Violence, I think, is a tired gameplay device. Using "hey, let''s shoot the bad guys" as the solution to the protagonist''s problem is pretty unoriginal. My motivation for this thread is to explore ideas for alternative types of gameplay. I don''t think we need to eliminate violence entirely out of some sort of principle, but I''m curious to see if there are more interesting things we can do. SO, I would like your opinions on relatively nonviolent suspense games. The "suspense" part is important. I know "Roller Coaster Tycoon" is nonviolent, but it just doesn''t hold me... One of my favorites was Thief. Absolutely great game. It wasn''t exactly nonviolent: you hacked people to bits with your sword, and were often hacked to bits yourself. But killing baddies usually wasn''t the optimal solution. Another game that looks interesting is "Beyond Good and Evil," which I think is for GameCube. I''ve never played it, but I understand that you assume the role of an investigator trying to uncover a government conspiracy; you infiltrate secure areas and take photographs of incriminating evidence. You don''t shoot anybody, AFAIK, but I think you do have to worry about being shot yourself. Both of these are stealth games . I love this category (even when it''s significantly more violent, as in some kind of sniper game). But there must be other genres of suspense games... Riven/Myst sort of fit this category. They were mainly puzzle games, but they were rather immersive. Personally, though, I got bored of these pretty quickly. The player''s list of possible actions is pretty small at any given point, which IMHO is a bad quality of a game. There are also classic adventure games, like King''s Quest. These admittedly did ofte suffer from the same problems as Riven/Myst - too few options at any given point - but they were great anyway, since you were absorbed in a story. There was also recently a discussion on these forms about a sort of psychological thriller game taking place on the surface of a hypercube. That was a really cool idea. So, are there any more where that came from? Any interesting new gameplay devices for a suspense game? Post your thoughts!

My thoughts,

It was my birthday a few days ago, and my girlfriend bought me:
1) Scarface 25th anniversary edition DVD
2) GTA-Vice City.

This is an interesting theme, mind you.

Having watched Scarface 2 days ago, and now that I have been playing GTA all night last light, I am telling you that the movie really pumped me up for the game.

Currently I think that after playing GTA, violence is the coolest experience imaginable right now, but like all feelings, it will pass and I may also get tired of it... Currently I am dying to get home to continue my adventure!

So violence or not, I think that you will always catch some target audience based on the genre of a game, so I don''t think its tired, but rather a change from usual game styles that a given person is used to.

Along the same lines, one genre of games that has been tried but has gotten tired is the horror/suspense genre (ie. resident evil, silent hill, etc). They''re cool, pretty suspensful, but at the end of the day, they''re just zombie beat-em-ups.

There''s tons of movies and books out there that are horror/suspense movies without having the protagonist be a shotgun wielding superhero. Movies that rely on freaking you out mentally instead of freaking you out with hordes of baddies. Unfortunately I can''t offer any way to exploit this for games (if I could, I''d be pitching to a publisher), but maybe someone else has ideas.

Joel Martinez
http://www.codecube.net/

yes, in many cases ''realistic'' violence seems to limit the scope of a game, if a game is more cartoony there seems to be greater scope for variety.

As far as I''m concerned, I care little either way about violence. I did like many violent games, but I don''t think that blood and realistic death sequences add anything to a game.

The problem with choosing violence for a title is that you go for the same target market as the big AAA developers while pushing aside the casual, family market. It''s a losing battle.

I like the idea of having violence as an option. Check out Metal Gear Solid. You can get by without killing too many people. That's the point of the tranquilizer. Heck, it's possible to beat MGS2 without killing anyone at all! You can also turn off the blood so the cutscenes dont seem as violent.

You cant say that violence shouldnt be in video games. Would Grand Theft Auto be so fun if you couldnt kill people? What Half Life fan hasnt enjoyed beating an innocent scientist over the head with a crowbar? Sometimes violence can make or break a game.

[edited by - noname12345 on January 20, 2004 12:30:15 PM]

Violence is more of a medium than a device at this point. Zombie games aren''t focussed on fighting the zombies, they''re focussed on exploration and discovery, and the zombies are just there to make the trip from point a to point b a little bit more intense.

Violence is also the easiest action to model in-game. Conversation requires an enormous amount of writing and coding, and fifty identical conversations are tedious. Fighting fifty identical aliens is therapeutic.

Other common themes involve puzzle-solving, driving, and flying. Really, which of these would be harmed by a few laser guns and plasma explosions? Special effects are easy in games, and violence is the best excuse to play that card.

@TerranFury:
You should read the Designer''s Notebook column by Ernest Adams in Game Developer (subsequently published on GamaSutra

Hmm... alternatives to violence in suspense situation...

Inspired by the movie "28 days later":
A virus that causes the infected to bite uninfected, then after a while they fall asleep. (In the movie they ended up feeding on the victims and you had to kill them).

You are sent to administer a cure. You have various weapons, such as syringe, dart gun, etc.

You are dropped into the quaranteen zone, where you immediately encounter sleeping people. You inject them with a sleeping agent to make sure they stay unconscious then call in a chopper to lift them to the hospital.

As you move to new areas, you begin to encounter rage-filled infected that jump out at you. You shoot them with paralysis darts and pull them out to the street for the chopper to pick them up. Then you go back in.

If they get hold of you, you have a short time to stick them with a syringe as your hazmat suit takes damage.

If they break through the hazmat suit you will then become infected and game over.

I know it sounds kind of dumb, but maybe it''ll get some creative juices flowing?

Hmm... The only difference between that and Halo is the story. I thought we were looking for alternative game styles. If we aren''t, then we can just mod Half-life so that you''re shooting fluffy happiness at fuzzy bunnies and they grow pearl wings and fly away. It''s still point-and-shoot, and if they get too close you do a melee, and watch your HP.

As to total gameplay changes, it''s hard! How would you make a good firefighting game? I played the old SNES game, and it was just an isometric shooter where your laser gun was a hose and the aliens were fires. They even walked around and threw things at you!

I guess you could use the control scheme from Splinter Cell, and have your firefighter running through looking for survivors and carrying them out while avoiding falling beams and weak floors. Actually, that would be pretty cool. You could chop through doors, climb up broken staircases, and work in smokey rooms with reduced visibility. Splinter Cell actually had a level in a burning building.

Does fighting a fire count as violence? You''re still facing death, but you aren''t actually killing or destroying anything. The problem with that is, what will the end of the game be like? You retire? There''s no "main enemy" in that sort of thing, and so you can''t really have closure. I guess it would work out like Rainbow Six: You discover a plot, and put out a series of fires that an arsonist is setting, culminating in either the Fire Hall, your house, or some huge government building (World Trade Center?), and when you successfully finish it it says, "Congratulations, but there''s more work to be done!" and your guy goes back to work, until the expansion comes out.