The Death of Meaning

[christian]

https://twitter.com/Warren_Spector/stat ... 1098514433

Go @Harvey1966 and @rafcolantonio. Preach. http://kotaku.com/dishonored-co-directo ... 1726981392

The Dishonored example is rather weak. Which is why I think it's easy for Warren to praise. After having been playing through the game in a rather extreme way, it just barely manages to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, you're not so much the hero as you think you are. Most likely though, the player will not be so introspective, and instead will turn his indignation against the boatman as traitor, backstabber, and enemy.

From Crime and Punishment

his hardened conscience did not find any especially terrible guilt in his past, except perhaps a simple blunder that could have happened to anyone. He was ashamed precisely because he, Raskolnikov, had perished so blindly, hopelessly, vainly, and stupidly, by some sort of decree of blind fate, and had to reconcile himself and submit to the “meaninglessness” of such a decree if he wanted to find at least some peace for himself.

Gamers can't believe in such "meaninglessness". Instead they rage against the designers to protect them from themselves in the name of "good design".

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/252444/D ... a_hero.php

In Dishonored the boat guy only betrays you if you have a high level of chaos, which is hard to get unless you are really trying to kill everyone. And, as you said, he basically only hurts your feelings - the armory guy refusing to give you ammo was a serious penalty to someone shooting everything.

So the "spiritual successor to Thief" sells itself on killing and is afraid to be as punitive to players as Deus Ex was 15 years ago, but still wants to boast about how they were oh so brave on being mean to players?

Sorry, I see this as nothing more than a marketing piece to sell Dishonored Definitive Edition, claiming glory for things other games did earlier and better.

This guy gets it.

[christian]

Everybody's gone to the secular dehumanization chamber - https://gamebias.wordpress.com/2015/08/ ... on-chamber

Why do most reviews of Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture not address the game’s spiritual and religious themes?

My best guess is that providence, salvation, doubt, and other human concerns would distract many from picking apart video games according to the boring standards that are applied to electronic toys. Does it walk? Does it run? Does it shoot? What all does it say when you press that button? What does this part do?

In 2013, a secular response was also granted to the rerelease of Earthbound, the most spiritually potent video game of all time. That game criticism underestimated Earthbound’s unifying, nihilism-defying prayer suggests that writers are either scared of criticizing faith or fine with faith being ignored by young minds.

Jim Sterling’s and Brendan Keogh’s long-winded yet insignificant comments on genre recall 2013’s other major secular blunder: the soul-sucking, stupid appraisal of Proteus as another “walking simulator” or “anti-game.” Nevermind that Proteus starts with a walk on water and ends with an ascent to the heavens.

If technology is the savior, and if meaning is gained by what we can clearly see and interact with, spirituality has no place in the gaming world (I wonder, do e-sports athletes pray like other athletes?). Hell may very well freeze over before developer The Chinese Room’s references to faith receive the different interpretations that one might predict based on such a theologically, existentially dividing word as “rapture.”

In my review of The Beginner's Guide, I wondered the same thing. Why are so many critics incapable of acknowledging a game's religious themes? I don't think it has anything to do with a fear of criticizing faith, as most critics are quick to attack it openly if it ever comes to their attention, which leads me to believe that these themes simply escape their notice. They probably couldn't address them even if they wanted to.

But if they are capable, why do they refuse? I suspect the answer is similar to what we find with the game rapists, who, if they must acknowledge a god, ultimately deify themselves, and their glory will they not give to another.

[christian]

Cathedral-in-the-Clouds: contemplation in the digital age - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ta ... -the-digit

This is Tale of Tales' new Kickstarter project. It might be baffling at first as to why they're doing this, especially in light of Samyn's confessed unbelief, but he recognizes an "intensity" in this Christian art which his own work falls far short of. What's a man to do who craves a Christian meaning but can't produce it in his own art? You ape it. But what good does it do to "contemplate" cathedral art like this if all these images have been fully divorced from any Biblical truth, and therefore have nothing to do with you?

It's not Christianity they see reflected in these images. It's humanism.

Despite of being atheists, we can’t help being intensely moved by some of the religious art made during the Gothic and Renaissance period. These experiences can’t convert us to Christianity but they do make us think about universal themes as kindness, self-sacrifice, patience, empathy, love, and so on. We feel they make us better people. These experiences are intense and often accompanied by tears. And they last! They stay with us, become part of us, tremendously improve our lives on this planet.

Not to mention all the anti-Christian existentialism pervading their Kickstarter page and official site. It's all born out of a terrible desperation eating away at the unbeliever's heart, who wants so badly to believe, can see with his own eyes the power of God, but still persists ahead in his path. But he can't ignore that power, and so he wants to have it, without the God that comes with it of course. That is the purpose of their art. Art as the substitute Christianity.

Alain de Botton actually suggests that art can replace religion to quite an extent. I agree.

As far as this project is concerned, it would be wise to consider Scripture's warning.

Matthew 5:17

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

[christian]

What Fallout 4 does with polyamory is just the beginning - http://gamasutra.com/view/news/261034/W ... inning.php

Make no mistake: this is a watershed moment in mainstream gaming, and it is very much worth celebrating. Just as we are finally moving away from portraying heterosexual relationships as the default norm in story-based games, so too can we move away from the staid portrayal of monogamy as the only option.

Contrary to the naysaying of some gamers, polyamory is rich with narrative and mechanical grist. We just need to be willing to explore something beyond what we’re told is “normal.” That’s what videogames are best at, after all.

But you've just got done telling us that polyamory IS normal for you. So I don't know what you're trying to say at the end here. The position arrived at by modern philosophy is that everything is normal, everything is permitted. Except of course Christianity, which is the one and only abnormal in the world. If you really believe that we need to explore beyond the normal, then the only conclusion is Christian games. But woops, that's exactly what you DON'T want, as is clear from how you don't want to be told what is normal. In other words, you don't want anyone saying, "This is the way. Walk ye in it."

Even mechanically, this polyamory system is a joke.

From the comments.

I wish I could say Fallout was doing this as a way of moving forward in maturity and social acceptance but every other thing in Fallout 4 screams "there's no depth" so it's pretty much impossible for me to call this one otherwise.

There should be emotional depth. Being able to bed every character in the game with the sum total mechanical depth of Fable (flex, flex, flex, flex, flex, flex, flex, flex, sex) is lazy design.

Sure some companions require "romancing" but you can just repeat a single action in front of that person until they're ready to hit the sack with you.

I wont even get into spoilers territory of why stepping out of the vault and a few days after the personal tragedy you just went through nevermind the actual overarching plot motivation running around the wasteland and passing 3 charisma checks with a speech option that literally just says "flirt" is absurd and as shallow as it gets design-wise.

More from the comments. Emphasis added.

The difference between this system and one like Mass Effect's is that there is no overlap with other romances, but both systems are similar in that partners are presented as a buffet. You choose one thing that you think looks like you might like, then eat it.

I don't think much will change until we as designers figure out a way to make charismatic gameplay as engaging as skill gameplay. Until then I'm content with with a much restricted system like Witcher 3's that subtly informs the player about themselves by the choice they make.

[christian]

From The French Lieutenant’s Woman

You may think that novelists always have fixed plans to which they work, so that the future predicted by Chapter One is always inexorably the actuality of Chapter Thirteen. But novelists write for countless different reasons: for money, for fame, for reviewers, for parents, for friends, for loved ones, for vanity, for pride, for curiosity, for amusement: as skilled furniture makers enjoy making furniture, as drunkards like drinking, as judges like judging, as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy’s back. I could fill a book with reasons, and they would all be true, though not true of all. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that we begin to live.

Here is an excellent statement helping reveal the anti-Christian root of the "emergent gameplay" debacle, the key concepts being independence from a creator and disobedience equated with life. Although Fowles is here writing about novelists, it's no less applicable to game developers.

[christian]

An End To “GIT GUD” - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/0 ... -at-games/

There’s a bravado, a need to appear to be the best in the world, which obviously most critics out there are not.

And then there's the need to remove the necessity to be good.

http://www.pocketcollege.com/transcript ... 115C7.html

The second premise of the society of Satan is this, it demands a world in which it is unnecessary for men to be good. And this is the goal of every society of Satan; this was the goal of Satan in the garden and Satan in tempting our Lord. “Turn these stones into bread if Thou be the Son of God” everything should be provided. There should be no problems, and there should be no responsibility on man’s part, all rights and no responsibilities.

[christian]

Lawless Game Design - http://victorygamecenter.com/lawless-game-design

[christian]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... are-boring

gaming is perhaps the most powerful medium for learning and for growing and changing as a person

We're throwing out resources of care our parents had such as religion and housewives (which is fine with me), and not replacing them with much (which is not fine with me).

I'm interested in care, in characters, in creation, in finding a path forward inside games that helps me find my path forward in life.

Another like Tale of Tales' Michaël Samyn who believes art, i.e. videogames, can replace religion.

[christian]

Daggerfall players, was it really that big? - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.ph ... ostcount=9

I'll take intelligent design over randomly generated anyday

No need to get political

Gamers are creationists at heart. But they don't like being reminded of it.

[christian]

Why math is strangling videogame morality - http://www.pcgamer.com/why-math-is-stra ... -morality/

In the late Middle Ages the Catholic Church sold indulgences, which lessened the amount of punishment you'd receive in the afterlife for your sins. If you wanted to be allowed to break the stricture against using butter during Lent you could pay for that, and Rouen Cathedral in France earned so much money from the practice they used it to pay for a whole new edifice that is still called Butter Tower to this day.

That's the level morality systems are at in most videogames.