Morality in the Mechanics
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
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Games have been messing with morality for ages - but are karma systems and binary choices the best we can do? Inspired by Darkest Dungeon's neat twist on video game villainy, let's look at some indie games that make morality a central component of their design.
=== Before you watch ===
Content warning: Suicide
=== Sources and Resources ===
The Jimquisition: Darkest Dungeon review
www.thejimquisition.com/2016/0...
=== Chapters ===
00:00 - Case Study: Darkest Dungeon
01:57 - Karma Systems
03:25 - Case Study: Undertale
04:30 - Case Study: This War of Mine
05:08 - Case Study: Papers, Please
06:52 - Why Mortality Mechanics Work
08:33 - Patreon Credits
=== Games Shown ===
Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios, 2016)
Infamous Second Son (Sucker Punch Productions, 2014)
Mass Effect (Bioware, 2007)
BioShock (Irrational Games, 2007)
Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015)
This War of Mine (11 bit studios, 2014)
Papers, Please (Lucas Pope, 2013)
=== Credits ===
Music used in this episode:
The Darkest Dungeon (Darkest Dungeon)
Combat in the Ruins (Darkest Dungeon)
The Hamlet (Darkest Dungeon)
Some Place We Called Home (This War of Mine)
These Cold Days (This War of Mine)
Arstotzkan Anthem (Papers, Please)
Another Medium (Undertale)
Quiet Water (Undertale)
Undertale (Undertale)
Other credits:
tuus4: "Bioshock [1080p HD/PC/ Hard Mode] Walkthrough Part 4 - Medical Pavilion(3/3)"
• Bioshock [1080p HD/PC/...
MadaMaddigon: "Let's Play Bioshock: Part 15 Our First Reward"
• Let's Play Bioshock: P...
Defiance: "Mass Effect 1: Bad Ass Renegade Shepherd"
• Video
=== Subtitles ===
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3BFe/ - เกม
The problem with the Karma Meter is that most moral choices IRL are done with a level of uncertainty. Everyone wants to be "good" but has trouble defining what that means.
Yep, and that's what makes morality in games a lot harder to convey. The creator of the game will have their own ideas of morality, but what if the player disagrees? For example in Fable 3, you're tasked with being a king of a nation and are expected to make "moral" choices. The truth behind your choices is that you need to make choices that lead to more money to fight off a big evil in the long run, but that's not what I'm talking about.
Where the game sorta fails with me was when it asked me to make political decisions that, in the real world, are the source of a lot of contraversy but in the game you're definitely being told that one particular way is the morally correct way. One example is that one of the choices you make are to either "Let the economy fail miserably" or bailout a bunch of businesses by simply giving away your money. it's a little ridiculous, and there's no way to pick out businesses you prefer, or to even choose how much you bailout by. There's no moral conundrum here, because one side is the pretty blue and the other side is the "Evil" red. You either bailout your economy or let it suffer, neither one seems very appealing to my political views.
(This was not the biggest problem in that game, but it bothered me so much. "Bonus" points that you can actually buy out every business in the game if you want and be making money off of it literally while trying to make this decision, completely undercutting the narrative, although this is optional)
I have yet to see a game which exemplifies the truism "Good intentions are the opposite of good actions" but I would love to see such a thing.
I was going to mention that with Papers Please, too. I haven't played it for myself nor have I watched any gameplay of it, so I'm just speculating here, but you can't just say letting people in is good and sending them away is bad. I'm not accusing the game of doing that, since, again, I haven't played it for myself. If anything, it seems like the game does treat morality with more complexity. From what I can deduce, you've been tasked to do your job. So, yes, you want to be nice and let people in, but if you're breaking the rules, are you really doing good? Especially since you agreed to them, so you're also then breaking your word. I could go on, but I'm going to stop there.
Maya Tamika Whether something is your job or not, whether there are rules or not, does not affect whether your actions are moral or not in life. "I was just doing my job" or "I was just following orders" are disgusting moral dodges that human beings are unfortunately easily capable of. None of the tragedies of history would have been possible without loads of people just putting their heads down and saying "I'm just doing my job/following orders." Hitler would have been nothing but a crazy person shouting on a street corner if not for the legions of average people who followed his direction.
This is easiest to see with the "just doing my job" excuse especially. When you hear someone say that, make sure you realize that it is exactly identical to saying "I was just doing it for money." There is no difference whatsoever between those two rationalizations in meaning. Why people interpret them differently is complicated but, ultimately, stupid.
I'm not saying that following the rules is always the right thing to do. We're human. We're not perfect. Anytime one of us makes a rule, there are going to be exceptions. What I'm saying is it's a factor that needs to be considered.
Philosophers: in a game with no concequence for evil, why do you still choose to play the hero?
Me: because being mean makes me feel bad
because my power fantasy is helping as many people as possible.
i mean real life is the same thing
That makes you a good person. I mean that. Feel free to let that sentiment bleed into your everyday life as much as you want ^-^
theFairyDongMother if being good in a game doesn't come with downsides, what value or meaning do your choices have?
@@pedrospegiorin4026 the value is i get to see characters smile and be happy with me
I remember one game had a choice where you had a choice to either save an NPC's mental health, or get... I think it was three extra skill points? Anyway, I was reading an online discussion of that, and many people were displeased that the "evil" choice gave a character bonus that anyone making the "good" choice never got. One person complained that it made evil look cooler than good. Which... completely misunderstands morality. If evil didn't have rewards, who would choose to be evil? Sadists, I suppose, but that's not all there is to evil. If the "good" and the "evil" choice have the same rewards, then evil is basically just being a dick for no good reason. Which often seems to be the case in video games.
Don't forget the speedrunning perspective where any choice is better if it saves even a fraction of a second
@@Araneus21 Save the animals
INTPTT plenty of people would be evil for the sake of evil.
If good was always rewarding and bad was always punished morality would be pointless and have no use
I mean, yeah. You loose 2 skill points in mmo rpg by "saving" girl with no personality that never does anything. You just forget about her in 2 minutes.
I think I realised why I was struggling at Darkest Dungeon. I never tossed any hero away, ahahah. Didn't even come to mind, really. Hopefully that says something good about me.
means you're wary of permadeath like final fantasy tactics or fire emblem, and you calculate every decision and play well
Dan Nguyen funnest?
Dan Nguyen Except that's entirely subjective. I'm the paladin type, and would rather struggle to keep all of my adventurers alive (especially the heroic ones) than simply discard them, and this is perfectly fun to me.
Again, sub-fucking-jective. I would have *no* fun letting all of my heroes die. That is why I play FE games to the utmost limit of my abilities, that is why I buy slightly more provisions than I should need in DD, that is why all of my followers in Skyrim are equipped with the best gear I could make. It's not "I will play slowly and safely because I want a shiny achievement" - It's "These NPCs are like friends, and I wouldn't let friends down".
While you do have a point, bear in mind that not everyone can possibly do something without putting effort and taking something seriously and still enjoy it, call it mental blockage if you rely want but Darkest Dungoen is not a clear day picnic trip, to some it is a frustration to lose the good men you trained and geared up, sure you may not feel it initially, but over time when the unofortunate event happens over and over you will be affected eventually and you will decide to play more seriously and carefully or just quit all toghether, because you cant just faceroll easily to have fun and enjoyement all the time.
*The best villains don't know they are the villains*
- Mahatma Ghandi
I disagree, in my opinion the best villains are people who wanted to be good, but were driven to evil action through trying to chose the lesser of two evils
@@buubaku But that's indeed kinda the whole point: they think they are still trying to do the good thing and might even think that they are still being good by doing the lesser evil.
so all villians.
@@Gadget-Walkmen
What he means, is that the best villains don't know they do bad things.
E.g. Darkest Dungeon: you likely don't even realise you're being evil, even though you certainly are
So I played Until Dawn with a group of friends. We decided to each call one character that we'd play as throughout the whole game. This decision made the game so much more immersive.. if you haven't played until dawn, please don't read the rest of this comment and try playing it with friends. Trust me it's amazing.
That being said, spoilers:
So morality had an even bigger impact on our experience since the decisions we made in game directly affected real life people. Our friends. There's a scene where Mike sees that his girlfriend has been bit by what could be a contagious zombie creature. The player is then given the decision (as Mike) to kill her or risk her turning on them. At that moment, all of us playing the game began shouting:
"kill her!"
"don't kill me dude come on!"
"his character is gonna get the rest of us killed!"
"no don't do it!"
"dude that's fucked don't kill my character!!"
"do it!"
That moment was so goddam intense... we never forgot how our friend actually decided to shoot his friend to avoid the risks.
SirMikeys This might break more relationships than Monopoly
I did the same thing but with only one friend, its awesome :)
i did something like that, yes...i ended up killing all of my friends, when one was bit, as they were panicking...we never played that game together anymore, and i finished it without them...i dont react good to stressful situations XD
SirMikeys i did this with Detroit: Become Human with 2 friends and it was intense.
Where can I have one?
4:11 I understand now.
Every game with a morality system must reward "good" players by letting them go on dates with skeletons. Triple-A, here I come!
sans is taken
Basically, the game makes you feel guilty for being bad, but happy for being good, which makes sense.
@@SonOfSparda3139 I think they're referring to Papyrus.
And also, what do you mean Sans is taken?
By who?
Please tell me not Frisk.
yes frisk
@@SonOfSparda3139 No.
I remember playing This War of Mine and looting the mall for the first time. I saw a soldier there in an other room. I was wary of him (and his AK47) at first but fortunatly he seemed to spend his time bothering a female civilan coming to loot like me. As I rumaged trough rubbles to find food, I noticed that the conversation seemed to have turn for the worse and the soldier is now dragging the woman to the back of the mall.
At first I felt relieved that the soldier would not stop me from looting the "jucier" part of the mall, plus what could I do against his AK with just a crowbar. Still concerned though I followed them as they go in a room in the back, there I hear he is about to rape her. I hesitated for a few second as the scream and whimper became more and more unbearable.
I stomped throught the door, ran to him and bashed him with the crowbar, then again and again until he was dead.
He still managed to take a shot at me though, and my character ended gravely wounded.
The woman being smart bolted out there.
I grabed the soldier weapon and went home on wobbly legs.
That hesitation and moment of intense action was exhilarating,
Comiting a murder to stop a rapist, risking my charater's life rather than pretend to not have seen it, all of it was a powerful moment and felt incredible.
Great moment of morality questionning ( though there was no question wich was the moral superior choice), gameplay made a soldier a terrifying enemy to face without a gun, and looting the mall in peace while the rape happen was sufficently tempting to made cowardism a viable option.
That moment and running through Sniper Alley... Damn that game was powerful.
This what games are supposed to do to us.
Damn... I hadn't even heard of this game tbh.
Yeah it was a great game.
Peter Molyneux said he did psychological studies during the making of Black and White and discovered it's incredibly hard (to the point of it being almost impossible) for a person to be evil constantly all the time and the only way around it he discovered was to reward them constantly.
Even when a player is fully aware there are no consequences for their actions, it's impossible to fight empathy.
But games with morality always force you to be the good guy as they hide things like achievements and the best endings behind being 100% honorable, like Bioshock and Deux Ex Human Revolution, by not killing a single human in the entire game.
Game Maker's Toolkit
No worries, say is there any way of getting in touch with you for a quick chat at all? Tried PMing you ages ago, but YT PM's get buried like no tomorrow.
But if you want to do anything on morality, Molyneux is the guy to look at, he's obsessed over the good/evil thing in his games ever since Populous.
+Larry Bundy Jr I think that's why Undertale's Genocide run is such a true struggle. People usually only take this route after a true pacifist route, but the true difficulty is how guilty you really feel killing everything.
Best place to chat is Twitter DMs. Sorry, I never check my TH-cam PMs because I am a garbage hound :S
Game Maker's Toolkit
Cool, I'll give you a shout there! :)
Molyneux might have a poor understanding of what "evil" really is, then. Mustache-twirling is closer to madness than it is to heedless self-service. A bad person can easily do something nice for someone else-- so long as they, themselves, are the primary beneficiaries.
I think that making bad moral decisions shouldn't only be encouraged by game mechanics. All these games only use desperation and laziness as motivators. What about anger, confusion, misunderstanding, status, peer pressure and expectations? Undertale made almost all its characters likable, and the only reason for killing would be the EXP and Gold. They never gave you a character you hated so much, you wanted to kill them, even though it was the wrong thing to do. Or a character all your friends wanted dead, and not killing that character (while the right decision) would make them feel disappointed and betrayed. These choices are tough, but not because the game becomes harder when you do the "right thing" but because (in the first example) they expect you to go against your impulses or (in the second example) your social status and the expectations tied to it.
+Krystian “Halucygeno” Podlaszewski I love Undertale, but that is a great point. If I was in that world, I would likely not think twice about killing enemies that are trying to kill me in the first place. However, I ended up sparing their lives solely because they were so endearing and likable even as they tried to end me.
+Krystian “Halucygeno” Podlaszewski I hate all the characters in undertale, and wanted to kill them right when I met them.
Halucygeno what about flowey?
Halucygeno I'm also guessing that papers, please will be the perfect game for you
@@randomguy6679 In pacifist Flowey is presented in a more friendship way at the end, in genocide you can't decide to not kill him. You can only choose in neutral where showing mercy can be interpreted as a last fuck you to him, not playing by his anthics, choosing something that he can't understand and then leaving the place letting him trapped for at least a long time in a boring world
I really liked the morality of Frospunk, where you are under pressure of frost/scarse resources and accidents, but you need to make sacrifices on behalf of your people to survive.
Awesome video! Thank you for mentioning our game. Keep up the great work, guys.
11 bit studios subscribed
Thank you for existing! Due to this comment I discovered Frostpunk - their new title for those who also didn't know. Looks very interesting!
This is maybe my favourite video you've done yet. It's interesting to see how far morality in games has come - there was a weird middle ground there where, for example, Telltale games were still offering you the binary option of what to do in terms of moral choices. The difference is that instead of having the 'light/dark' choices they were both dark. I remember seeing this described as a real step forward in representing morality in games more effectively, but I couldn't shake the feeling with those games that their very nature as a binary choice negated their aspirations of being 'true moral choices'. If the past few years have taught us anything, and I could be wrong on this, it's that really the only way to represent morality is to weave it into the mechanics. The second you present it as a multiple choice list (regardless of how many options there are) you jolt the player into 'morality mode' which calibrates the choice in their head automatically as 'how do I want this game to progress'. Morality, as you've expertly illustrated in this video, needs to be considered at every level of a game's design if it is going to be truly effective. That's why Papers Please remains one of my favourite games of all time.
Anyway, thanks again for this video man. You're doing some amazing work here.
You said it well! Whenever I play a game with list morality choices, I always pick the good choice because I want to go in that direction, or maybe I wanna pick all evil choices so I pick that. I'm not picking what I think makes sense, I'm picking to get a certain outcome.
A similar problem applies to adventure games, in the sense of navigating NPC conversations or just general interaction/movement within the environment. Older Sierra games used a basic text parser to interpret commands you crafted yourself, limited only by your knowledge (well, at least of the game's internal dictionary) and how many responses the developer actually programmed for a given scenario. But LucasArts adventure games _even of the same era_ relied on a small palette of fixed actions (walk, inspect, talk, use item, etc.) and the experience just isn't the same. With the addition of mouse as a standard input device Sierra games quickly transitioned from inputting manual text commands to dedicated cursors (walk, inspect, talk, use item, etc.) and the end-user experience just wasn't quite the same anymore.
Likewise, ordinary NPC conversations start to feel fundamentally different when you are given an open-ended text prompt rather than a discrete list of pre-programmed options.
@@Stratelier • Yeah, the typing system is always very engaging, but I can imagine it is very hard to do. Especially for FMV games (which is a shame because I’d love to mix the two). The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker used a type-in-your-response system for questioning, but because they could only film so many responses you can end up trying to rephrase the same question multiple ways just to progress, if there even is a response programmed for that question at all. Personally I’m okay with that, but I’m not sure if the majority of people would be.
I know Sierra created the FMV Phantasmagoria, but I haven’t watched or played it yet. Does that game employ the type-in-the-response method you mentioned? And if yes, do you think they did it well? What other of their older games do you recommend because of the type system?
@@izstrella Apparently Phantasmagoria used a point-and-click system with a limited palette of cursor actions...
(I grew up on Sierra adventure games, but I certainly didn't play them all.)
@@Stratelier • Ah okay, thanks! Do you have a favourite type-in-your-text one of theirs?
Former "Spec Ops: The Line" dev here. I totally understand that indie games have better examples of morality in mechanics, since they have more freedom to explore these ideas... but it would have been cool to mention a couple of AAA games that at least tried. Not only The Line, but others like The Last of Us or Heavy Rain. However, great video. I wish you would have talked about this subject for another 20 minutes. There is so much to explore about morality in games. :)
+BaxaTV Oooh! Thanks for the comment - yep, there is much more to explore here and I'm sure I'll come back to it down the line. Just wanted to focus on this recent batch of indie games in this video. Spec Ops is absolutely something I want to talk about one day (thanks for making such an interesting game!)
I disagree that Heavy Rain handled morality in a particularly nuanced way, but Spec Ops: The Line is quite possibly my favourite game of all time, so thanks for that! The Last Of Us is actually a great example though - that ending in particular had me contemplating it daily for a good six months after I beat it.
+BaxaTV Dude, that's awesome, but I have to hate you...It's your fault, not mine...white phosphorus....never forget.
+Writing On Games Well, I mentioned Heavy Rain because it didn't have this "blue/red" decissions... it was more a greyscale in terms of not knowing if something you did was going to have a positive or negative outcome, but I get why you disagreed. And I love your channel, man! I stopped using Patreon for a while, but as soon as I'm back, you will be on my list.
+TheMusicMan1012 Dude, I scripted that level. xD
I personally really loved the morality system in Fallout New Vegas. Not so much the Karma system, though I thought it was integrated fairly well into the gameplay, but the Factions favor system. Doing one thing might earn you favor with the NCR, but lose favor with The Legion. It kind of shows how relative morality really is and how we're allowed to determine for ourselves what/who is right and wrong. I still remember towards the end, making a decision to work with the Brotherhood for the NCR made me lose some NCR points, even though I gained us some powerful allies. It really made me rethink if I was really fighting with the good guys.
Yes, this is a great system. Shows that morality is not some absolute thing we all agree on - different factions will have different reactions, much as they would in real life.
They did a good job of making no one seem like a real good guy, actually. In some ways, this is realistic, especially the negatives shown for the NCR and Brotherhood. But then, the Mr. House track eventually leads you to one black and white, good or evil, decision and there’s ZERO flexibility. After that, the reality sunk in for me: there’s no good choice in the game, not for realism sake, but because the developers truly believed that the world, and all people in it, is ultimately bad, everywhere. That level of pessimism might make sense in a post-nuclear holocaust game, but once you realize that there’s an underlying default of “everything is bad”, it feels like a waste of effort to try.
adam4d.com/right-and-wrong/
@@JaceCavacini Like Oxhorn once said "The NCR isn't particularly good for the Mojave, but they're it's best hope" or something around those lines
@@JaceCavacini I never felt that everything was bad rather that everything did something that the other factions didn't do well.
NCR had members that genuinely cared about their people and had equal rights within NCR but were over-extended and had corruption in the higher ranks.
Legion had strong discipled people, protected their roads and had practical approaches to the wasteland (sword training rather than guns) but they were barbaric with a dying dictator.
House had realistic ambitions/direction and technical foresight but his coldhearted approach ignored the humane side of the problem.
and Yes man gave the player agency to be the leader of the Mojave for power fantasy reasons but wasn't the most sensible choice.
Oh my god, this video was an epiphany. I hate losing characters and will hard reset and restart when one dies. In Darkest Dungeon, I cared about each character tremendously. I did all the easiest missions, but as you can guess, it cost a lot of money to keep all my people sane, so they were lacking in arms and abilities while being locked out of lower level missions. I played extremely cautiously and lost only 3 characters in 96 hours of gameplay.
I hit a brick wall where I could not beat the enemies and had to give up on the game. It stressed me out. I got to the point where I dreaded playing it, because I did not think to be cold-blooded. I am a support main. A healer and an ally in most games - it's against my very character to be mean.
But now I know what to do. Time to enjoy some suffering.
3 characters in 96 hours is crazy. I've probably played like 20-30 hours so far and literally lost dozens of characters and at least two whole parties; one because I didn't know retreating from battle was an option, and the other because I tried retreating too late and it failed like three times in a row.
I just use Notepad ++ to edit the C++ to make the game more in my favour.
I think this might be one of the jokers backstories lmao
Like, I have a case when it comes to playing XCOM, I hate losing soldiers and I enjoy making stories for my characters, unfortunately, that means that I end up reloading whenever I lose soldiers, or a mission starts taking a turn for the worst.
Hells, in XCOM 2, because of the more aggressive playstyle that the game encourages, I was penalised, because I went for more defensive and slow moving playstyles, methods that reduce the amount of damage a character can take and makes it more likely that they'll make it back in one piece, but not one that is useful for getting your hands on a supply box when ADVENT is also gunning for that one.
(Like, for example, in one XCOM campaign, I had a sniper, Layla "Ranger" Edwards, and during the course of the game, I mentally constructed a narrative for the woman, like what her family life was like, what she enjoyed, what she didn't, and I grew to care about what I know was a collection of 1s and 0s to the point where I took her on the final mission, even if she wasn't the best sniper I had. It should also come as no surprise that she returned and became a star character in my XCOM 2 campaign)
This is very impactfill when it comes to playing these types of games for me and I've will always have consent stress situations when I play darkest dungeon or papers please because I always want everyone to be fine and happy and instead of dread and cruelty and as soon I've started playing darkest dungeon, I'm my first hr of playing I've already wanted to call quits because i almost lost my first knight (forgot the name when you get the first two characters but I do know dismas) in the first dungeon and was getting all nervous and scared of losing that I've retreated and cried on almost losing them as I was shaking as I also became afflicted with paranoia and fearfulness.
Speaking as a game dev, i found darkest dungeon to be an analogy not just for companies but for the games industry itself. the games industry is rife with examples of hiring, overworking and dismissing skilled game developers. taking advantage of the surplus of people who love making and working on games. killing there passion by long crunch time, cruel working conditions and requiring often amoral action from them(eg: asking an artist to plagiarize another artists work).
+CynicatPro It so easy for this to happen in many industries. The rise of productivity and squeezing out that last bit of effort can drive terrible decisions.
Music Industry too.
I personally thought of the Japanese anime industry. So many industries in Japan have this problem they even have a term for it, that roughly translates to "Black Company".
I like to program games as a hobby, and everyone was always pushing me to work towards getting into a big company and doing it for a living, but I always avoided that like the plague for VERY reasons like these! I don't want to turn one of very few things I both like doing AND I'm good at into something I'd sell my soul to never touch again.
Ed Gepixel bingo
"The only thing that's free in this game are human lives." Damn...
I remember when I played This war of mine, I had the problem of always runing low on suplies, so, un order yo stay alive I began to steal from bandits and soldiers. But, seeing that winter was getting worse and there were less ressources I started to kill these guys to get their equipment and sell it. By the end of the game I attacked and killed a lot of inocent people. More beacuse of "What if they are hostile? I can't risk the chance of being killed. What if this woman has a knife and stabs me?" So, I always strike first. Marco sometimes tried to kill himself, I'm not gona lie, at least I could maje him get drunk and send him again on a killing spree.
By the way, sorry for the errors in the text, I'm not a native english speaker.
The first Witcher game actually had some interesting moral choices. Early on a guy would pay you to stop elves from stealing his shipment of goods, you would then find that this was their only method of survival but they weren't exactly the good guys either. The consequences of your decision would often be revealed hours later in the game.
I enjoyed the first Infamous but the Karma system was cheap. There was one mission where you had to choose between saving some doctors or the character's ex-girlfriend but she would literally change places in the world just so that she always died, no matter what you chose. The more destructive powers you got by choosing the Evil path actually made the game a lot easier though - there were at least some further effects from your moral choice.
Yes sir. That first encounter with the elves sums up the whole game to come regarding choices. It's amazing.
God, that part in infamous was so cheap.
*This is why*
Being the good guy is always harder.
How easy it is to give in to temptation than resisting it
Other subtle way to show morality: In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, shooting enemies is, essentially, shooting your own troops, given how unreliable volunteers are.
A game that let me shoot up captured enemies with some balloons at earth gravity esacpe velocity never gave me the feeling those were real people. Where did they go? Motherbase, more like lame-o-base.
@@UmVtCg for real. They just felt like pokemon
MGSV's Mother Base system is a way to reward non-lethality, not morality. Generally, in MGS games you are advised against killing enemy soldiers, but the games never actually rewarded you for that, until Portable Ops and Peace Walker came along.
Morality-wise, you are still a merc who's in it for the money. Otherwise you wouldn't have tortured a paraplegic man and beating the crap out of a child several times.
Papers, Please is one of my favorite "moral choice" games that seems very simple on the surface, but is nothing of the kind once you start playing. I remember a time when my rent was going up, and a particularly high amount of rabble attempting to cheat the system had annoyed me, so I decided to be draconian in turning people away. But my callousness left me with a pang of guilt as I realized I had turned away legit people who just didn't have all their paperwork organized. So the next day, I decided to be the nice guy and pay for my sins. However, after letting one refugee slide through, I watched him walk 50 feet past the border and then suddenly Allahu Akbar himself, killing several of my fellow border agents. In my attempt to play the nice guy and feel good about myself, several of my fellow coworkers were DEAD and it was MY FAULT for putting my own sense of "niceness" about my duty. Man, for such a simple little game, that decision has stuck with me like hardly any other gaming experience, and you better believe I was vetting people and making more thorough choices during the rest of that play through.
It's how it shows us that in every scenario that we think it will happen goes wrong and we get punished dreadfully for our "nice" deads
I love how it represents the banality of evil. So few games manage to do that and it sucks cause (just like Mark alluded to in the video) games are almost the only way to show this feeling
Great video as always Mark! Love this topic, and you listed some great recent examples. Another game that comes to mind is Spec Ops: The Line (I normally don't prefer shooters, but this one was different), you really feel the grit and pain of being in a warzone. I like when games are so much more than black and white, and I hope to see more of it in the future.
First!!!!!!!!!11
The best part of Spec Ops: The Line is that it shows you how Walker slowly goes mad. He keeps trying to distance himself from what's happening, but with every choice he makes he falls deeper into the hole.
It's so refreshing for video games to actually explore what the medium has done best: put the player in true control. Too many games are set rigidly in role-playing, only allowing the player to be a viewer to seeing their character kill hoards of aliens/robots/whatever. Even Telltale games still do this: you're just the audience, watching the story unfold. Hopefully, these morally ambiguous games create a surge of other games that let people do what they want and suffer or enjoy the consequences as a result.
_Undertale_ also remembers events from previous save files, and treats "restarting" in a "Groundhog Day"-style in-universe. You're simply erasing (most of) the memories of (most of) the characters and returning them to their original positions. Which adds a further moral wrench into the fold: after earning "Neutral Pacifist Ending" and finally the "True Pacifist Ending," do you go back to do multiple playthroughs for your own enjoyment and exploration...or let all your monster friends live happily ever after? It's another neat integration of themes and game mechanics.
Additionally, from what I heard, if you play an _Undertale_ save file like a completely amoral bastard and kill literally everyone you can and get the respective ending, the game will never let you live down that _one_ save file where you went on a murderous rampage, reminding you in your future playthroughs of the game. (You can find utilities if you want your game to "forget" about your genocide run.) This gives another choice for players: are you willing "corrupt" your game with a "genocide run" for the sake of exploring all of the lore?
romantiCaveman Pretty easy choice.
So save the genocide run for last.
And let the entire universe be destroyed forever yeahhhhhhh
That moment when my character reached out to shake Sans' hand before he held his hand out blew my mind
Yeah sure, i mean if i laid cash down for content like that (I only watched my sister play Undertale, never played it personally)
Then i'd do what ever the hell i wanted after a first or second run
The only time I’ve ever thrown away a Darkest Dungeon Character is when they became legitimately insane, and I couldn’t help them. I try to keep people alive.
But hey. Reynauld and Dismas survived to the end so it’s ok.
there was a mobile game called superbrothers of sword and sworcery. to be honest it was one of the best games I have ever played. at a point you were given the choice to slay or not the bear. It wasn't explicitly said that you had a choice, but there was a button to sheathe your weapon. as I looked at the bear crying It strangely got to me, I looked for ways not to kill him and I even stopped playing as long as I didn't have a solution. a month later the solution came to me. I don't know how i was so happy to save him since it was a pretty simple tactic. but it really immersed me into the game and made me care about the characters involved :)
That game was fantastic. Great art style and music. I'm surprised more people haven't heard of it.
Fantastic and witty game. It got almost everything in a small package. Even some magical moments (both literal and figurative) that you don't get in many games.
I feel like it's kinda unfair to judge Infamous' karma system for not being deep, as it's intentionally going for the choice of a comic book hero or villain. In the first game Cole always justified his decisions to himself, much like a supervillain will tell themselves, and in Second Son Delsin is already kinda a bad kid, so getting superpowers is his chance to either go back and make something of himself, or to get worse and be an even bigger jerk then before.
But what I really hate about these choices is that they are highlighted in bright blue or red colors.
Stickmantoon let's make them green and purple then ;D
I think it would be much better if there are no colors in it, and no "this is good" and "this is bad". Just gave them 2 choices, with same or no colors. So when the players chose the options, they simply made a decision.
Not only this will make them feel less guilty, it's also more realistic, like in life, there is no bad or good choices, just choices that you make, and whether you think that's right or wrong is up to you.
Shu Ouma Only villains use secondary colors.
Does provide a contrast that might be good for a morally grey game though.
*CONOR McGLORIOUS* lol dude their are good and bad choices in real life do you stab the random guy in the street or not is pretty clear.
Honestly I treated all of my adventurers in Darkest Dungeon with care and respect. I never abused them or treated them like disposable nobodies.
I guess I just suck at the game
And, by extension, we can infer that you'd probably wouldn't be a successful CEO.
@@GTAVictor9128 But maybe a good manager or team leader.
This is one of the beefs I have with Dishonored, probably my first or second favorite game. They boil the mechanics down to a choice between "kill or no kill" and it changes your "chaos" meter accordingly. Finish the game with high chaos, you get a bad ending. Finish the game with low chaos, you get a good ending. This sort of binary logic gets a bit broken when you understand that the non-lethal neutralizations for targets are oftentimes worse than if you had just killed them (sent out of society, sexual slavery, brutal torture) I like to think that this was intentional, and a commentary on both games' usual exploration of morality while also showing that there really is no good result that comes from exacting revenge, but I don't think that was necessarily intentional on the part of Arkane. The game is flawed, but I still can't help but love it.
Great insight.
i. really dont think its boiling it down. morality is based on how you chose to play through the level. being unnecessarily violent lets you use better powers, and gives you more loot, the guards set up more aggressive defenses and your allies think less of you. its not as much about whether or not you kill the assassination targets
i think dishonored definitely leans on the brutal side with some of the nonlethal eliminations to make a statement on Punitive Violence, and i also think the nonlethal eliminations for assassination targets were worked in later in development so not all of them are as perfectly just as branding overseer campbell. you have breathing room to just choose to kill some of them if you think that’s the right play, and i do think thats intentional.
I never behaved that way when playing darkest dungeon.
I always meticulously played my favorites and kept as many people alive as possible.
When Mettaton sang his little number, I didn't know you could move around, since I figured it was just a cut-scene, so I just stared out
blankly un-moving. It actually made the scene more funny. XD!
Dark Souls could be an example?
In Multiplayer you can either Co-op and help players (Sun Bros) or invade them stopping their progress(Darkwraiths), invading usually grants more exp than co-op but then you get in a blacklist in wich the system will send players to hunt you down (Darkmoon) thus giving a consequence for interfiering with another's players game.
Really cool series man, this is top material.
+Xfushion2 that's a good analogy! I always felt like Dark Souls, even just the single player experience, was like an analogy to life itself. In the way you approach new and scary scenarios, shield up, eyes wide open, scared of what's out there. You wouldn't throw your life away so easily when so much is on the line. I can't seem to communicate exactly what it is and how it relates articulately, but there's something there that's powerful!
***** Extrapolating morality from the multiplayer, and even through the game as a whole, is really subtle and is a big ask on the player, for sure. Still, I don't think its worth discounting just because there are more hard-hitting examples like the games you mentioned. If anything, the intentionally subtle delivery of themes and concepts in Dark Souls - both through its mechanics and its plot - is one of its most intriguing and valuable aspects. I wouldn't say its a lesser example or approach, just a different one.
Was going to say Dark Souls too ^^
I think, DS is a good example. Not just the multiplayer. The morality system is not "In ya face" (as everything in this game) like other games. Someone said: You could call it "Nihilism the game". You can kill all NPCs and still and the game. You could kill them just for fun, ot because you want that very item or because you know this person will die or go hollow sooner or later anyway.
It's not even clear if you are "the good" or "the bad" guy.
One of my favourite games for morality in my books is Rimworld, I love how that game doesn’t do anything by itself to entice you to be good or evil, but either option is possible. I usually end kinda neutral, running a peaceful town of traders who rescue injured prisoners and prosper from selling crops, but also secretly running a organ harvesting operation using prisoners captured by the weekly raids. But if you want, you can enslave everyone who comes by your base, work them until they’re about to starve to death, steal their organs, butcher them for dinner, and make chairs out of their leather. The latter option can make you much richer, but it comes with the downside that some colonists don’t like it. But if you butcher and eat them too, sparing just the psychopaths and cannibals, there’s no one to stop you. It’s purely your own morals that keep you on the path you choose.
I recommend checking out "Beholder", it feels like the house management edition of "Papers, Please!", but with a lot more eastern German Stasi gameplay.
My favourite thing with Undertales morality isn't the kill or don't kill but the idea of resets, by making characters remember bits or get hints from your body language and face about resets it shows you can't just get forgiveness for what you have done, your past can't just be tossed away, whilst most neutral routs are redeemed and forgiven things like killing Papyrus, committing genocide or erasing a happy ending are constantly pointed out to you.
This is officially my favorite gaming analysis channel. I love how concise your writing is; you don't drag us in a 40 min unedited video unlike many gaming channels do. Your videos are between 5 to 15 minutes and they tell everything in a very comprehensive and engaging way. Fantastic job, man.
"I try to read every single comment I get."
Consider, frozen milk
i'm not sure if that's healthy
@@GMTK except frozen and cultured milk is delicious.
"Heroes become stressed out, they suffer debilitating afflictions, and they rack up destructive personality quirks.."
Steady on... is this a video about morality in games, or my transition from adolescence into adulthood?
Darkest Dungeon player here. I think they missed 2 tiny details: 1. Stress doesn't cause negative quirks. 2. Your characters can literally die from stress via heart attack. If that's about your transition from adolescence into adulthood then, by all means, stay the hell away from stress.
I think you're completely missing the actual implications with Undertale when doing the genocide run.
The game wants you to replay with different moral strategies to see all the content, but once you do genocide you can't do pacifist; it remembers. Which can the game judging your actions or the game itself being the multi play throughs.
Also genocide isn't incentivized with XP, that's just a bi-product. What's incentivizing you is that all these creatures want to and will kill you. That and the best exclusive boss fight in the game.
It just occurred to me that all those goombas I jumped on in Mario had families, hopes, and dreams. *sheds single tear*
Rimworld is a good example that on the more extreme difficulties, it forced you to comit some awful acts. Such as forcing you're people to cook and eat raw human meat when you're starting to death or making you not want to rescue someone purely on the logic that his skills are bad or it's one more mouth to feed. You can also kill traders which may be a way to harvest their corpses. Of course, you can edit the game slightly to give everyone a trait that allows them to eat humans without a downside. You also have the moral choice of do I kill this person because they had a mental breakdown or do I try to attain them?
When I play Rimworld, I exclusively recruit psychopaths, because they practice what I call "moral relativism" and I practice what some would call "an organ harvesting operation"- which, personally, I find to be a very offensive and bigoted term to describe non-consensual organ arbitrage. Why do I do it? Because it's very profitable.
I love Darkest Dungeon for being so layered. All of these great metaphors about big corporations come on top of a fascinating lovecraftian world, where the best thing you can do is delay the inevitable end of the world, and cause another cycle of the same suffering.
This series is so f@king great.
One of, if not the, best here on youtube.
+WandaThePanda So fat great?
eh, I see what you mean
now it's more explicit, I guess
+WandaThePanda It's ok to say fuck on the Internet.
One of my favorite morality systems is from KOTOR, which I realize is an RPG, but I think it still counts. In the game you make Light Side (Good) choices and Dark Side (Evil) choices until you finally end up with a character that's either a light sided hero, or an evil sith (you can't be in-between because the final choice made in the game pretty much cements which side you'll be in). Anyway, although players would want to play a light-sided hero, Bioware cleverly designed the game to create great incentives for playing evil choices vs good choices.
For starters, taking light-sided approaches are involved and often times rely on Persuasion skills or spend hard-earned credits to complete for fairly little reward. Doing the Dark Side choice is fairly quicker and painless, and not-too-mention unintentionally hilarious due to the outdated graphics and voice acting.
However, the best thing about the system is how your decisions affect how you level up. As you level up, you can gain points to spend on force powers, which can be cheaper or more expensive depending on where your morality system lies. And these powers are unique enough to effect how you play. If you're playing as light side jedi, you'll be able to afford the light sided powers which are based around healing and buffs. While playing dark side gives you powerful attacks and area effects (combat in this game is pretty ruthless itself, so having these would make combat go faster), abilities like force choke and force lightning.
If you ask me, I think baking morality into the way a character is built is a great idea. Not only would it prompt a replay for those wanted to try the opposite moral, but for a first timer, it can really have them thinking what's best for their playstyle. Would they rather go evil in exchange for easier combat, or go through the effort of being nice even if the powers they gain aren't really "cool" (useful, but not as flashy as force lightning).
Honestly thought this said "mortality" and you were going to talk about death.
Great video! I love how you mentioned that some games point out WHY some people are evil: it's never a conscious decision to be a bad person, there has to be some reason why someone would do something wrong.
As someone who loves this kind of exploration of morality, and how videogames are the perfect medium for it i really appreciate how you've put into words exactly what i'm so passionate about when it comes to games. It's honestly one of my favourite videos ever, if you could do more of these videos focused on more abstract themes like morality i would love you for ever. Thank you.
I get so hyped when i see this in my subbox. As a first year Game Artist, we also need to make Prototypes. This helps me alot, seen all videos! :D
Utrechts Netherlands, Grafish Lyceum Utrechts. First year Game Artist. I get 2D, 3D, prototyping (only in the first year) and Game Design as the Game Artist related lessons.
Its an four year study. Be done when i am 21.
Great video, thank you. Have you played Lisa: The Painful RPG? I never finished it, but was forced to make awful choices that might benefit the antagonist's mission, but have a large negative impact on other characters. Eventually I found myself questioning the ethics/morals of my (the antagonist's) mission in the first place. There were times when I felt disgusted by the game, and myself...it was wonderful.
Your videos are probably the most well-organised and argumentatively compelling ones I've ever seen
These videos are just incredible; you've edited them so well, the flow of your commentary has a coherency to it, a lot of critical reflection and some great footage here too.
I've always admired the designs of game systems much more than my peers, so seeing someone well versed than most making commentary on here makes me feel much more valued. It's tough to make video games appear intelligent or worthy of analysis, but you've done it very well.
KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!
Try to say something about Soma and its morality. please :)
+Róbert Garai Ack, too scary for me! But I have heard good things so maybe I'll have to try and push on through
what about Life is Strange
Thank you for your point of view. :)
And Life is Strange is garbo. Not worth your time.
Generic User yeah, it sets up these interesting sub-details but it all boils down to two outcomes which feels cheap af tbh.
I'm pleased that the two games that came to mind immediately, Undertale and Papers Please were both on this list
this video was amazing, please do not stop. You can tell how much time and effort he puts into each and ever videos he makes and it is awesome.
Im very thankful for these videos they've helped me think about areas in games which i havn't thought of before and is helping me decide how my own game should turn out.
We need you to talk about The Witness, Mark.
+Михаил Сердюк Maaaaaybe. Maaaaaybe.
I think I just understood why I felt like Undertale was doing a bad job at this: except for the more important characters which have a reason to fight with you, lots of random enemy just attack you, and you're punished with being called a murderer if you have no choice but to defend yourself even just once.
But in the other games, the NPCs have valid reason to interact with you in any way, and that makes a huge difference in how you want to react to them.
WirinelDuSaule look at this way. From the perspective of the monsters, your the intruder and they don't particularly know right away that they attacked you first or if your murder was justified. From their perspective, your just a murderer.
WirinelDuSaule also, I'd love to hear some examples of "valid" NPC interactions in other games
WirinelDuSaule your also forgetting that there's a neutral ending, an ending that can still be pretty good if you keep your kill count to a bare minimum
Your power to save and reload is canon in-universe. The game outright tells you that you don't have to kill anybody, so what kind of person chooses to kill knowing they don't have to?
The neutral ending tells you that it is ok if you kill for the sake of self defense, unless you kill Papyrus, who never try to kill you
Great work here. Really appreciate the insights and comparison/contrasting of these games.
This is brilliantly done. You really put a lot of thought into these and it makes them great to watch!
Always love your videos Mark!
Ultima IV is a giant morality RPG and one of my favorite games. It's also free on GoG.
This is my first time watching a video from this channel. I just wanted to say that this was an excellent video and I am looking forward to watching more content from you. Happy to support you on Patreon.
Your channel is absolutely insane. The Boss Keys series is the most intriguing thing I've ever seen.
I'd also argue that Undetale is no better or worse than the "karma" meter seen in Mass Effect or Infamous. The core issue here is you either play all good or all bad. Each encounter isn't a moral choice, only the first one. Once you taken that first step to good or evil, theres only a lackluster Neutral ending waiting for you if you go off your chosen path. Think the little sisters in Bioshock; the only benefits lie in harvesting all of them or none of them. It's one moral choice.
Yes and no; at least if you're going for a genocide path, the game will constantly guilt you into ending your rampage. There's more to it than just the final outcome and the ending you get. And if you're only looking at it through the lens of what ending you get…you didn't really pay attention to the game's themes.
Not to mention, you are completely justified in killing them. If a guy tries to fucking murder you, you are completely justified in killing them.
I don't think that's true - the Neutral route actually changes a whole lot depending on who (at least, of the bosses) that you kill. The living characters change and interact with you differently, the world changes, you get different dialog, even the phone call at the end telling you how the Underground is managing after you left is different... there really is a spectrum there where things *are* meaningfully different, there *are* "better" and "worse" endings between True Pacifist and Genocide.
You *can't* even get the True Pacifist ending on your first run, because no matter what, there's no way around killing Asgore. Stuff at the end will hint you towards the next requirements for doing True Pacifist - it's not *just* not murdering anyone, you have to make sure you befriend everyone you can too - but it never even hints that you'll get a special ending for doing so. You're just driven for it because you start really falling in love with the characters, you want them to come out the best you can do - or out of the completionism that drives you to wonder what happens if you kill everybody.
(The individual random encounters are definitely trivial not-really-a-moral-choice ones where either you commit to killing at least one, or none, or all, but beyond that there's no difference; it's the boss monsters where the actual meat is. Even though some NPCs do actually change if you killed certain unique random encounters, this is one of the few genuinely serious flaws in the game's integration of story and gameplay.)
I agree with this one, because if you spare one enemy and kill everyone else it's the same as if you kill one enemy and spare everyone else. there is no middle ground, there's good, bad, or boring.
That is my main problem as well, the neutral options are very lackluster, and even when going Pacifist, i've never felt that the XP was such a crucial loss, since the puzzles to pacify creatures usually have such a different feel than regular battles. Some of them could even end some battles a tad faster. In fact, for a game with such an insane amount of focus on the story and interactions, being able to interact more with the world is a pretty sweet thing too.
I admire a lot of what Undertale was going for, but the morality of it was still lackluster, even if miles above the whole KARMA SYSTEM
Anyone else concerned about how games portray alcohol as an effective method of treating mental illness and stress.......
Pretty sure they present alcohol as a coping mechanism - which is definitely is. That doesn't mean games present them as EFFECTIVE methods of treatment.
Exactly, sure, it depends, but mostly items like alcohol are used as temporary solution or ineffective one. I also see what zxb995511 is saying, and it is true, on the other hand, you have a game where you usualy need some quick pick-me-up and alcohol is easy pick. It might be a cool mechanics that physical wounds would heal quickly by some "bandages" or "healthpack", but if you suffer psychological damage you would have to deal with that for a long time or untill end of the game.
It’s obviously not presented as a positive treatment for mental illness as in the two games that use it in this video end up having repercussions for its use. Darkest Dungeon leading to the eventual derangement and demise of the soldiers and pretty much the same in This War of Mine.
Darkest Dungeon doesn’t show alcohol as a solution to mental illness. It shows it as a way to relieve stress only.
That said, mental illnesses are treated by simply throwing someone in a cell and paying some gold for it, which actually could be considered even worse. People who need mental help shouldn’t be punished and tortured to get rid of the effect. In the real world, doing such would only cause MORE problems.
Add on to the fact that not all of the quirks with negative gameplay aspects to them are actually negative traits. "Resolution" which prevents the hero from visiting the bar for stress relief (Implying that they've sworn off alcohol) and "Calm" provide gameplay penalties and can be removed in the sanitarium as well.
You're not looking to make better people, you're looking to make better weapons out of people.
Thanks for you content Mark! Just found out about the channel today and I have to say I'm very grateful and impressed.
In the game we are creating, the player does not know what their alignment is at any point in the story, and the options are not explicitly told to them (good choice/bad choice). However, your alignment does affect the story and, ultimately, the ending. The interesting part though, is that one of the best endings you can get (arguably) is one where your alignment is evil. We are trying to treat it more like the real world where your decisions have actual impact rather than just a number that you can quickly change to do a specific side quest. Hopefully we're able to achieve that goal!
You're doing fantastic work. I look forward to seeing each video you put out.
Regarding Darkest Dungeon... No, I disagree with the premise there that you need to think like a CEO. Because here's the kicker: Even if your heroes become psychologically scarred, they also become better and better at what they are doing, to the point where A) it becomes impossible to punch through more difficult dungeons with rookies and B) so good they refuse to enter easier levels.
So you do need to take care of your people in order to get somewhere, and Darkest Dungeon is the clearest example of that. Or, to think like a CEO: If you don't take care of your workers, there won't be a factory left, because they will either quit, go on strike or put a torch to the place.
That said, I love to idea of exploring the mental experience of whatever you do (like the excellent This War of Mine), and I'm looking forward to see how it will turn out in Frostpunk.
Kojak0 Firstly, I disagree that it's impossible to progress in Darkest Dungeon without taking care of your heroes. The stagecoach upgrades mean you can recruit already experienced adventurers, and with the right planning Sterling and Brown can both be correct on the most economical way to play.
Secondly, I more than agree that it's not nearly as straightforward as Sterling's CEO approach makes it sound. That kind of heartlessness isn't at all encouraged, to the point that it never even occurred to me during my first 50 hours of play that treating my heroes as mere resources was possible, let alone smart. I don't think it's accidental that single adventurers can turn the tide of entire campaigns by rising to the challenge instead of cracking under the pressure of stress. Unless you deliberately go in with that sociopathic mindest, the adventurers are all going to become individuals to you. It's impossible not to remember who always gains Virtues instead of Afflictions, who gives the party critical heals when they need them, and which hero it was that utterly destroyed the enemy that slew their companion, dealing enough damage to kill the attacker twice over. The game can be interpreted as having that commentary on corporate policy, but I think it's wrong to say that it's designed to do so.
But every CEO whether real or hypothetical as Jim Sterling's is knows they have to take care of their workers, up to a point. Yelling and screaming at someone who's already broken and cowering in fear is not going to make them do what you want/need them to do so a different approach is needed, how devious and self serving that approach is depends on just how sociopathic the CEO is..
this channel is awesome
Awesome video. I think the senses has also some philosophical justification: typically morally good choices have to come from a good intention, and not an interested intention( such as maximizing karma)
You were literally talking about some of my favourite games. Awesome contect, keep up the great work!!
Awesome. My favorite vid so far.
Papers Please was the best, I felt so bad I had to take breaks due to the emotional strain. I think "I am Alive" also did a somewhat fine job, I did like threatening with an empty gun, forcing them on a cliff and kicking them down. I didn't exactly feel bad, it was established they all were bad guys or something along those lines.
+Noble „Dedicated Dark“ Alfred I could not play the game for long, because i suck at multitasking bad.
I feel bad for not expieriencing it, because it got so much praise and i'm sure rightly so.
Hans Peter Yea, towards later it was really stressful, I kept making so many mistakes.
goddamn I have turn based games, but you sold me on trying this game
which one?
Great video, dude. Really enjoy your content, makes me think about and appreciate the medium of video games even more
In a similar fashion to Papers, Please, a game that I found to be more heart-wrenching was Beholder, mainly because you and your family are living with the people you interact with. And you are a landlord who is tasked with reporting the tenants who infringe the law. The first tenant you are tasked with reporting is quite easy, shady, non-friendly, and actually infringing the law. However, things get complicated fairly fast, as your next objective is to blame a teacher who is living with his wife, worse of all, he's a nice guy, at one point your son asks your for specific books that are really expensive and if you ask the guy, he actually gives them to you as a present, he talks with all your family, and is overall a good person. He honestly never breaks the law at all, and you are given three alternatives, do as you are told, do nothing, or try to save him and his wife. So, of course, you try to save him considering all the good stuff he's done and all, you may not get the extra money, but who cares. The first problem, the government gives u one mission at a time, so no more extra money until the deadline. Second, you can't get more tenants, since all rooms are occupied, thus fewer chances to blame people, and of course, less money. And last... you may be wondering why having extra money could be important.... you see, your family consists of your wife, your son who goes to college, and your 5-year-old daughter. The latter gets sick one day. One of your tenants is a doctor, and after you do him a favor, he checks her and it turns out your daughter has a terminal illness, and the treatment to save her is way too expensive, way too expensive for the money you receive from your tenants only. you have about 15 days to get the money, and I discovered the hard way, that there's just no way to save her and the teacher. Her dead is... hard.
Those red and blue options grind my gears every single time. Such a cheap way to create "options".
I don't see how Undertale is really much different from the 'crappy' examples. You have the killing things option which is the "obvious evil choice" and the pacifist which is "obviously good". The only thing it's really missing is having the options for each colored in red and blue.
Tao except it's not so obvious to players that have it engraved that combat scenarios= justified murder
By simply being presented with the option to resolve the conflict in a non violent way, the game is telling the player that violence is the 'wrong' choice since given the option between violent and not violent, it presents a glaringly obvious black and white moral choice.
Even to the most oblivious player, having a 'mercy' option on the screen is basically a giant blue neon sign screaming "hey, player, there's a moral choice system in this game and this is the option you should be going for if you wanna be the good guy".
but most people wouldnt try that on a first blind playthrough, most people would think that wouldn't work on "monsters'. You have to try and look at it from that perspective.
For me it's good despite being obvious because it takes much more effort and time to be good rather than being evil. It reminds of a line from Doctor Who: "By any analysis evil should always win. Good is not a practical survival strategy. It requires loyalty, self-sacrifice, love. And so, why does good prevail?"
The difference is that it is not in your interest to being pacifist in Undertale, it is a lot easier to kill the monsters. Not killing them is not as easy as "just press the mercy button", you have to find how to make them stop to try to kill you, and in the mean time survive their attacks. So it is interesting because being good is hard work.
Amazing video as always.. This is something I would love to see more in games!
So glad to see Papers Please on here - that was a real trip.
You've talked about FTL in other contexts, but that comes to mind when it comes to morality too. I've seen intense debates where one side argues that you are actually playing as the evil confederacy, looting and stranding other parties to serve your own ends, and the other side maintains that you are the rebels overthrowing the tyrannical dictator. But the morality in each encounter of whether you should let the enemies, or indeed even some of your own crew, get sucked into the vacuum of space in order to save the ship, is also more implicit than a simple karma meter.
You could’ve talked about the GameCube classic, Shadow the Hedgehog.
Yeah, but Undertale still has a morality system for replayablility's sake. It's exactly what you described for Infamous, except the system is more fleshed out. At the end of the day, there's still three major endings in the game. I think it might be insulting to Darkest Dungeon to say it's on the same level from a gameplay point of view.
That being said, being kind in Undertale preventing you from getting experience is a mechanic that's worth exploring in other games.
If you've played Undertale's good ending or the worst ending, the game actually throws some stones in the way of replayability: If you boot up the game after the good ending, you'll be asked not to override the saccharine world you've managed to create. If you went with the worst ending, your character becomes permanently corrupted even if you erase your save file.
+Tony123C the replayability is another of the themes that the game touches when talking to the player and their "determination"
They do it because they can, not because what is good for the world (of undertale).
+Tony123C True pacifist and Genocide are almost two completely separate games that are commenting on each other. You're not wrong by saying it's for replayability, but that's probably the broadest sense of the word I could use.
+Tony123C That'd be a bit of a reductionist argument, though. I could make a point that most RPGs, reduced to their core, are a skinnerbox where you input your time in a grind loop, and receive story as a result.
Undertale does a lot with the content of it's story, and a big part of it's intent is in how the mechanics reflect on it's story and it's story on the mechanics. It's big, glaring fault is that the entire premise is based on empathy, and failure to connect with the player inevitably results in the message of the game being lost in the process.
It's a wonder it had the success it did, since it had equal chances of connecting with players than not. I guess it's a somewhat positive reflection of the userbase's net empathy.
+javkiller might also have something to do with it's audience. from what i hear, toby was a bit of an apologetic figure about his game, worried that it would tank and all that stuff and perhaps it made him and his game more relatable by association. just a theory though, it's probably more closely tied to the memetic, quotable dialogue.
Hey Mark,
I just wanted to thank you for your great videos. The way you look at games inspires me and makes me want to create great games. Thank you for this show, and please continue to do this!
Will do! Thanks for your kind words :)
Your videos are brilliant. Casual gamer but your insights are delightfully put together and well researched. Entertaining and I learn a lot. Thanks mate.
Me:”I play darkest dungeon... I only loose people because they decided to stop surviving.
I have two big complaints about morals in video games:
1): The game wants me to choose, so I follow my morals and choose what I think is right. Then the game chastises me for being evil according to the developer's morals. Can't I have the freedom to evaluate things for myself without the developer breathing down my neck? (For instance, I think euthanasia is the humane approach when someone's mind is so thoroughly destroyed they can no longer be called a person, but there are multiple games that give you evil karma for killing mindless zombies.)
2): The game wants me to choose wrong so it can chastise me, so it makes the game harder and less fun unless I choose wrong. I choose right over and over until the game becomes virtually impossible, then quit playing because I don't WANT to choose wrong. I passed your stupid moral test! What do I get, a cookie? Better yet, do I get a game I can actually finish?
To give a typical example, I played a horror game (I forget the name) where it turns out the MC is in a coma and the zombie apocalypse is an elaborate metaphor for his state of mind. If he kills zombies that are trying to kill him, that means his mind is violent, which gives him points towards the bad ending where he never wakes up.
Then again, that game also gives you points towards the bad ending if you stay up too late and don't eat properly, so maybe killing zombies reflects the way it's measuring your mindset? Then again again, I'd think killing whatever's in your way is a pretty good indication that your mindset is pushing you to escape and not be trapped forever.
For what it's worth, that's nowhere near the worst I've seen. I once played a game where shaking someone's hand gives you a few points towards the ending where you help one of the villains annihilate free will and enslave the human race.
I always think tht there should be at least 2 results from each morality choice, one possitive, one negative. (Even if the choice you made was "right" because let's face it, there is no universally right choice.) It would balance out the moraity play without making it -too much- of playing in gray areas.
Multiple games that give you negative karma for killing zombies? Yeah, I'm gonna need some citations for that one.
Excellent video again sir. I've only played Undertale of the games you mentioned but the others have been on my radar for some time. Really should get to them.
I think a good idea would be to have mercy be the secret option. Maybe have a very late mission teach you that you don't have to kill, with an achievement attached.
Then, on the second playthough, people may try not killing enemies. They would then be taken down a separate path (basically the opposite of undertale's genocide path) which is super hard, and punishes the player for not killing. However, you eventually get a good ending Easter egg where peace is attained.
Spoiler:
Spec Ops: The Line is interesting to me because it does not give you a moral choice as much as it acknowledges that you made a moral choice by choosing to play a game where you gun down waves and waves of people.
I thought that was incredibly lame.
@@Atomsk0192 A lot of people felt the same way. In a medium that is all about player choice, the game rarely gave you any choices and then seemed like it was judging you for the outcome. Yet in my opinion that's what makes Spec Ops: The Line interesting. Where other games may give you the option to specify your morality through your choices, Spec Ops instead notes that you are willing to go along with the actions of the protagonist and mostly not question them because of the power fantasy it gives you. Giving you options to be "the good guy" would actually have hurt the point the game was making.
Surprised you didn't bring up LISA the painful, there's a point where the main villain makes you choose whether you want him to kill all your party members forever or...cut off the nipple of an innocent child. Gameplay wise it's a no brainer but within the context of the story, even though a part of me thinks that the creator intends you to pick this, it's just so painful to pick the other option because you feel to blame because of what happened.
That sounds like a no-brainer outside of gameplay as well. Multiple human lives are worth immeasurably more than a single nipple. Also your party members could save far more innocent child nipples over the course of their lives if they're allowed to live, while the alternative is saving only one.
@@nathankurtz8045 The child in question is supposed to be your adoptive daugther and the center of the main character's entire quest (entire life, actually). I don't have children, so I can't really say for sure, but I guess I can imagine a parent, especially a _very_ doting one, would be _very_ hesitant to hurt their child in any way, even if they have a very good reason to do so.
It's indeed kind of a no-brainer in the context of a game, where it's easy to take a step back and think about it in a purely logical way, but in a more real one where things are really happening... I dunno, depends on the parent I guess.
Nathan Kurtz it’s really a question of how many lives is it ok to sacrifice to save your family. Equivalent to the family you save? Are family worth double the lives of normal people? Would you sacrifice the fate of humanity just to save your child? It’s also a story on how addiction can make those with good intentions into the worst of monsters.
@@ultimaterecoil1136 "how many lives is it ok to sacrifice to save your family"? If I change the question a bit to "how many lives is it ok to sacrifice to save your child" I guess one can answer that only logical option is "all of them".
[binge watching] Great videos and great voice! Keep up the good work!
Best game design series on TH-cam. Well done man. Thanks for the great content.
I know everyone is going gaga over Undertale's complex gameplay mechanics but honestly... I don't think they were executed that well. As soon as the player is aware there is a chance to solve the combat encounter without fighting in a fashion which humanizes the opponent... that's it. There's no real "morality" choice anymore - you now know that you can be "good" or "evil" and you pick one of the options - essentially the very same simplistic choice you are offered in game which include a "crappy" morality mechanism. Now double that with the fact that this is a cutesy Indie RPG and suddenly you have everyone picking the "good" option and congratulating themselves.
If the game really wants to embrace morality, it should make it so that the good option is a truly unattractive choice, with little to no benefits, while also making it very apparent that the bad choice will potentially be very rewarding for the player gameplay-wise. If Undertale went down this road, while also sticking with the "every choice is remembered" phylosophy, THEN I would be extremely impressed by what it tried to achieve. But a choice between a "good" character who gets to experience a much richer story and more intricate gameplay and a "bad" character who gets to grind levels in very simplistic combat encounters and misses out on story elements? What is there to choose, exactly?
I think the reason that Undertale was included in the video is because it A: doesn't tritely involve morality with its game mechanics and provides tangible consequences, and B: it's a commentary on player choice and game morality in general.
"What is there to choose, exactly?"
I mean, yeah. The good path is easy. It feels great, too. But the point is that the evil path is hard. Gut-wrenchingly hard. Why the heck would you kill everything in the game? There's no real incentive other than seeing that ending. A big theme in the game is asking why you would even THINK about doing the evil playthrough in the first place. Undertale's goal was never to give difficult choices or moral conundrums to the player; the game makes sure you know you are atrocious for going out of your way to pick the bad path. That being said, the game questions moral choices in the sense that players almost always gravitate towards doing the right thing first, and only ever choose the evil side to "finish up" the game experience in an explicitly unsentimental fashion ("... you'll just keep going. not out of any desire for good or evil... but just because you think you 'can'... and because you can ...'you have to.'") It's cause for reflection, at the very least. The other games included in the video give external reasons to be corrupt or evil, but Undertale doesn't. It knows the bad path is completely unrewarding, and that's precisely why it condemns players who choose it. There are no in-game excuses, so the game attacks and accuses and blames the players themselves. It's the "why would you do this?" and the "what did you hope to gain from this?" aspects of the evil playthrough that make it compelling, I feel.
tl;dr is that Undertale never aimed to make moral dilemmas, but instead wanted to question why players make blatantly terrible choices in games on purpose
N.B. Schatzki
I understand what you are saying.. but to me it still felt like a huge missed opportunity that a huge potential impact the game could have had on a player (bad actions have serious consequences) is effectively lost on 95% of the players who will simply opt for the good path as soon as they are aware of it.
I kinda prefer the approach Bioshock 1 and Spec Ops:The Line took which don't really offer you a choice - they are offering you a narrative in which you are a willful, active participant (and will, in turn, suffer the consequences... unless you choose NOT to play the game further). I know people prefer to have "choices", but if the game is there to provide an experience, there needs to be an actual incentive to make a "bad" choice. Undertale had a great idea, but it gave the players a huge incentive NOT to make a bad choice... which is a huge shame. I mean, one can argue that playing Undertale as the bad guy is really a harrowing, stressful experience - but it's an experience very, very few people will get to have; others either won't have the patience to play the game through one more time, or won't have the stomach to do it (because the game blatantly makes it clear that 'it remembers'). In other words, you have a game which has potential to make a "Requiem for a Dream"-like emotional impact on a player, but for most players it will be "Gilmore Girls" instead. :)
It's a shame that the game locks that experience behind something so unappealing, but I think there's something to be said about how Undertale handles it; making an "evil" decision is something that other games always portray as tempting in some way, while Undertale twists your arm and makes you wonder what the heck you're doing. I feel that a large part of that emotional impact would be lost if that experience was demonstrated to everyone other than the few who take the plunge (Spec Ops: The Line, for instance, was utterly draining for me, but for others, they were simply annoyed that the game strung them through emotional trauma and then called them the bad guy.) Well, at least Undertale covers people who just watch playthroughs of the genocide ending by calling them sickos ;P
Yeah, quite a few people were pissed off about Spec Ops, which in my opinion shows that the game very much succeeded in what it was trying to achieve - both subvert players' expectations AND offer a great narrative which forms an emotional bond between the protagonist and the player. The point where the game becomes uncomfortable (and even insulting) for the player is exactly the point in the narrative when the protagonist becomes questioning both his perception of himself and his sanity.
Walker doesn't want to be the bad guy, and he doesn't want to be insane - he wants to be the good guy, the hero. In a similar fashion, the player doesn't want the game to suddenly start questioning his enjoyment of slaughtering virtual human beings in his personal escapism faucet. This slow-burning "twist" (tasteless pun non-intended) comes out of nowhere and is extremely jarring for the player who wasn't forewarned about it (sadly, many players were). This, in my book, is a supremely delightful example of how the medium of computer games can transcend its boundaries (without becoming pretentious or "artsy") and provide a strong emotional experience. Yes, it's a feel-bad kind of game, but an excellent feel-bad kind of game.
I kind of get what you're saying. I didn't play it, but its steam description literally says: The Rpg game where you don't have to destroy anyone.
Plus, if I were to play it blind, I'd definitely tinker with the Mercy option before the generic Fight option. I'd only have chosen to fight and level up if the game has me fighting things I can't easily mitigate, which, judging from the playthrough I watched It never really does. I believe I would have stayed using Mercy most of the time, especially since there's constantly new enemies to figure out. I would have killed a few, to be familiar with how Fighting worked, and if I got bored of Mercying the same enemy over and over.
It's weird to not see the Witcher series on this list. There are huge consequences on the story and game world depending on which morally grey choice you make.
Another excellent video. It's in player participation that allows us to experience empathy, and the mentioned games were great examples of that.
I'm not sure I'd be capable of making a game that depicts morality in such a way, in the same way these skilled devs have. All devs have their own motives and themes they'd like to explore through interactive game design, and it's really great many are interested in the topic of morality.
I tend to gravitate towards depicting and exploring beauty and emotion through my games - such as how visually striking pictures and soundtracks can elicit emotional responses in players (as well as the illustration of characters and storylines). I'm still trying to explore the interactive space and how interactivity can also elicit such feelings - there sure is a lot to explore, discover, and learn!
Another great video from Every Game a Painting- er... I mean Game Maker's Toolkit. You've outdone yourself, man! =D
Darkest Dunegon is easily one of my favorite games no matter how unfairly the game is programmed to be because of how good it feels to finally defeat the dangers lurking in the dark
I had some problems with the decision I had to do in Life is Strange to the point I was just staring at the screen thinking on what my choose would be with regard to my own personal moral standards. I have had problems playing games after I finished that game. This is War of Mine is on top of the list of games I am having problem playing due to the moral choices I have to do, even though it is beating a solider about to rape a girl. There is some dilemma in my head if I have any right to choose who lives and who dies.
I can believe i just found this channel. Amazing content this chanel is vastly underrated
Another great video! Really enjoyed this one. I think I'm gonna try out Papers, Please and This War of Mine.