In video games, if a player character loses all of its health points, it loses a life. Losing all of one's lives is usually a loss condition and may force the player to start over. It is common in action games for the player character to have multiple lives and chances to earn more during the game. This way, a player can recover from making a disastrous mistake. role-playing games and adventure games usually give the player only one life, but allow them to reload a saved game. A life may similarly be defined as the period between the start and end of play for any character, from creation to destruction.