Would have been farer if the game counted down to one's last live instead of counting up the deaths and creating the illusion that there is no last live to worry about.
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I kept letting myself die just as a shortcut back to the checkpoint, since most games like this (that I've played) don't have limited lives. I didn't even notice it was keeping track until the number was 81 or so, but even then I didn't worry about it until the game over screen. I was enjoying experimenting to see where I could go.