Not preventing it, but instead having characters commit it to advance the story. I've suffered from depression all my life (I am 22), and death is always on my mind. So I think putting the subject in my games will be a good form of expression. I will be making these games out of passion and love, and I hope to hit a chord with others who feel like myself.
The first game would take place on a non-human planet full of dispair, and everyone hates humanity as a whole while suffering in their own existence. The main player is an orphan (whos parents killed themselves) who comes from a poor area and is recruited to commit the genocide of an ecsaped cybernetic race on another planet, in the ultimate war machine. At the end of his mission he is killed so the army can say he stole the piece of technology to commit his racial war, but they activated the self destruct mechinism after it was "too late".
The next game is split between him as a ghost in the ship and another character as they explore the manicly depressed planet. The character in the ship destroys things for fun and commits suicide to end his misery, but he ends up in another plane of existence, never finding the oblivion he seeks. The other character eventually finds the creator of the cybernetic technology who kills himself in a way to make the army think the race sent an assassin to kill him so they would use their resources to seek out the servivors using their war machines and not fight other nations on the planet.
Theres another game, but it isnt as focused on suicide like the others. It is just to tie up the story of course, and has its own theme in it as well.
What do you think of suicide as a major subject in a game? In my games and others as well. Should there be more games with suicides, or none at all? Is it too negative, or is it not touched upon enough?
Suicide as a major subject in my games. What do you think?
Author
Im not sure how much it would be if I did charge anything, depends on how long it takes to make it or how hard it is to get everything to work perfectly.
Suicide was used as a minor game mechanic in Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy - it was an adventure/story game where you played the roles of many different characters in different chapters - e.g. you played as a murder suspect, but were also in control of the detectives hunting him in other scenes.
Every character had a psychological state-of-mind meter and for some characters, hitting the bottom of this meter would cause them to commit suicide, which ended the story prematurely ("game over").
It was was a pretty minor feature, as it was easy to maintain decent mental health for all characters, but it was an interesting way to encourage you to balance all of your actions. The game also had a character who had to overcome their claustrophobia, and tried to touch upon some interpersonal relationship themes.
Real social issues, such as mental health, aren't touched upon often enough in games, so IMHO a respectful integration into your plot would be welcome by many.
Every character had a psychological state-of-mind meter and for some characters, hitting the bottom of this meter would cause them to commit suicide, which ended the story prematurely ("game over").
It was was a pretty minor feature, as it was easy to maintain decent mental health for all characters, but it was an interesting way to encourage you to balance all of your actions. The game also had a character who had to overcome their claustrophobia, and tried to touch upon some interpersonal relationship themes.
Real social issues, such as mental health, aren't touched upon often enough in games, so IMHO a respectful integration into your plot would be welcome by many.
Author
Real social issues, such as mental health, aren't touched upon often enough in games, so IMHO a respectful integration into your plot would be welcome by many.
Yeah I wanted to play Indigo Prophecy, but never got to so I didnt know that feature.
"Respectful" is a matter Im worried about with how some will see the game, theres no way to stop the characters from committing it. I see if the game becomes an underground hit some parents will blame the game for their kids suicides, which is a weird thing to have to talk about from my side.
The real point of the game is that life is pointless and painful for some and they end up doing things that are violent and pointless. Im sick of the usual good guy winning over evil, or the antihero gets what he wants and lives to be something in his world, in games. Im not trying to promote suicide as a good thing for depressed people to do. Im saying instead that it happens and it doesnt matter what you think of it if youre not the person who commits it.
Depression and suicide are worthwhile topics that could be explored in a game. But I'm not sure a "non-human planet full of despair" where suicide is common is the way to go. You don't want to over-simplify the topic into a fairy tale or alienate it from the audience, because feeling of being unwanted, betrayed, in pain, not wanting to go on... all that stuff is at the core of what it means to be human, and is also very personal. At least, that's how I see it. Internal, emotional and mental issues are usually best explored in fiction through the experience of one or a few characters in highly-individualized circumstances, not a planet of people who are all similar. "Racial personality" set-ups are usually more for issues of politics and external philosophical issues like "man vs. nature" or more simplistic morals like "violence doesn't solve problems, and in fact the more violent people there are involved the more problems they make".
Author
I see your point sunandshadow. SInce it says to give a synopsis of the plot and not make a huge mountain of text I did leave out things that would explain the reason why everyone is depressed and other things.
I dont know if I should go on a diatribe on my thoughts leading to this idea for a game series, but making them aliens has to do with any author or game designer who makes a story with aliens who are really reflections of humanity. Im taking that and going in a different direction. I also dont want the story to be about people because then someone playing will say "oh, humans dont act like that, no one could do that, ect." Even wild animals have the same emotions as people. Humanity is so sad and happy at the same time, it just depends on what you look at on tv or whats occuring in your life. With humans our dna says to progress the species, but these aliens dont have that hardwired into them. Im taking this thing thats apart of me (depression) and Im putting it somewhere else so I can explore it outside a human influence as best I can. Then Im gonna put it out in the open and see what others think of it.
This is a lot to talk about, haha.
I dont know if I should go on a diatribe on my thoughts leading to this idea for a game series, but making them aliens has to do with any author or game designer who makes a story with aliens who are really reflections of humanity. Im taking that and going in a different direction. I also dont want the story to be about people because then someone playing will say "oh, humans dont act like that, no one could do that, ect." Even wild animals have the same emotions as people. Humanity is so sad and happy at the same time, it just depends on what you look at on tv or whats occuring in your life. With humans our dna says to progress the species, but these aliens dont have that hardwired into them. Im taking this thing thats apart of me (depression) and Im putting it somewhere else so I can explore it outside a human influence as best I can. Then Im gonna put it out in the open and see what others think of it.
This is a lot to talk about, haha.
I also dont want the story to be about people because then someone playing will say "oh, humans dont act like that"
Well, personally I'd say that when designing aliens, one wants people to be thinking "oh, I really feel for these aliens because they act just like humans". I've read stories that make me really care about a depressed or suicidal character and empathize with their thoughts and feelings. But I think this kind of audience empathy is much easier to build with an individual character than with a whole race or species, where it's much harder to suspend one's disbelief and take the concept seriously. Also when trying to present a theme in any kind of fiction, including games, generally you want to have a cast of characters that illustrate contrasting rhetorical positions. A character who is depressed works best in contrast to a character who isn't. It's like stand-up comedy, where you really need a "straight man" for the comedian to play off of.
Author
In the second game itll be kinda like another type of person to contrast the depression. A single survivor of the genocide makes it to the planet and thats when you actually see the world and these ideas of a depressed race come more into play.
Another game, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, the intro shows the main character committing suicide with the actual game showing what lead up to his insanity.
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