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Essay: A future I would want to live in

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by JoeStrout, Nov 7, 2017.

  1. Teila

    Teila

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    Absolutely agree. :) But...a challenge can be healing people in an epidemic, finding a cure, hiding the children from the savage aliens....

    It does not need to be based on combat and fighting and violence. I face challenges every day as I am sure you do. But I have never felt the need to shoot anyone. :)
     
  2. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Hiding children from savage aliens sure sounds like a violent game to me, even if the player character isn't the one committing violence :p
     
  3. TonyLi

    TonyLi

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    Manifold Garden, Tetris, Life Is Strange, Bejeweled, Harvest Moon, Prune, Crayon Physics, High School Story, After Life - Story of a Father, Bolt Riley, Gone Home, Viridi, and many visual novels -- there are plenty of stories with challenges, some of which have relatively non-violent narrative conflict (Life Is Strange, High School Story, etc.), some not.

    But to the point of the original article, tend-and-befriend games like Harvest Moon and Viridi have done well without requiring violence. I was hesitant to add Farmville to the list, but you can't deny that it was financially successful while tapping into an underserved market.
     
  4. Teila

    Teila

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    LOL
    Maybe...but it also is an example of Tend and Befriend. :) So even if a game is violent, if the players has options to deal with the challenges without using violent means themselves, then it at least gives players who prefer to use different means to use them.

    Most games give you no other choice but to run away or fight.

    But...in real life, people who deal with violent regimes, dangerous situations, etc., do have other choices. Can we hide from a mob in a game? Maybe. Can we lock ourselves in a room and wait until they leave? Can we cooperate with the npcs and other players to protect each other?

    I think I have said this over and over and over again. Getting bored of my own words. If you do not get what I mean now, then I am just wasting my time and yours. :) I think we are in agreement more than we are not.

    Exactly why we need diversity in game development....some people just do not get other people. lol
     
    neoshaman likes this.
  5. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    Watching Anime shows really has opened my perspective on what themes can be made interesting (namely almost anything). E.g. Food Wars is a show about high-stakes cooking duels, super fun to watch and a lot to learn from about food. Even cooking can be a competitive test of skills with epic music, dramatic editing and big ramifications for the overarching story.

    NSFW:

    I think a telltale style game in the setting of the TV show Mad Men could be interesting, even though I personally don't like the telltale formula of games.

    I could even see a point and click adventure about fighting for sole custody for your child to be an interesting non-violent story full of relatable high-stakes drama and conflict. I'd neither want to make nor play it, but I'm sure someone would.

    Mainly I just wanted to test whether @hippocoder has given me the 24h temp ban that I asked for.
     
    neoshaman, EternalAmbiguity and Teila like this.
  6. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    If you're talking about State of Fear, then amusingly that's exactly the book I was referring to when I spoke of people not comprehending what they were reading :p I read that several years ago (I've read almost all of his books, including one written under a pseudonym (A Case of Need)). And I too am a scientist (BS in Chem and Bio, MS in Chem).

    It's not my goal here to create a bunch of drama, so I'll just say this and move on: one has to be careful to understand what someone is saying. Someone saying "environmentalism is a 21st century religion" is in no way them saying "I don't believe in environmentalism." That's crazy, illogical thinking. Them saying "I don't believe in environmentalism" is them saying "I don't believe in environmentalism."

    The point of State of Fear is that regardless of whether or not climate change exists (he argues that it does in the book, which most of his accusers do not comprehend), the science around it is rife with "politics" making the impact of the issue far less clear than what is claimed.

    Another point of State of Fear and some of his (better) novels is that when mankind (frequently through science) tries to "fix" something they don't fully understand, they fix nothing at all and occasionally make it worse. This is 100% true, and this non-idealistic portrayal of science is absolutely critical in our world today (where most people know nothing about the issues they espouse).
     
    Martin_H likes this.
  7. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    I don't know how similar 50 shades or Twilight are to either of the games I mentioned. They seem a totally different genre entirely. That aside, I will say I read through the entire Twilight series when it came out (I thought the culmination with Bella protecting everyone with her "shield" power (which seemed like nothing more than an anomaly at the beginning of the series (though should Jasper have been able to influence her emotions? I'm not sure...)) was pretty cool) and searched the interwebs to find the half-written manuscript for Midnight Sun, the story of Twilight written from Edward's perspective. And I wrote a short story about a young man awakening to his homicidal tendencies when a burglar enters his home, and his name is Jasper (while his girlfriend's name is Alice).

    A more apt comparison might be stories written by Rhianna Pratchett, such as Lara in the new Tomb Raider or the Thief reboot (I don't know if she wrote the whole story there, but I know she wrote some characters). I enjoyed both (though I know there was some amount of flak for Lara's portrayal). Additionally, I've enjoyed most of the writing in Dragon Age, of which Mary Kirby is a contributing member (I'm unsure of how much, though I believe it's quite a bit). I don't know the names of many writers in games (I had to look up the two from Dontnod), so I couldn't tell you any more off of the top of my head. (Edit: I enjoyed the one story of ebi-hime's I've read, and I'm about to read Lily of the Valley)
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2018
  8. Teila

    Teila

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    Disagree, but not a place to talk about this honestly. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/michael-crichton-and-global-warming/

    Dozens of other links out there if you want to see what other scientists say. But...please, not here. It will only turn this entire thread into something else.
     
    EternalAmbiguity likes this.
  9. EdwardMcGarry

    EdwardMcGarry

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  10. UnityMaru

    UnityMaru

    Community Engagement Manager PSM

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    Please stop reviving old threads. You've done this twice now and this is against our rules.
     
  11. MitchStan

    MitchStan

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    Yes, reviving old threads is annoying, but not in this case.

    I’ve been on this forum since 2006 and in my opinion this is the most fascinating thread to necro. Given what is happening in the world today with politics gone haywire and a global pandemic, it’s amazing to read the sensibilities of our collective group. It’s quite interesting to see if opinions evolve over time.

    Please allow this thread to continue.

    For my perspective, violent games that reflect a dystopian future will not help the world get out of the mess we are in. As game designers and programmers, we are writers. We are story tellers. I think it would be helpful to the world, especially the kids that play our games, if we told more stories of optimism and hope and less of death and destruction.

    Just my two cents from a 60 year old guy with a kid about to enter adulthood.

    I could die in peace if I knew this important community of brilliant folks helped fix the world.
     
    Mark_01, EdwardMcGarry and JoeStrout like this.