Social value in board game journal #2

This guys walked into my mind these days...


Assassin's Creed seems to fit these four words very well.


Silence... Breathing... Bureaucracy... Access to Knowledge...


Assassin is definite a good game mechanic for "Breathing" and "Silence".

1. It will bring the perfect Atmosphere to the game.
2. The tenseness will make every one hold on their breath.
3. If you close your eye, and sensed that someone is breathing around you...

But is this the value I want to put into the game?

Is killing the only access to the knowledge?

Is there a way I can bring the same tension into the game without killing someone in the dark?

Social value in board game journal #1

Introduction

I took the Design Social Value in Board Game class this semester. In this class we will use the Grow-A-Game cards from the Values @ Play project to design and develop a board game at the end of the semester.
The idea to integrate social and moral values into games really get me excited. My goal this semester is to develop a fun game not only entertain player but also inspire them.

The Cards I picked

In the first class, we picked one card from each category. Here is the cards I got.
Atmosphere: Silence
Value: Access to Knowledge
Verb: Breathing
Challenge: Bureaucracy
Although I love the Medieval, Hard work, Feeding, Greed combination, I very happy with my cards too. Breathing fit well with Silence and the Bureaucracy is the perfect enemy of Access to Knowledge.

First Thought About The Game Mechanic

• The goal of the game is to gain more knowledge.
• There are two sides of the player. At first one side has more access to the knowledge than the other.
• The nomal way to get knowledge is slow but guaranteed. The other way to get the knowledge is fast but risky.
• In some points of the game. Player should all close their eyes, except the one who has chosen the quick way to gain the knowledge. Everyone try to be as quiet as possible, for the one who make a sound will be suspected...
  

Why are videogames so violent?

Sorry about the font and zise, this blog has so many bug that I can not get it right.


Why are videogames so violent?

It’s a direct, effective way to interact. Jesse explained it well in his lecture and I am not going to talk more about this.

Another reason why videogames are so violent is we, human are violent.

Violent is inherent in human nature. We developed the motivation of killing through the human evolution. This is a basic skill to fulfill our security need. Our brain produce an immediate chemical reward to those activities fulfill our basic need such as, eat sleep, sex and kill.

Part of the survival of human race depends on the skill to kill at the early period of human history. We will have a less chance to live If we unwilling or hesitate to kill lives who will provide food or threaten our existence.

With the development of implements of production, most of the human don’t need to kill for survive anymore.

But we still kill

We kill for fun

Because we still have that impulse to kill, our brain will still give a chemical reward after we did that.

The only problem is the feeling of guilty. There is another part of the brain generates a feeling called “compassion” which will makes us feel “guilty”. “Guilty” feels really bad. It totally ruins our Happy Fun Killing time.

We quickly found a way to go around this problem by killing creatures that won’t make us feel compassion for them, so that we won’t feel guilty for killing.

Why we love killing zombie?

A. They are evil and disgusting. It feels good to get rid of evil creature.

B. They are slow and stupid which makes a perfect target to shot or slash.

C. Their body looks like the result of terrible accident.

I think there are some very important reasons, but not the key reason.

Why killing zombie is more fun than killing zombie dog or deformed monster?

D. They look like human.

They walk like us, dress like us, and bleed like us.

Below is the evolution of the most famous zombie shooting game Resident Evil.

Resident Evil 2 Resident Evil 5

Why we love killing zombie?

l They give us a heavenly reason to kill a human figure creature.

What should we do then?

Seems like violent is the perfect cash cow in the game industry, just like pornographic video is the golden goose in the film industry.

Then should the industry produce more and more violent and pornographic product?

No.

Not to mention the classification system, this is also not the best the way to make money!

Violent and pornographic content can’t stand the test of time! Who wants to watch the same porn again and again? We always want new, fresh things... Old product will be flushed by countless new ones in any moment. They have a very short life cycle.

In addition, they also won’t travel though space. Because they are not profound and similar to each other, thus they will be easily forgotten among the flood of violence and pornography.

So, we should make some profound games with meaningful story and gratuitous violence and sex?

...

I think you got me.

I don’t know how to argue after I see the IMDB Top 5.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 2. The Godfather (1972) 3. The Godfather: Part II (1974) 4. Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. (1966) 5. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Rated R for language and prison violence. Rated R for some brutal violence, language and sexual content. Rated R for brutal violence and language. Rated PG for brutal violence Rated R for strong graphic violence and drug use, pervasive strong language and some sexuality.

Yes, it is obvious that they all have violence or sexual content in it.

But after think again, it is also obvious that the movie is actually not about violent and sex. Instead they are about pity, compassion, love, sacrifice, honor and pride. Violence and sex is used to support the story and theme. They are not the foundation of the movie.

In addition, we all know that if a movie over used the violent and sex content and do not have a meaningful theme, it will win the Raspberry Awards.

So, we should make some profound and meaningful games with

violence and sex if necessary?

Yes

…

And,

If we determine to make profound and meaningful games, we will found that most of the time violence and sex is actually unnecessary.

AIR is a Japanese AVG (Visual Novel) which was originally released as an adult game on.

Traditionally, Japanese AVG is developed by small studio. The selling points are love story, pretty female character and sex scene. Of course, the audience is usually young male.

AIR is an AVG game that has a so profound and touching story that the player refuse to accept the sexual content. They love the main characters so much that they don’t want the sex scene to ruin the experience. If someone asks for the pornographic CG on net, he will be ostracized by the fans immediately.

The full-age version with adult content removed was released later.

Usually, Japanese AVG is domestic. They almost never release in other languages, the same as AIR. But because of its emotional depth AIR has been translated into Chinese by fans after 4 years voluntary work.

AIR has proved great enough to spread across time and space.

AIR was released on PC, DC, PS2, PSP, SoftBank 3G and FOMA cell phones. There were also manga, anime, film, original soundtrack and drama CDs released based on AIR during the years following in addition to countless “Donjin” publications. (In Japan “Donjin” is used to refer to amateur self-published works.)

Every summer, during Jul. 23th to Aug. 14th, large numbers of people from around the world gather on many internet discussion boards in memory of the birth and death of the main character, Kamio Misuzu.

So, we should make some profound and meaningful games. Violence and sex will not affect the popularity, timeless theme is key to success.

Absolutely!