AwkwardSilenceGames
Awkward Silence
Tumblr.comEntry #22
Last night Ludum Dare 25 started. I had an idea about 16 hours ago, that I thought would be edgy, controversial and thought provoking, that now just seems tacky, heavy handed and frankly disrespectful.
The game was going to deal with the way that the media sensationalises the news surrounded recent tragedies. The idea stemmed from this video and the game would paint the media (particularly 24 hour news outlets) as the villains. I however, quickly realised that having the player gun down dozens of civilians might just be a little too untasteful at the moment. Plus, no one really enjoys being preached at. It's a good job I didn't get very far.
Good luck to everyone still trucking away. Maybe I'll try something else in a few hours.
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1/22/13
I think the idea can still work. Including a part where you gun down innocent people is certainly a bad idea, but there are other ways to go about it. Back in 2002, a newgrounds artist named FreshLaundry made a game called Virtual Journalist, where you play as a journalist who wants to report the news, but get forced to cover sensationalist stories, or "if it bleeds it leads" stories. As the game goes on, the main character becomes visibly frustration and even looks physically worse as a result, and the game ends with plot twist that makes a statement criticizing how the media benefits from the tragedies it covers. He managed to pull it off tastefully (a year after 9/11, and during the height of the D.C. Sniper shoots here in the U.S.), and I think you can too.
12/27/12
this hasnt anything to do with your entry, but... are you really not going to make a full version of RED?
Unfortunately not.
12/16/12
HAhahaha yeah I've done this a lot. This is the big problem with making games that say something: by the time you really get into them, you'll probably spot 10 different places where the idea falls apart.
Also making games that protest against protesters against violence in videogames is kind of old hat, and pretty 1-dimensional at this point. I guess you already mentioned nobody likes being preached at. I saw a talk once where Jonathon Blow outlined what being pretentious is, and that if you've got a message that can be summed up in a couple of sentences: just write em down, don't make a huge art piece about it. If you're obfuscating something you actually want people to know about behind learning a load of rules and mechanics of interaction that don't give it any new perspective or evoke any more thought than if it was just written down on a page, then you have to ask yourself why you're doing it and what you think of the audience, right?
Anyway good on you for thinking before publishing, this paints you in a way better light than if you'd happily released it.
Side-note: is videogames even a big thing in this news story? I don't watch the news but I've not heard anything about games mentioned around this. If your premise is that the news bends reality to whatever sensational message they want to tell, and videogames ISN'T the focus of this, then you're kind of doing the same thing they're doing.
12/16/12
Even though the timing may not be the best, I agree with the premise. The way these events are sensationalized may be worse than the tragedies themselves.