Quote: Original post by kseh
That being said, it's still a flawed idea. Every now and then in the design forum there are discussions about perma-death, save points, and finding ways to get adult players to accept failing at missions and loosing characters they've put a bunch of time into all in the name of creating a better gaming experience. Every one of these discussions makes it sound like a near impossible task. So if you can't get a mature gamer to accept stuff like that how can you expect a kid to?

How is it a flawed idea? I'm not clear what you mean by accepting failure in this example. As it an example of choice and consequence and not failure. The player is given a choice they can kill off a family of gnomes to becomes more powerful or simply leave them be. The consequence of killing the gnomes is that the forest will die and eventually destroy the way of life of the neighbouring village. But there is no failure or success in this scenario. Its a simple matter of choice and being forced to live with the consequences of that choice.

Quote: Original post by GBPaxton
Just dropping by to say that I think you don't give kids enough credit. By 10 years old (probably earlier, but I barely remember anything before that) I understood death quite well (I didn't even learn the hard way, either). It's not a very difficult concept =P

Thank you! I totally agree with you. I don't know if kids these days are complete panzies but as a kid I was exposed to all these "mature" themes and they never affected me negatively.

Death is shown and told to Catholic(can't talk for other denominations) children at a very early age, is everyone forgetting this?

I gotta agree with that whole "Kids aren't pansies" thing.
I can recall knowing about death, sex, and corruption in higher places for as long as I can remember. I don't know HOW I knew about some things, I just did.

I'm not saying that makes it ok to start allowing childrens games to have mutilated corpses, I'm just saying I think a child is surprisingly well tuned enough to handle it.

Though, it might actually make them cry, or feel sad, knowing their actions inadvertantly destroyed a forest and killed innocent creatures, even if they are only bits of data on their hard drives. As far as the kids are concerned, though, these gnomes could be as real as they are.

The gnomes could just start getting sick, and the forest start wilting away giving the player a new objective: Find a way to heal the gnomes and the forest.
This would bring in another adult concept - Accepting you made a mistake and working to correct it, something I feel many people simply don't understand, adult or otherwise.

However, I'm sure you're not the first to question what's acceptable for children. You could check out the ESRB Website to see how they would handle it. I believe they show their ratings thing under "ESRB Ratings>Ratings Guide"

I am a 14 year old myself, and trust me. Us kids can pick up on things better then you would expect. We may not make the connection between the gnomes being taken, and the trees dying and the forest turning into a desert, but if you present this happening throught the game, then a kid would understand what you mean.

Quote: Original post by sanch3x

Quote: Original post by GBPaxton
Just dropping by to say that I think you don't give kids enough credit. By 10 years old (probably earlier, but I barely remember anything before that) I understood death quite well (I didn't even learn the hard way, either). It's not a very difficult concept =P

Thank you! I totally agree with you. I don't know if kids these days are complete panzies but as a kid I was exposed to all these "mature" themes and they never affected me negatively.

exactly. Trust the oppinion of a real kid. I would love to have this in a game. I would fully understand it. I would fully appreciate it and not ignore it thinking that it is stupid. Kids like me realize things like this at an early age. I could understand stuff like this when I was in fifth grade. Put it in the game. It is a great idea.

Quote: Original post by GentlemanHal
If they are too young to understand the actual issue (such as death) surely understanding an abstraction of such an issue would be even harder?

You have obviously never held a 3 year old (or younger) that just lost its mother (fathers are typically less noticeable at this age). The knowledge of death is something that is imparted early, if not by nature handed down.

Telling a child that their parent "ran away" would cause more issues later in life then telling them some dumb drunk ran them over. Take a look at the case studies and numbers. Children arn't ignorant, in fact most children understand "advanced" topics better then some adults. Their minds don't know to block the ideas and unwanted parts yet.

Yes, stories, fairy tales, lore, ect... all present topics of adult manor to children of all ages. This is how its been, and how it should be. Games are just the next version of stories, and when used properly, they can impart the same morals, values, and life lessons onto children.

If a parent doesn't want their child to know of such things (sure Suzzy Santa is real) then don't purchase the game. I'm sure that the press will hand the development company (or developer if private) their heads well enough that the parent will know of it.

Course thats just my two cents on the topic.

- Jeremy