A game where...

[clyde]

This thread is intended as a catch-all for questions involving whether or not there is a game where [the feature you are looking for].

I'll begin:

[clyde]

Is there a game where your choice of food or an equivalent (like health-packs or ammo) is treated as a political decision? It seems that western-vegetarianism has sucessfully convinced the public that personal diet is a political stance. Are there any games that seem to reflect that idea with their themes or mechanics?

[TychoCelchuuu]

Don't Starve.

[Thrik]

Wait, what? People's eating choices can be seen as a political statement? Apart from just not liking animals to be chopped up for our plates, what could those political positions possibly be?

 

I do remember that in Fable you got fat from eating meat, pies, etc and slim from eating fruit, vegetables, and tofu.

[clyde]

Wait, what? People's eating choices can be seen as a political statement? Apart from just not liking animals to be chopped up for our plates, what could those political positions possibly

Some people are vegetarian because they view meat production as a wasteful use of limited common resources. Also, I get the impression that some people eat meat in such a way that they are actively stating that animals have no value beyond human dominion or that they as consumers, cannot be told what to do or how to be ethical (sometimes with a defense of their cultural traditions or a religious argument).

Then there is the whole GMO thing, the rise of localvores and the slow-food movement.

What I'm interested to see in a game is where players choose between consumables which are necessary, based on a balance of convenience, economy, and the fiction or narrative of what the production and distribution of the consumable necessitates.

Soylent Green, the game would be an excellent example if the player had a choice of how to sustain themselves.

Actually I just thought of two examples:

-Fallout 3

-Vampire, the Masquerade.

[elmuerte]

The Elder Scroll usually feature a part where eating certain kind of animals is a politically loaded choice.

[melmer]

There must be a vampire game where you can choose whether on not to feed off people.

I vont to suck your blerd

Is being an undead immortal mass murderer a political stance?

[elmuerte]

Yes, in most Elder Scroll games you can do that, like I implied with my post.

[clyde]

I wonder if there is a Twilight mod for Oblivion where you can feed off of deer instead of people; and you sparkle.

[Atlantic]

I do remember that in Fable you got fat from eating meat, pies, etc and slim from eating fruit, vegetables, and tofu.

You also got evil points for eating baby chicks and good points for eating tofu.

[clyde]

I love the idea of being treated differently based on how wealthy you appear. I seem to remember a few missions in the GTA series where you have to buy a suit or maybe show up in a nice car; and I'm pretty sure that the Elder Scrolls games have some quests that involve wearing expensive clothing to get into a party(?) Oblivion had some sort of thing where you could wear expensive clothes to get a discount at shops. But I can't think of a satisfying experience that tried to do this.

Walking into a hotel and being mistaken for the help (but not like "Hey, here is a key to room 207 that you will need for a mission, this place has great service") or being pandered to because people have been gossiping about how much you threw down on a dog-race would be cool.

Maybe an Elder Scrolls game had this and I missed it, but I would include situations where you get treated as one-of-us because someone knows you sip on the skooma. I want to be asked "How much?" because I am playing as a female wearing a short skirt, or having a pedestrian ask "what's wrong with you" because I just parked a stolen car with handicap-tags.

Are there any games that do that well, rather than treating a suit as a simple keycard?

[clyde]

Now that I think about it, the most satisfying experience I've had with this in a game was in the Walking Dead, I'm not sure if it was intentional, but that's irrelevant.

Where someone told me that he didn't like my "attitude" and I was like "Did he just say that because I'm black? Did I just get called 'uppity'?"

[TychoCelchuuu]

Alpha Protocol treated you differently depending on what you wore sometimes, but it wasn't wealth based. Games like Fallout have "wealthy" sort of clothes add Charisma/Barter/etc. bonuses which make people treat you better.

[Thrik]

I do like the comments made in Skyrim and Fable about your apperance, for example in the former guards will take note of what weapons and armour you're carrying and make appropriate comments, and in the latter you'll get praise (or not) for how nice your clothing is. It does all feel very arbitrary though, like there's an obvious slider of 'nice' to 'not nice' even though I personally might find something cheaper cooler-looking than something expensive. It'd be nice to make the NPCs feel more subjective and like they actually have opinions on things.

[SecretAsianMan]

In one of the older casts, Chris talked about a game (Dragon Age I think) where his dwarf commoner was looked down on by pretty much everyone, even the shopkeeper.  I don't know if you can change that opinion with fancy new clothes though.

[clyde]

Dragon Age is actually an example I really like, and I think it's because I played as one class and them watched a playthrough of another. I played as a rogue in Origins and the mage/templar thing seemed like just some boring lore, but then my wife played as a mage and the bits I picked up from that playthrough made me see it as the main story-thread. It might have been because my wife was frequently vocal about the many situations in which she felt she wasn't getting fair treatment due to her heretic nature.

It hadn't occurred to me that I might not know how well this is done unless I play the game multiple times as different characters. I kinda like that. If only the story of games like Dragon Age could engage me multiple times, but I rarely do anything twice.

[clyde]

This morning, I'm thinking about the situation in Syria. I'm concerned that I view the circumstances and possible international intervention in a false-dichotomy of limited alternatives. Currently, I see the two options being [allow chemical weapon attacks to continue (through inaction)] and [military intervention which ultimately results in our backing of a dictator who is willing to ignore the concerns of the Syrian people to appease international interests]. I'd like to play a strategy game that will demonstrate that there are more options.

I've been considering what such a game would look like and so I've had to consider things like victory-conditions; the best I've come up with is having a human-rights violation par-score that I'm trying to get below, scored 100 years after the conclusion of my last action. So basically, at the end of the game, the simulation continues for 100 years without my involvement, then quantifies total human-rights violation throughout the world, subtracts it from par, and that's my score.

I'd like this game to include the abilities to do things like [create and provide incentive for a coalition consisting of both Syrian government supporters and Syrian rebels] then be able to provide incentives to various factions to encourage peaceful negotiations between those parties.

As far as I know, Crusader Kings II is the game most capable of letting me do these types of things because in that game, governments consist of various people with their own motives and you can interact with them individually. Any other recommendations?

[clyde]

Is there a game where you are a juror and you watch an entire court-case and then decide on your verdict (that may not be the same as the other juror's) and then you either aquicesce or convince the other jurors and then watch the sentencing?

[melmer]

Call of Jury Duty: Summons

[jeremywc]

You've seen the blockbuster movie experience, now witness it first hand. Coming this summer, 12 Angry Men: The Video Game.

[clyde]

It would have to be an interesting court-case for sure. A love triangle between jurors wouldn't hurt either.

[SecretAsianMan]

The closest I can think of is the 4th Ace Attorney game, Apollo Justice.  In the last case, you are actually viewing the events through the eyes of a jury member and can even pick a Guilty or Not Guilty verdict.  There's no deliberation though so it's not quite what you're looking for.

[jmbossy]

Is there a game where death or choices you've made can result in an end game scenario?

 

Outside of rogue likes, the punishment for death in games is usually just the minutia of getting to where you were before. I want to see a game where death and decisions are punishable with finality to a story. ie. Because you aligned with this character, you had to kill this character, who was the only one who knew the code to the bomb, which wiped out your home town.

[SecretAsianMan]

Heavy Rain comes to mind.  Any of the 4 playable characters can die, but their death doesn't end the story, it changes the path the story takes.

[melmer]

I read Beyond two souls has an ending where you mess up a QTE and you just die and the credits roll