Okay. I’ve got a puzzle in Inaria that requires the player to choose whether or not to attack a harmless but annoying NPC. The NPC is initially flagged as friendly.
For a long time, NPCs flagged as friendly would go hostile if you attacked them, attacking back (usually futilely). No big deal, right?
Except that Inaria has several children in it. Which means for a while you could attack and kill the children. This would get the game an AO rating from the ESRB.
The easiest thing to do, of course, is to take the children out.
This phenomenon is called Hide Your Children.
Lots of games get around this in different ways. Play any Grand Theft Auto game and you will notice that there are no children anywhere. This obviously is not realistic. Fallout 3 has children, but makes them un-attackable (the worst you can do is knock them out). This is also unrealistic.
So do I put killable children in my game?
This reminds me of a story. (Collective groan from the audience.)
Back when designing Ultima V, Richard was running through his tileset looking for monsters to populate a combat room and stopped on a curious choice – children. He proceeded to build a room full of little cells, each of which contained a child. Pulling a switch would free the children, who would then – since they had monster AI – promptly attack the party. He actually lost a tester over this, who claimed Richard was promoting child abuse. Even Richard’s parents got into the act, telling him, “It’s just this one little room, why are you fighting so hard to keep it?”
Richard replied that a) it wasn’t necessary to kill the children just because they attack you; Ultima had multiple humane ways (sleep and charm spells being the most common) that would allow the player to resolve the combat without harming the children and b) the very controversy that this room sparked proved that it had merit – it made people think in the midst of a dungeon slaughterfest. Ultimately the room was kept in and you can see it today.
So do I keep my kids? Do I keep them, but make them un-attackable? Or do I Hide My Children?
Fallout 1 and 2 would give you the anti-Perk “Childkiller” if you killed a child, which made it almost impossible to complete the game because any time you entered a civilized area, everybody (including quest-vital NPCs) would attack you. I kind of like that.
But, in the end, I DON’T need my first for-pay game to generate controversy. I want Rock Paper Shotgun talking about the game itself, not the fact that one of the sprites in the game looks like a child and you can pretend to kill that sprite.
What say you?
I say leave the children in the game, and worry about something else, more important, in my opinion… maybe this could be a good thing to keep, like Garriot said, “…it makes you think…”, to me it’d make the game deeper…
The easiest solution, I think, would be to remove the kids. Nobody expects them to be there.
That said, it seems to be downright impossible to strike controversy with an indie game. A certain well-reviewed indie game has a storyline that includes organized rape, but nobody mentions that. My wife went ballistic.
Since you’re asking, here’s my 2-cents worth.
Option #1 – Make the children unkillable, but have them react to the attack. (i.e. Run away, run to an adult who then attacks for them, they dodge and blow a rasberry at you, etc.)
Option #2 – Go for over the top humor. They transform into a giant monstrous beast and thrash you for a bit, then transform back into a quiet little child, standing there innocently. They break the fourth wall and lecture the player about “What kind of a sicko are you?!?” They dodge and then do something nuts–moon the player, post a QBert style #$@%&! They grow to 5 times normal size and knock you back a couple of tiles, then shrink back down. You try to hit one and you get an Oompa Loompa style mocking in a cut-scene, like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They are always able to dodge out of the way, like squeezing a bar of soap, and then stick their tongue out at you.
FWIW,
-S
Yeah, this was something that bugged me about Fallout 3 (and NV).
Why can’t I take a kid’s head off with a sniper rifle, or let them skip over a lunchbox mine. Obviously, that’s a question for my (prison) psychoanalyst…
I would have them run away and alert guards. Kids are nimble little tykes and can probably evade a lumbering man in full armour.
I like the idea of a Golem or protective entity appearing, that protects all children of Inaria until they come of age and pick up their first sword and shield. Write it into the lore somehow.
It would be a pity to remove them. The breadth of characters gives life to a world, imho…
This is only a game ! What’s the problem with having children kill-able !?
This is the same as those self-righteous people claiming that video games promotes violence when people can buy guns freely in real life !
I also remember some “feminazis” making fuss about how Japanese games promotes rape and such.
Just because anyone play such games automatically means they are rapists and murderers !
Even in Singapore which is famous for its fines, it legalizes prostitution in certain area(s) because it is impossible to 100% eliminate prostitution.
The same also happen with legalized casinos, lotteries and such.
ALL HUMANS have his/her own light and dark side; it’s a matter whether he/she can differentiate between game/fantasy/virtual and real life !
Everyone has the right to play any game that he/she likes; stop acting hysterically !
People need something to vent out their frustration and stress; games is only a tool to do that.
If anyone has any objective playing such games then don’t play them BUT stop complaining !
CORRECTION : Just because anyone play such games doesn’t automatically means they are rapists and murderers !
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I think you should go the “Twilight Zone”
route.
If the player attacks a child, the screen fades out and then back in, but now the player is in the middle of a field somewhere…
-LameBrain
I think it is you who should go the the “twilight zone”.
The world doesn’t need any more of the people afflicted by self-righteous, hypocritical, hysterical and double-standard syndromes.
Check the “Mark Leung” RPG game. It is crazy but at least the creator is not afraid of people afflicted by self-righteous, hypocritical, hysterical and double-standard syndromes.
I hope the game creator also have the courage to do the same thing !
Actually most of the comments sound like pretty great ways to cover for it. I especially like the options where you always miss them and then they taunt you. It kind of reminds me of the responses you get to typing in curse words in old adventure games.
That said, I think Sol_HSA is correct in that if you left the kids in the game I doubt anybody would notice and take offense. I mean you would never even know unless you deliberately pressed the attack button and then clicked on a kid. At that point if you were to raise a stink you would really be trolling to be offended and everybody would know it.
See? See? Arguments and recriminations, and I HAVEN’T EVEN DONE ANYTHING YET! This is exactly what I’m talking about.
Come on give Viridian a break! Leave those kids in the game, like I said, you have to worry about bigger things… For example, I never thought about posiibilities of killing kids in a game, maybe those who did have such a thought should be the ones really worried about their mental condition
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I had the same reaction Outlaw, I never even considered attacking children.
I did attack a guard once, on accident, and had to run to a dungeon to get away…
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If it gives me experience points, I’ll attack it.