#Games and Gender
9 messages in this thread
Linda,
One of the most successful computer games of all time is PacMan. The
game was (mostly) non-violent. As such, it appealed to females as well as
males, adults as well as children. I think it would be very difficult to
have a RPG appeal to all. The programmer who does successfully come up with
such a game will become very wealthy.
-sja
Pacman… ritual cannabalism of your vanquished enemies, the presence and
threat from ghosts, eat "power pills" and dominate your enemies until the
drug wears off.
Not exactly what I'd call non-violent. :^)
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Ben,
I never really thought of PAC-MAN that way until you mentioned it… maybe
I should have another look… now where's that PAC-MAN disk… <grin>
Marcus :^{
Marcus, I worked in the Video Game industry for quite some time, and wrote
a LOT of code, designed quite a few machines as well. We all gavce a lot of
thought to those issues… I even wrote a game called "RockBall" which was
sort of a bizzare Asteroids type of game where we kept all conflict with
intelligent opponents out.
The game had a black hole, which you could orbit (or fall in to, at which
time it would dump you unceremoniously somewhere else on the screen with a
random velocity); it had asteroids which broke up a'la asteroids original
premise; and it had some awesome firepower allowing you to really clean up
in a crowded field. It was color, the game board used raster/vector color
hardware (8 colors) and so on. It was you against the rocks, with the added
problems of maintaining a stable orbit. It even had a "true" inertial mode,
where rotational velocity thrusters had to be damped by application of the
opposite thruster to keep you pointed right… mostly they kept that switch
off. :^)
It really was a fun game – I still have one, in fact. With no aliens, bad
guys, or anything else, it was reduced to you and "nature", which, while
not non-violent in the technical sense, vents aggression on inanimate
objects, a far better thing to do, IMHO.
Think I'll go beat my heavy bag up, and then pummel the maki awa. :^)
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Ben,
Was there ever a version of "Frogger" for the Ami. Now, there is a game I
can get into.
…Dave
Not that I know of… that was a Japanese import. Fun, too.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Ben,
Sounds neat. The game I'm writing is of a different sort, but you do have a
good point. Perhaps a CRPG could have interaction between characters
(generally), and aggression between a character and environment (fighting
your way through a bat infested cave, for example). Thanks!
Marcus
Um… ok. <grin> Tho, (personally, now) I'd rather see a game that was you
"against nature" have you working against physical obsticles, rather than
living ones. Bats are generally helpful, positive influences on the
environment. I hate to see them slandered. I used to have a fuit bat as a
pet. A mouse with wings, more or less.
Fighting waterfalls, rought terrain in general, avalanches, earthquakes,
rain, hurricanes/tornados, typhoons even :^). Landslides, quicksand, abrupt
changes in the tides, fast currents, whirlpools, lightning, deserts (ie no
water), personpower vs. load to carry, sandstorms, you know. I could go on
indefinitely on that theme.
If you take the scenario to other planets, you can use the same features
and make them outlandishly threatening or common. You can make any part of
the environment (temperature, winds, moisture, terrain) unrelentingly
difficult to deal with, possibly requiring special preparations
(heat/atmosphere suits, mechanical "walkers", you know) all of that.
Why? Well, there's prospecting, homesteading, ranching, shipping to/from
these environments, merchantile operations, government, (yech) and simply
working at ones job. Did you see that Sean Connery movie where he was
"sheriff" on a moon of jupiter (I think)? Leaving some of the other stuff
out for the moment, he was looking out for the welfare of a mining
colony… VERY rough environment, rough job, supply problems, you name it,
they had the problem. Of course, the movie was on human problems,
specifically powerful, psyche-destroying drug abuse, but the environment
was a fabulous setting for "normal" problems of a serious nature.
It's interesting to think about, and I'm reasonably sure that games of this
nature would NOT contribute to the current mindset of violence over honest
effort that seems to prevail.
I'd _rather_ we all carried swords, personally, tho. I think that would
solve things a LOT faster.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
I like your thread on a non combative game. I have been suprised in the
fact that my favorite (when it works) game is SimCity. The only trouble is
that I can't put it down (often enough). A create something game is much
more positive (i think). The only other one I can remember capturing my
attention for more than a few mins was a program where you jumped around
looking for keys and other things. Unfortunatly the fellow doing this wore
a mask. Not so sure this is the right message for kids. Say have you seen
a movie called "Black Rain"? I enjoyed it very much. Although I didnt care
for the swords <grin>