Non-Violent Video Games

[Zeusthecat]

Some of my favorite video games of all time have been non-violent. It is very interesting to see the different mechanics and plot devices that are employed in place of the ones that are so prevalent in most games that involve killing.

 

At the top of my list in this category is the Harvest Moon series. Specifically the following 3 games:

1. Harvest Moon (SNES)
2. Harvest Moon 64
3. Harvest Moon Magical Melody (Gamecube)

These games essentially involve running a farm and building relationships with the nearby villagers but have a lot of mechanics layered in that give them a surprising amount of depth. Looking back over the years I still view Harvest Moon Magical Melody as one of my all time favorites and put well over 100 hours into it. It was one of those games that I just never felt finished with and gave me a great sense of satisfaction whenever I played.

 

So I pose this simple question: What are some of your favorite non-violent video games?

 

 

[Patrick R]

Depends on how you define violence, I guess. I love a bunch of classic arcade games, but does Donkey Kong have violence because you break barrels and flame-dudes with a hammer? Does Burgertime have violence? Ms. Pac-Man?

 

Going over a list of my favorite games, I guess most are kind of borderline. The Portal games are amazing, of course, but you do redirect missiles and knock over turrets. Most of the Lucas-Arts adventure games do require you to do some bodily harm to someone at some point, I suppose. Super Meat Boy has gruesome violence happen to you.

 

Pretty much the only games that are consistently totally non-violent are simulations (which Harvest Moon is, to an extent) but I've never been huge fans of those.

[Zeusthecat]

Depends on how you define violence, I guess. etc.

 

Fair enough. I guess I'm referring to games that don't involve you harming other people as the primary mechanic. I think every game you mentioned qualifies as non-violent. I really only think of a game as violent if the primary purpose of the game is for you to kill or hurt other people (and maybe puppies and kitties too  ).

[Roderick]

I would say Donkey Kong and Portal are violent games. Their context is one of the threat of violence being done to either you or someone else, even if you don't specifically harm anyone in the process of escaping/rescuing/whatever.

 

There are tons of non-violent games, simulations are by far not the only ones. Animal Crossing, Rhythm games, lots of adventure games (where the context is not a violent one and the gameplay most certainly isn't), puzzle games (even ones with characters and stories, such as Layton, Pullblox), Katamari Damacy...

[elmuerte]

I think Layton is violent. In the first 3 games (haven't played any others) there has been kidnapping, murder, etc. The story is quite violent.

I've looked at my game collection, and games with some kind of story often contain elements of violence. The question is, where do you draw the line. Do the bullies in Machinarium make the game violent?

[Zeusthecat]

I think everybody is going to have a slightly different opinion on what makes a game violent. In the interest of not turning this into a philosophical discussion on what exactly constitutes violence (although that sounds like it would make a great topic of discussion in another thread) I think it is okay for people to include whatever they feel is not inherently violent. I'm just interested in hearing about games people have played that they didn't feel were violent.

[clyde]

As far as game mechanics go, I believe that:

You solve puzzles.

You beat opponents.

You achieve highscores.

Games with violent themes can be played in any of these ways. And there are tons of games with violent themes and tons without. By "tons" I mean "multitudes of games in the amounts of two-thousand pounds."

But your question makes me think of games where it feels like I am solving an opponent like a puzzle. "Think Like A Shrink" is an interesting example of this, where the opponent is actually imprisoned by their own psychological defenses. Your job is to remove those defenses by identifying their type. It is still a domination-fantasy, but every puzzle game is. I think the vibe of separating the behaviors from the person is so interesting in a game. I also like the idea of getting non-player characters to open up to you. Bioware does this sloppily, but I appreciate that they are trying.

[manny_c44]

My Summer Vacation 3 on PS3.  It is in japanese so a proper playthrough is more or less impossible (there is an incomplete pseudo-walkthrough somewhere out there), but still once in a while I will turn it on and just run around the farm.  The feel of this game is really just perfect; sadly I can only make a very little bit of progress.

 

Pushmo is also an incredible puzzler, one of the top 3DS games for sure.  Generally these non-violent and clever games are the ones that leave you with the best feeling I think, instead of the guilty time-wasting feeling.

 

Also Gran Turismo --but everybody's played that.

[Ucantalas]

I loved Harvest Moon 64, and wasted many a weekend playing it.

My other initial answer is actually less of a full game, but more of a level in a game... The Milkman Conspiracy level in Psychonauts just felt... good. It was nice not having to worry about destroying censors or other opponents, and while I suppose technically there is a sort of threat of violence with the shady people, it never felt like an overtly violent level. Especially when the level prior to it (Lungfishopolis) saw you as this gigantic city-destroying monster crushing everyone who opposed you, Milkman Conspiracy felt like a nice palate cleanser.

[Zeusthecat]

I also like the idea of getting non-player characters to open up to you.

 

Yes to this! This is one of the primary reasons I love Harvest Moon so much. Granted they do it in a simplistic way but the subtle way the lines of dialog change as you get to know each villager better was so alluring to me. Getting to know the shy and reserved people and eventually getting them to open up to you over a long period of time was a great experience. I feel like most games involve me talking to an npc for 5 minutes, hearing everything they have to say, and never talking to them again.

[tegan]

I felt pretty weird in high school because all of the other kids were playing Grand Theft Auto and I was playing Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center. I feel that the anti-violent sentiments of both games override the actual violence contained in them, especially since the player never really gets to actively participate it the violence in either case.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I don't know, I would count many adventure games I've loved as nonviolent, but it seems some of you feel because you may commit an act of violence to a character or that there is a violent part in the story it constitutes them as violent games, but I'd disagree since like Harvest Moon, that's not often the basis for an adventure game. That's not to say I wouldn't classify some as violent though, Grim Fandango has an end game where you blatantly murder someone.

 

I would never get into Harvest Moon myself, but it was interesting when my girlfriend, who hardly plays games if ever, sunk over 100 hours into Animal Parade on Wii. She kept showing me all the tricks her otter/ferret learned. I think though this burnt her out from ever playing another Harvest Moon ever though.

 

But yeah, there's also some nice puzzle games I wouldn't consider violent, unless maybe you think Dr. Mario throwing a pill on a virus is violent. Wario's Woods both SNES and NES versions were awesome. I even won second place in a competition for Wario's Woods SNES once, 25 WHOLE DOLLARS!

[Dewar]

I used to play an indie MMO called A Tale in the Desert. It was basically about a bunch of people researching and crafting civilization from the ground up. I had a ton of fun with it, it reminds me a lot of Minecraft.

 

http://www.atitd.com/

[clyde]

I used to play an indie MMO called A Tale in the Desert. It was basically about a bunch of people researching and crafting civilization from the ground up. I had a ton of fun with it, it reminds me a lot of Minecraft.

http://www.atitd.com/

Did it give you any insights into civilization that you would like to share?

[Dewar]

A couple I guess. When forced to, people on the internet can cooperate very well but, even in a game where the cooperators are favored (and thus the bulk of the population) a few people can spoil the cooperation for everyone. Additionally, people on the internet are super nervous about creating new rules for society (which makes me wonder how so many laws get passed in the real world.) Here's one of the few stories I remember from those days that illustrates both:

 

About half way through the cycle, the ability to get camels was introduced. Since a lot of the timesink of the game was travel to place to place, camels were greatly sought after. The mechanic for getting them was to build a stable and stock it with straw. Each night at midnight, the stable with the most straw in a given area would have all that straw eaten, and gain a camel. Straw wasn't particularly hard to come by (being one of the most basic items in the game) but it was a bit time consuming to get, even at higher tech levels, since most techs moved on from using straw at all, rather than creating new ways to get more straw. So all this caused the people who really wanted camels to collect crazy amounts of straw, so much that the developers had to patch in a higher counter for the amount of straw that could be stored in a stable. Literrally millions of straw, at maybe 5 seconds of RL time each.

 

So the people who really wanted a camel would buy straw off the market at crazy prices, which crashed a lot of the market. There was no currency, it was all barter system based on player made price lists on Geocities websites. Supply for pretty much everything else in the game was low since everyone was out harvesting straw instead of doing other things. This caused my trading post to fail due to massive price fluctuations that a little shop couldn't handle (plus, I could have made more profit by spending my time harvesting straw, but who wants to do that?)

 

Eventually, coaltions of players formed where everyone pulled a ticket and everyone's stable was empty besides the winner each night. Unfortunately, someone would always get wind of the plan, move their stable into that area, and swipe the camel one night. The whole system would break down and it would be off to the races for more straw. Finally, people started getting a petition together to create a law stating that you could only add 1 straw to your stable per 24 hour period. Laws in the game weren't breakable, they were hard-coded in by the developers, so there wouldn't be any cheating. It would be a fair way to implement a first-in-first-out queue and everyone would get their camel without crazy amounts of straw. The bill was voted down two seperate times, and by a landslide too. As far as I know, the system was broken until the first cycle closed. I eventually quit because the economy was so fucked.

 

Edit: I'd be happy to chat more about the bizzare and very cool mechanics in ATITD, but I've got to head home from work

[clyde]

 I'd be happy to chat more about the bizzare and very cool mechanics in ATITD, but I've got to head home from work

I don't understand how the race for straw was messing up the rest of the economy. Was it the equivalent of the entire world population giving up farming food in order to collect Beanie Babies? Could an individual provide for themselves if they weren't camel-crazy?

It sounds like it would have been fun to witness. Sounds tedious though.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I probably have more favorite non-violent games than I have favorite violent games - your average game from freeindiegam.es or TwineHub is non-violent and anything good from either of those places is typically as good as anything violent. Not to mention stuff like Sim City, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, almost any adventure game, Hotline Miami, basically any puzzle game, etc.

[elmuerte]

I see what you did there

[Dewar]

I don't understand how the race for straw was messing up the rest of the economy. Was it the equivalent of the entire world population giving up farming food in order to collect Beanie Babies? Could an individual provide for themselves if they weren't camel-crazy?

It sounds like it would have been fun to witness. Sounds tedious though.

 

Out of maybe 4000 people playing, 100 people were buying all the straw they could. The 1000 people in the middle class who could be producing other, more useful things stopped producing those things to start producing straw. That both made those mid tier items very hard to come by and also reduced demand for the precursors of those items, meaning straw outpaced the value of items such as iron ore. That left the poor folks with nothing to create that was worth value besides straw as well. Basically, half the server was producing straw for the top tier of people who wanted camels, leaving most other parts of the economy barren.

 

Edit: And yes, it was super tedious.

 

Edit 2: There wasn't really a "provide for yourself" thing going on since there wasn't any need for expendable items really. No health or hunger bars to worry about or anything. But a lot of the greater quests for character advancement required groups of people to work together as well as a variety of supplies, both of which were harder to find when everyone was farming straw.

[Zeusthecat]

Creative use of lower and upper case a's. I was hoping to find the fibonacci sequence in there...

[KitGonzo]

I realise it's beyond over at this ponit (in fact, is it retro yet?) but I still fire up my Wii every month or so just to play Guitar Hero or Beatles rock band. Whoever came up with the idea of being able to score points by playing air guitar deserves the millions they made, IMO. It just feels so damn good.

[clyde]

The 1000 people in the middle class who could be producing other, more useful things stopped producing those things to start producing straw. That both made those mid tier items very hard to come by and also reduced demand for the precursors of those items, meaning straw outpaced the value of items such as iron ore.

That's interesting. I have never thought about demand for luxury goods raising the prices of mid-tier goods. It makes sense though, that a speculative market could attract labor away from a stable market.

[Tanukitsune]

I could say adventure games are my favorite non-violent games, but they tend to violent non-directly. You either put laxative in some drink to get some keys, or you create a Rude Goldberg device to knock someone out. There is no blood, but if you don't knock someone unconscious, you at least ruin their day, if not their life.

 

Journey was a beautiful game, and while you get attacked, you don't cause harm on others.

 

But I still consider adventure games to be my favorite "non-violent" games, since the violent is usually unintentional or incidental and never the focus of the game,,, Well, unless it's Harvester. :|

[Ucantalas]

I realise it's beyond over at this ponit (in fact, is it retro yet?) but I still fire up my Wii every month or so just to play Guitar Hero or Beatles rock band. Whoever came up with the idea of being able to score points by playing air guitar deserves the millions they made, IMO. It just feels so damn good.

I sometimes feel disappointed that the whole plastic instrument subset of the rhythm game genre burned itself out so quickly. Playing Guitar Hero and Rockband were some of the most fun times I've had with friends.

[Zeusthecat]

I sometimes feel disappointed that the whole plastic instrument subset of the rhythm game genre burned itself out so quickly. Playing Guitar Hero and Rockband were some of the most fun times I've had with friends.

 

Totally, I have close to 200 songs for Rock Band 2 and it is one of the few games I can still get my wife to play with me. I would almost go as far as to say that that genre was the last bastion of 4 player local coop gameplay.