Yeah, I guess you are right, dwarf. Hey, you''re breaking all the rules. Congrats!


"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd

"Though the course may change sometimes, the rivers always reach the sea" --Led Zeppelin

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

Thanx naz, I like to think that I am setting a positive example in game design and by doing so I hope to set the trend for freedom of thought... We are all slaves to game cloning, let us be free and walk in the light of literature personified into a game (or is that gamified? )

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

No not glamorized at all...

My contribution to originality in games is the inclusion of the kanagaroo scrotum as an item. With all those legends and lore on that website, it could be quite interesting. If that is not original I don''t know what is j/k


"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd

"Though the course may change sometimes, the rivers always reach the sea" --Led Zeppelin

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

As long as it''s a part of the game. Don''t piss people off for the sake of pissing them off. However, I think that you have the judgement capable of handling such a decision. As was said earlier, read a lot, make sure you know what you''re doing, make sure you know what you will be saying about each side of the issue. Treat everything fairly, don''t be biased.

All in all, if it will make your game better it doesn''t matter what people will think.

I am so glad that Landfish is finally getting the respect he deserves.

as far as contraversy goes, slavery is a pretty "safe" subject...it prolly won''t elicit much of a responce, people would likely just shrug and accept it as yet another game mechanic..after all Mario seems to be a distinct individual within his world, but one that is a "slave" to player control [his master? Mmm...that brings up some interesting ideas along the lines of "watching films = voyerisam" seems to have an equal video game paradime "playing games = slave ownership"]

Anyhow there are planty of "unsafe" contraversy issues, abortion, violent content in video games, etc...these are issues no game has yet to fully explore in any deep meeningfull way...

Take the violence in games issue...sure from our point of view this is a stupid idea, we play thousands of games and don''t seem to act out in violent ways against our fellow man...we also point out that kids watching TV and movies can see just as much violence [done in a more realistic way] as they experience in games...but these arguments against the acusations simply "pass the blame" on to parants, film industry, etc..but there still is a very disturbing problem: For every violent movie or TV show there seems to be a non-violent one thus evening things out...this isn''t the case with video games [at least at the mainstream level]...walk into any store like Best Buy and take a look at the film and video game choices available...from this discrepincy alone the parents, the film industry can pass the blame right back upon us ["my kids are playing Quake simply because you provide few alternitives", "yeah, we made Natural Born Killers...but we also made Toy Story 1 and 2"]...worse yet we have little to defend ourselves with should this occur...just from looking at what is available at retail, we as game developers seem to be saying "violence is fun!"...

How about a game where the player controls a little boy who likes to play video games? Mom and Dad could be the typical bad parents...the kid could even get picked on at school, etc..basicly create a "real life" game enviroment where the kids only source of escape comes through playing violent video games...in effect re-create the situation that has lead up to the various horrible kids shooting kids events...but by giveing the player control over the kid, we basicly ask "what would you do?"...if the player were to go on a shooting spree instead of simply quitely suffering through his lot in life, then what effect did the violend games the kid played have upon it?..sure a player could argue that the kid he controls sadly had few alternatives...but what does this say about the player? did he do this because it was an accepted video game practice?

Personally I would not want to play my life in a game. Picked on at school would bring back all those bad memories....

I think you have an idea though

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Wav, I just spotted this thread. It''s one of the best I''ve seen. One of the design commandments I try to follow is MEANINGFUL, and you''re hitting the nail on the head. If you pull it off with any kind of class, you''ll be my personal hero.

Here is how you make your slaver NOT evil:

Your character meets an NPC, this NPC is a nice bloke, seems to have a lot of money. Helps you out on a few quests because he is ''going your way''. Really he is checking out how well you fight. Eventually he says ''I could use somebody like you to keep order in my business''. You can choose to agree or not. If not then he goes, if you agree then you find out that he is a slaver and you get to see all sorts of greusome treatment of slaves. He is an alright bloke, so to speak, but his brutal treatment of slaves that are to be traded leaves something to be desired. What is your moral decision. If you had this NPC save your life and not turn you into a slave then do you feel obligated to him or not? He has asked you to be a guard or something and you now have the choice of doing your job and getting rich, or running off and perhapse being hunted down and put into slavery yourself... Hmmm

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche