case of failure.

Non Video Game Examples

• Ender's Game describes the checkpoint system of a Fictional Video Game:
  On his first death, his figure would reappear on the Giant's table, to play again. On the second death, he'd come back to the landslides. Then to the garden bridge. Then to the mousehole. And then, if he still went back to the Giant and played again, and died again, his desk would go dark, "Free Play Over" would march around the desk, and Ender would lie back on his bed and tremble until he could finally go to sleep.

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