non-violent teen-to-adult game concepts
Author
We all know games don't *HAVE* to be violent. And while those are mostly pre-teen games, there are also non-violent games that are interesting for teens and young adults and so.
But when someone asks us what other genres are there, we go:
"uh... The Sims. and Sim city. and.... um.... Sim-somthing."
and of course, they all fit in one or two genres.
So, do YOU have any ideas that could be made into non-violent games, and still be FUN for teens and/or adults?
games that rely heavily on explicit sex are not an option either, of course =)
Me, i wish there was a proper way to do drama.... but its hard to make it challenging and fun. Also i'm interested in non-twitch games, that appeal to casual and new gamers. Like Syberia.
shout your thoughts!
edit: well known non-violent genres:
god games
administration sims
vehicle sims
exploration
point&click adventure
myst
puzzle games
platformers (do you consider mario violent?)
card games
driving/racing games
sports games
any kind of FPS but instead of killing you just turn people into chickens, or ducks, and occasionally iguanas
-me
puzzle games
platformers (do you consider mario violent?)
card games
driving/racing games
sports games
any kind of FPS but instead of killing you just turn people into chickens, or ducks, and occasionally iguanas
-me
Author
good question. While über cute, the bottom line of Mario is still to defeat non-playable characters by hitting them.
So while not exactly violent, it still sticks with the violence paradigm.
However, i've seen platformers that didn't involve hitting anyone.. i remember one about a biker moving trough some weird scenarios without falling... also good old Spelunker from Atari was about exploring a mine without dying. oh yes.. death...
its unavoidable to put death in there, isn't it?
So while not exactly violent, it still sticks with the violence paradigm.
However, i've seen platformers that didn't involve hitting anyone.. i remember one about a biker moving trough some weird scenarios without falling... also good old Spelunker from Atari was about exploring a mine without dying. oh yes.. death...
its unavoidable to put death in there, isn't it?
Author
Nice, a hacking game. Takes skill, fast thinking, gives you a rush yet its entirely non violent.
Anyone willing to adventure an idea of his/her own?
Anyone willing to adventure an idea of his/her own?
I don't know why lately all the violent games talk has raised more than usual. Games have ratings for a reason, if you buy your child a game and it happens that it's violent, well it's your fault. It probably had a rating. It's like movies, tv or anything else, and I don't hear so much talking about the violence in them lately.
Anyways sorry about the previous paragraph, and now let's get truly on topic :p
Well for starters, you could find a certain degree of violence in anything, depending on how you see it. Everytime people use pesticide they kill living creatures. The point of this is that when you say non-violent games you probably want to define how violent.
I downloaded this little ninja game, it was a stealth game. No weapons or anything. You begin on a rooftoop of a randomly generated city, with many guards walking back and fort inside and outside the buildings. The objective is to cross the city without being spotted by 10 guards, with a time limit. Sounds from falling also alert the guards, the higher you fell from, the louder the sound is, and you have a graple hook to help.
A discovery an adventure game. There is this game.. let me see if I remember.. oh yeah seiklus ( http://www.autofish.net/clysm/games/seiklus/ ) I found it pretty interesting.
A game where you can make monsters that can be altered genetically, and then they compete against other monsters in different tasks, like finding things, running, lifting things.. tought I know that there are lots of things more interesting that the ones I suggested.
Well obviously puzzles..
Hey, what about a game where you are a ghost and you have to scare people? Without being caught by paranormal investigators, ghostbusters and such.. some people might be harder to scare, or might not be scared from just seeing a ghost, so you have to find ways to scare them. Maybe there can be holy symbols and objects that prevent you from scaring your objective. You might be able to affect some type of objects in different ways, like, you can make air molecule's move faster in places that you touch, move slightly non-heavy objects like papers, make things a little more warm or a little more cold, or even manipulate people but in a really small amounts. Using those abilites you have to be able to get rid of the holy objects and scare your objectives. But beware, because everywhere you go, you leave an ectoplasm trail so you have to create false leads and confound paranormal investigators.
Another game could be that you are trapped inside a dream world, inside people's dreams. Dreams break the rules of physics and such 'normal' right? Each person has different dreams with different 'rules' in it. Each dream looks different. You can get inside any person dreams, as long as that person is dreaming. They might be having a nice dream or a nightmare(non-violent nightmares okay?). If you are inside someone when that person wakes up, it's game over, however you can know in advance when someone is waking up because the objects inside the dream start to fade when that person is waking up, and you can know when a dream has just started. When you are inside someone who is dreaming, you can go to the dream of a person that is part of the dream you are in, by entering a portal. From every dream you can jump to several dreams, but you have to unlock the portals first by doing something related to that person in the dream. You have to look for clues on what can get you outside the dream world inside people's dreams. You might have gone to the dream world because someone sent you, because you had an accident or because you are looking for something or someone there.
Anyways sorry about the previous paragraph, and now let's get truly on topic :p
Well for starters, you could find a certain degree of violence in anything, depending on how you see it. Everytime people use pesticide they kill living creatures. The point of this is that when you say non-violent games you probably want to define how violent.
I downloaded this little ninja game, it was a stealth game. No weapons or anything. You begin on a rooftoop of a randomly generated city, with many guards walking back and fort inside and outside the buildings. The objective is to cross the city without being spotted by 10 guards, with a time limit. Sounds from falling also alert the guards, the higher you fell from, the louder the sound is, and you have a graple hook to help.
A discovery an adventure game. There is this game.. let me see if I remember.. oh yeah seiklus ( http://www.autofish.net/clysm/games/seiklus/ ) I found it pretty interesting.
A game where you can make monsters that can be altered genetically, and then they compete against other monsters in different tasks, like finding things, running, lifting things.. tought I know that there are lots of things more interesting that the ones I suggested.
Well obviously puzzles..
Hey, what about a game where you are a ghost and you have to scare people? Without being caught by paranormal investigators, ghostbusters and such.. some people might be harder to scare, or might not be scared from just seeing a ghost, so you have to find ways to scare them. Maybe there can be holy symbols and objects that prevent you from scaring your objective. You might be able to affect some type of objects in different ways, like, you can make air molecule's move faster in places that you touch, move slightly non-heavy objects like papers, make things a little more warm or a little more cold, or even manipulate people but in a really small amounts. Using those abilites you have to be able to get rid of the holy objects and scare your objectives. But beware, because everywhere you go, you leave an ectoplasm trail so you have to create false leads and confound paranormal investigators.
Another game could be that you are trapped inside a dream world, inside people's dreams. Dreams break the rules of physics and such 'normal' right? Each person has different dreams with different 'rules' in it. Each dream looks different. You can get inside any person dreams, as long as that person is dreaming. They might be having a nice dream or a nightmare(non-violent nightmares okay?). If you are inside someone when that person wakes up, it's game over, however you can know in advance when someone is waking up because the objects inside the dream start to fade when that person is waking up, and you can know when a dream has just started. When you are inside someone who is dreaming, you can go to the dream of a person that is part of the dream you are in, by entering a portal. From every dream you can jump to several dreams, but you have to unlock the portals first by doing something related to that person in the dream. You have to look for clues on what can get you outside the dream world inside people's dreams. You might have gone to the dream world because someone sent you, because you had an accident or because you are looking for something or someone there.
Quote:Original post by Coz
Hey, what about a game where you are a ghost and you have to scare people? Without being caught by paranormal investigators, ghostbusters and such.. some people might be harder to scare, or might not be scared from just seeing a ghost, so you have to find ways to scare them. Maybe there can be holy symbols and objects that prevent you from scaring your objective. You might be able to affect some type of objects in different ways, like, you can make air molecule's move faster in places that you touch, move slightly non-heavy objects like papers, make things a little more warm or a little more cold, or even manipulate people but in a really small amounts. Using those abilites you have to be able to get rid of the holy objects and scare your objectives. But beware, because everywhere you go, you leave an ectoplasm trail so you have to create false leads and confound paranormal investigators.
Sound familiar. Wasn't there a similar game on some platform (a console game perhaps)?
I wonder why none of you guys mentioned sport games - I remember breaking lots of joysticks playing Summer Games on the C64. That 10,000m dash in real-time(!!!) was a real killer - those were days [grin]
Author
Nice post, coz!
let's see... by non violent i mean that the means to win or advance don't come exclusively trough harming other characters.
But now that you mentioned it, i am more interested in the games that lure casual gamers (since most of my friends seem to fit there... damn), and those usually don't rely on skill/dexterity.
For example, your ghost idea is excellent! easy to relate to, no dexterity needed and no violence.
about the genetic altering game, i remember this wargame called 'impossible creatures', and i heard people spent more time mixing and making new creatures than playing the game... it was simply more fun.
dream world? excellent. Your objective could be having that person come to terms with an issue, maybe by showing him stuff, or confronting his fears, etc (non violent fears =D hahah)
I find most casual gamers are easily lured by games that feature human characters promiently (shown in a big % of the screen), and doing typical human stuff, like talking to other people and fiddling with stuff. And laughing and crying. An action scene here and there to spice things up too.
Also they're turned off by tiny specks that shoot things in every direction. It's just not lifelike.
let's see... by non violent i mean that the means to win or advance don't come exclusively trough harming other characters.
But now that you mentioned it, i am more interested in the games that lure casual gamers (since most of my friends seem to fit there... damn), and those usually don't rely on skill/dexterity.
For example, your ghost idea is excellent! easy to relate to, no dexterity needed and no violence.
about the genetic altering game, i remember this wargame called 'impossible creatures', and i heard people spent more time mixing and making new creatures than playing the game... it was simply more fun.
dream world? excellent. Your objective could be having that person come to terms with an issue, maybe by showing him stuff, or confronting his fears, etc (non violent fears =D hahah)
I find most casual gamers are easily lured by games that feature human characters promiently (shown in a big % of the screen), and doing typical human stuff, like talking to other people and fiddling with stuff. And laughing and crying. An action scene here and there to spice things up too.
Also they're turned off by tiny specks that shoot things in every direction. It's just not lifelike.
Where do you draw the line between casual gamer & hardcore gamer though? I don't consider myself a casual gamer, but a lot of people probably would because I don't like the bang bang shoot em up games due to having crappy reflexes. However, I'll obsessively play RPG's in every spare moment. (Of course since Gamecube has very few RPG's, I haven't been able to get my fix for a long time.)
I think the thing is, even if you don't include violence, you have to include *some* kind of conflict, otherwise the game's pretty boring. Humans for some reason just adore watching someone else's conflict. (Jerry Springer, anyone?)
Side-note on Spelunker-type games where you can't kill the bad guys: I find these really really annoying, because it still takes better reflexes than I have to avoid the bad guys sometimes. And when I get annoyed at how badly I'm sucking, I can't just shoot something to relieve the frustration. :P
Maybe I'll come up with some decent ideas for nonviolent games soon, but so far everything I can think of would be a sim of some type, heh.
I think the thing is, even if you don't include violence, you have to include *some* kind of conflict, otherwise the game's pretty boring. Humans for some reason just adore watching someone else's conflict. (Jerry Springer, anyone?)
Side-note on Spelunker-type games where you can't kill the bad guys: I find these really really annoying, because it still takes better reflexes than I have to avoid the bad guys sometimes. And when I get annoyed at how badly I'm sucking, I can't just shoot something to relieve the frustration. :P
Maybe I'll come up with some decent ideas for nonviolent games soon, but so far everything I can think of would be a sim of some type, heh.
Hacking Game Based in the popular ShadowRun game.
You are a hacer and start with some basic equipment. There a servers located all over the world in a network. You should get some servers for money, some servers for information, some servers for power. Sometimes hack the police servers in order to clean your delictive past. Each time a server is hacked, it gets harder to hack next time.
When you enter the cyberworld, you have an avatar. Your equipments translates your own reactions to your avatar. Better equipment means better reaction time, better weapons in your avatar, better antivirus, better diguise programs. You can equip your avatar for a particular hacking job. The hacking job can be any one. The hacking experience can vary depending your game style. Maybe it can be like descent and your avatar is a spaceship fitted with weapons. Maybe you are a soldier with lots of gears and tools around. Viruses, firewalls, and sentinel programs can be represented in many ways. Maybe each hacking experince can be a puzzle game.
Current hacking stereotype is The Matrix. Current hacking protection programs are characters like Agent Smith. Current Hacker stereotype is Neo, Trinity or any other human in the Matrix. Anyway that is not mandatory.
About the servers. Say, you hack a money server (a bank). You can get some money in order to upgrade your equipment. But it will be harder to hack it next time.
If you hack a information server, you get better information about the global network. Server locations, server protection measures.
Hack a power server in order to get control of the physical world (power stations, train stations, etc... even nuclear arsenals and military computers). You could shut down entire cities or take control of nuclear weapons.
Each time you enter the cyberworld you can be detected. The more 'hacks' you make, the more sought you will be, so you have to enter the Local Police/FBI/Interpol servers in order to delete your information.
The back history may be that as you start to hack more and more servers, you notice that the 'Cyber' (just a name... call it Matrix, Web, Grid, Net or wathever) is developing an intelligence and wants to destroy the humans (any reason... they are not required... usual scifi logic). So, you have to locate the central intelligence server, lower its physical defenses (hacking its own 'StarWars' defense server that wont allow any missiles to enter) and launching some nuclear warheads to its main physical location (maybe sending an attack special OPS team, etc). To do that, you HAVE to gain power taking control of servers. Unfortunately, none will want their servers hacked and will set a bounty on your head. Hackers will enter to get you. So now you have to fight that uncaring masterserver and you have all the people of the world against you!... and you have to save them... moral dilemma...
So... a game with no blood... enemies con disintegrate in bytes when you kill them (in case you want action). As they are just virtual programs (and the players will know it) you have no remorse to get them 'formatted' (no gore, no morality as you are not killing living things). So it becomes active but not violent. Anyway if you still consider that too violent, make each hacking a puzzle game.
MMMMMM ... I think I should put it all in a design document and start coding it by myself!!!! Looks fun...
Luck!
Guimo
You are a hacer and start with some basic equipment. There a servers located all over the world in a network. You should get some servers for money, some servers for information, some servers for power. Sometimes hack the police servers in order to clean your delictive past. Each time a server is hacked, it gets harder to hack next time.
When you enter the cyberworld, you have an avatar. Your equipments translates your own reactions to your avatar. Better equipment means better reaction time, better weapons in your avatar, better antivirus, better diguise programs. You can equip your avatar for a particular hacking job. The hacking job can be any one. The hacking experience can vary depending your game style. Maybe it can be like descent and your avatar is a spaceship fitted with weapons. Maybe you are a soldier with lots of gears and tools around. Viruses, firewalls, and sentinel programs can be represented in many ways. Maybe each hacking experince can be a puzzle game.
Current hacking stereotype is The Matrix. Current hacking protection programs are characters like Agent Smith. Current Hacker stereotype is Neo, Trinity or any other human in the Matrix. Anyway that is not mandatory.
About the servers. Say, you hack a money server (a bank). You can get some money in order to upgrade your equipment. But it will be harder to hack it next time.
If you hack a information server, you get better information about the global network. Server locations, server protection measures.
Hack a power server in order to get control of the physical world (power stations, train stations, etc... even nuclear arsenals and military computers). You could shut down entire cities or take control of nuclear weapons.
Each time you enter the cyberworld you can be detected. The more 'hacks' you make, the more sought you will be, so you have to enter the Local Police/FBI/Interpol servers in order to delete your information.
The back history may be that as you start to hack more and more servers, you notice that the 'Cyber' (just a name... call it Matrix, Web, Grid, Net or wathever) is developing an intelligence and wants to destroy the humans (any reason... they are not required... usual scifi logic). So, you have to locate the central intelligence server, lower its physical defenses (hacking its own 'StarWars' defense server that wont allow any missiles to enter) and launching some nuclear warheads to its main physical location (maybe sending an attack special OPS team, etc). To do that, you HAVE to gain power taking control of servers. Unfortunately, none will want their servers hacked and will set a bounty on your head. Hackers will enter to get you. So now you have to fight that uncaring masterserver and you have all the people of the world against you!... and you have to save them... moral dilemma...
So... a game with no blood... enemies con disintegrate in bytes when you kill them (in case you want action). As they are just virtual programs (and the players will know it) you have no remorse to get them 'formatted' (no gore, no morality as you are not killing living things). So it becomes active but not violent. Anyway if you still consider that too violent, make each hacking a puzzle game.
MMMMMM ... I think I should put it all in a design document and start coding it by myself!!!! Looks fun...
Luck!
Guimo
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