I'm making a game where there's not violence, or basically you can't be hit or killed by enemies.
The combat is basically farming plants that fight the monsters, like carnivorous plants.
What I want to ask, is that I was thinking about some way to provide a challenge that will reset your progress. In any case I was thinking about a hunger system.
But does being able to reset your progress because of hunger in the dungeon, where you don't die but simply wake up in the hospital (ALA GTA). Does that invalidate my goal of a non violent videogame?
You don’t have access to any seed shops and can only get seeds from plants you’ve already grown. When all your crops are wiped out, there’s no way to continue your garden and you can no longer protect yourself, prompting a game over
Luke Scott
does it need to be a game over, or can it be a soft game over like GTA?
Xavier Ward
so plants vs zombies but not for children of all ages
Jose Baker
Well if the only problem is that you have no seeds, you could easily just find an excuse to give the player a second shot with some freebie seeds if you want to allow them to continue. If you want to do that, there will definitely need to be some other kind of progress your character is making beyond just growing plants that carries over between tries
Logan Torres
Depends on the length of the game or how you set the game up. Is it an endless gauntlet where you progress a little the first time, die, reset but now have a it better skills. Rinse repeat?
Cooper Young
your goal of a non-violent videogame was invalidated when you made it about plants fighting monsters, fighting is inherently violent
Andrew Brooks
Hunger is not violence. Neither are game overs. I don't get your question. If you think game overs, soft or not, are violence, do you also think people cut themselves when they get stuck in solitaire? When they can't figure out the last mine in minesweeper? When they can't delete lines fast enough in tetris?
well, the seeds could come up with loot from monsters killed or just scarbenging the grass.
Not sure if make the game hard, or just very casual.
well, is still interesting to have combat, even if is not directly. Sounds like a very hardcore farming game. :)
Samuel Walker
Op, maybe try giving them something they gets taken away, like Sonic's coins or flashlight batteries or something. So the enemies steal from you instead of attacking you.
Nicholas Peterson
by violence I mean direct combat, like 99% of most FPS and other games.
Not sure if an indirect combat system would fit the definition of a non violent game.
Daniel Kelly
wouldn't plants devouring monsters be violent? i do like the premise though, and i like the idea of aiming for a female market. sounds like an edgier harvest moon. cute designs will be a must.
Logan Kelly
yeah, the idea is a more hardcore harvest moon, maybe girls would like it.
Kevin Smith
Strictly speaking, combat is combat. It doesn't matter if I set up a trap or shoot the animal myself, I committed violence against it.
Of course there's a gray area, trap the animal and let it free = less violent.
I think is more like an issue of drama, storytelling are about oposing forces. Is more a philosophical discussion. You need a challenge to overcome, this is the basics of progression in stories. You need some oposing force to create drama, unless you want a static story with no conflict and drama.
Elijah Thomas
That's a very narrow view of games, writing and challenge. A challenge is not necessarily rooted in violence.
Eli Rodriguez
Violence is part of life user, something has to die in order for something else to live is the most basic rule of nature.
Wyatt James
So basically knock-off pvz
Andrew Martin
not, it doesn't need to end in violence.
You could write a challenge about some chess master and his rival. What I mean by violence is usually the rival or nemesis or villain, usually needs to be defeated completelly, or he repents or he gets destroyed.
There's also villains stories, but those are more of the tragic kind about his defeat.
In any case, drama is about overcoming some rival/villain that will be destroyed in some sense. Being destroyed doesn't mean physical violence.
I agree, that's why is very hard to come with pure non violent ideas beyond puzzles. However I was always interested in non direct ways of conflict.
Nicholas Russell
At this point, you're talking more about writing stories in general rather than games. There's some truth in what you say, but it's regarding to stories as a whole. Games can stand alone without any story at all, or just an afterthought.
Nathan Brooks
I say is more a philosophical issue of drama.
You need some oposing force, in games this usually comes as hordes of enemies where the drama is get kill or not get killed.
Undertale sort of made fun of this by having a pacifist mode.
But you need some kind of oposing force that will limit your advance, otherwise you end up with a static conflict where nothing happens.
Maybe I could put nature as my big enemy and mix it up with some puzzle mechanic as my major obstacle. That could be interesting.
Colton Gomez
>You need some oposing force, in games this usually comes as hordes of enemies where the drama is get kill or not get killed. That is not necessarily true. I already provided 3 examples of games that don't have any of this drama above (solitaire, minesweeper, tetris). In general the genre of puzzle games usually comes without any story or drama at all, and they are by far the most popular and known genre throughout all age groups.
You can frame a puzzle as violence, but it isn't inherently violent.
Hunter Wood
a puzzle is abstract and lacks a story.
I would put puzzles antagonistic forces in the Man vs nature camp in some sense. But this is debatable.
Tetris can be an allegory of communism if you want to do stupid interpretations.
