Power-Up

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What Does Power-Up Mean?

A power-up is an object in a video game which instantly adds to the life, armor, strength or score of a player. Power-ups can be an individual object or a group of objects specifically designed and placed inside a game for the player to win. Obtaining power-ups may vary in difficulty depending on the game and/or benefit given.

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Techopedia Explains Power-Up

Power-up items are programmed into a game and sometimes require a player to overcome a challenge, such as winning a difficult fight with an enemy or solving a complicated puzzle, in order to achieve the benefit. They are commonly found in action-oriented games where the player must fight or outrun the enemy, but are also found in nearly every type of game, including maze games, run and guns, shoot ’em ups, first-person shooters, platform games, puzzle games, racing games and vehicular combat games.

Some well-known examples of power-ups are in the Super Mario game series, where a red mushroom makes the character larger, a green mushroom gives an extra life and a star provides invincibility.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.