1-up
 |
- This article is about the computer and video game term. For the website, see 1UP.com. For the term 'to one-up someone', see one-upmanship.
1-up (or "1UP", 1-UP", etc.) is a term in video gaming with two distinct meanings.
Player one
.png){kind=link}
The original meaning of "1UP" in multiplayer-capable 1980s arcade games was to mark the player's score area. '1UP' would indicate 'Player One's score', '2UP' would indicate 'Player Two's score'. It was common to show both scores on screen at once, with the high-score area in the middle of the score row. (Note that the term '2UP' also refers to the slang expression '2 Universes Problem' in software debugging.[citation needed])
The precise derivation of the phrase is a little unclear. The literal meaning would seem to be 'Player One is up at the machine'. If it were simply an abbreviation for 'Player One' one would expect to see '1P' rather than '1UP'. In any case, for a long period in the 1980s, even in a single player game it was very common to see the score field labelled as '1UP' rather than the more obvious 'Score'.
Extra life
In current gaming console terminology, however, 1-up refers to the acquisition of an extra life during the course of a game.
The inclusion of extra or bonus 'lives', like scoring bonuses, also derives from pinball. In pinball, the player has multiple balls (often three), and plays until a ball is lost in the gutter, at which point the next ball is loaded and the game continues. When all balls are lost, the game is over. Early arcade games took this same play concept, replacing the ball with a 'life'. Extra lives, like extra balls in pinball, could often be earned by scoring a certain number of points, collecting a certain item/number of items, or fulfilling some other in-game condition.
The inclusion of extra lives was very common in videogames from the 1980s on, even in otherwise 'realistic' combat-themed games. The term '1-UP' for 'extra life' is used mostly among the console gaming community rather than the PC gaming community.
One-ups (in the second sense) are very frequent in platform games and common in other action-heavy games. Very often, "extra life" is literally true. If the player character is killed extra lives allow the player to return, unscathed, for another try. The 1-Up mushroom is frequently used in pop culture as a mascot for people born during the 1980s due to the generation's widespread use of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The "1-up" first appeared in the video game Super Mario Bros. 1-ups are usually collected as items or earned through specific accomplishments. One is usually the ultimate reward, and difficult to obtain. Many games give one-ups as a reward if enough (usually 100) of a certain object can be collected, such as coins (Super Mario Bros.), rings (e.g. Sonic), bananas (e.g. Donkey Kong), or diamonds. Also, 1-ups may be given as rewards for high scores. On some occasions the 1-up is surpassed by an even rarer extra continue, which awards a whole new set of lives instead of just one - very much like adding a credit in an arcade game. One-ups often take the form of icons of the main character's head, or other such representations such as dolls, coins, hearts, ankh symbols or mushrooms. A simpler icon of just the letters "1up" is also common.
Some games feature items that award more than one life at a time. They are usually referred to as 2-ups, 3-ups, 5-ups, etc., and are often represented by different colored 1-up icons. Confusingly, in some multiplayer games, if Player One receives an extra life, it's displayed as a '1-UP', and if Player Two receives an extra life, it's displayed as a '2-UP', to differentiate between whoever snagged the powerup first. Some games take this further by giving Players One and Two powerups specific to each player, and the other player cannot pick it up.
In some games, a 1-up also awards full health.
If the player loses all extra lives and continues, the game will restart at the beginning.
The use of the term may come from Japanese wasei-eigo (Japanese English). "~ UP" (Japanese: ～アップ) means "to raise the ability of; to increase." Other examples include "Power up" (used in Altered Beast), and "Ability UP!," used on the cover of some English study books in Japan. This Japanese shortening of English has provided us with another popular gaming phrase, level up; though Dungeons & Dragons aficionados may disagree about the origins of this oft-invoked phrase.
References
- Thomas, David. Scott Jones and Shana Hertz (ed.). The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual (PDF). Power Play Publishing. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-4303-1305-2. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help)