Mechanic deep dive: Sifu

Sifu, developed by Sloclap, can be defined as a beat ‘em up game built around martial arts. But what truly sets it apart from other action games is its unique aging mechanic. As I have recently played it, I decided to share what I found interesting about this mechanic. 

How the Death Counter Works

In Sifu, when your character dies, they age by a variable number of years that depend on a death counter. For example, if your death counter is at one, you’ll age by one year; if it's at two, you’ll age by two years, and so on. This counter starts at zero and increases by one each time you die. So if you die two times in a row, you will age 1+2=3 years. This counter is decreased by one upon defeating a key enemy or a boss.

Aging affects your character's stats. As you get older, your health pool shrinks, but your damage output increases. However, once your character surpasses 70 years, death becomes permanent, and you must restart the level. There are five levels, which have to be played in order the first time, but once a level is unlocked, players can select it from the menu. A level starts with the age at which you finished the previous level, so you can replay previous levels to start with a lower age. 

What makes this mechanic great?

As game designers, we know that a mechanic can’t be simply original, fun or good. A great mechanic makes the game work and it’s the perfect fit for the desired gameplay. Sifu is indeed a very elegant game with a clear objective: achieve mastery through repetition.

How does this mechanic fit into all this? 

Well, first of all, we have to wonder what this mechanic actually achieves in the game. Mainly three things:

• The rate at which you age increases every time you die, so it is more punishing the more times in a row you die before defeating a miniboss.

• Tha game saves your age at the start of a level.

• Death has an emotive impact on players.

Each of these things has an impact on the behavior the developers wanted players to adopt. Let’s see them in detail.

Increasing rate of damage

Imagine all the health bars for each year of life in Sifu as a single health bar. In a classic game, you would lose health at a constant rate upon receiving damage. In Sifu, it’s as if each hit deals more and more damage until you lower the death counter. This mechanism is indeed more punishing and forces players to master the combat system to near perfection. 

The game saves your age

When you complete a level, your age will be set as the new starting age for the following level. As the game wants to push players on a path to mastery, it also encourages them to replay old levels to conclude them with a lower age. Age is also used as a limitation on skills you can unlock and on the special enhancement you can get at the Shrines. This further encourages players to replay the same levels more than once. 

Death has an emotive impact

Each death is a learning opportunity. When you die and the counter increases, you feel the consequences immediately as your character ages, pushing you to reflect on your mistakes. Furthermore, starting from the same point where you died, gives you the opportunity to apply immediately what you learned. This, among other things, sets apart Sifu from another genre where players achieve mastery through repetition: roguelikes. Sifu wants you instead to overcome a predetermined, non random challenge and to test your ability to improve your score and your final age for the same challenges every time. 

The Balance Between Challenge and Reward

While Sifu’s death counter is an excellent tool for encouraging skill development and precision, it is often viewed as a very harsh and unforgiving mechanic. We should not forget though, that this mechanic allows the game to be punishing and to teach you quickly and strictly its combat while at the same time avoiding too much frustration. What game can actually kill its player so many times while still keeping them engaged? No returning from the checkpoint, no repeating the same sequence every time even if the enemy that killed you is 10 minutes away from where you restart. There is repetition in Sifu, but at your own pace. It never feels boring, precisely because you don’t have to repeat sequences of the game every time you die. By implementing this balance, Sifu avoids being purely punishing. Instead, it acts as a mentor, asking players to dig deep and improve with every run. Overcoming the death counter feels immensely satisfying, giving players a sense of accomplishment that goes beyond just completing the game—it feels like a journey toward mastering a skill.

Ciao!

The death counter in Sifu is more than a gimmick. It is a finely tuned system that pushes players toward mastery and, to some extent, perfectionism. By adding tangible consequences to death, it reinforces the importance of learning from failure, adapting strategies, and constantly improving performance. The feeling of completing a level without significant aging is a testament to the player’s growth and the game’s design philosophy, which mirrors the core tenets of martial arts: practice, discipline, and self-improvement. In the end, Sifu is not just a game about fighting enemies—it’s a game about conquering yourself, with the death counter acting as the perfect motivator.

That's all for today, hope you liked this deep dive as I plan to do articles like these for other games in the future. See you next week!