>>5163857Just trying to work out why I cannot steer players towards happy or more conventionally fulfilling endings lol.
>>5163639>>5163728>>5163728Just on the theme of guess the right choice or die etc. So there is this famous philosophical thing called sprachspiel, I think it was Wittgenstein, you could call it a word context game.
Consider the example of the simple word: water. It could mean: Waiter get me some... water. Or it could mean: don't drink it, the poison is in the... water. But it is the same word, same meaning?!
The idea is that the meaning is inseparable from the world view, the context, the interpretation. Now when you play a videogame with Unreal Engine or Unity graphics and cool programming lighting shader effects and particle physics, it is so obvious. There is little room for interpretation, imperfect /asymmetric information or ambiguity. You have a sword. The goblins and orcs look pretty evil. You know what to do.
In real life, whether it is like military situation awareness or the stock market, you do not have this clarity. It is sometimes called the OODA loop (observe orient decide act), a really old concept. There is no one in real life who pops up with a warning DANGER sign, or like an exclamation mark on their head like in Metal Gear Solid when alerted etc.
If someone is trying to tell you this guy is good this other guy is evil etc, it is usually propaganda or at the very least a simplification of reality. What are their goals? What do they really want? You have to decide for yourself. Maybe what they tell you does in fact help you.
Of course, you can also just not bother deciding. Just let society and convention guide you, life will be much easier that way.
So I try to incorporate a lot of this ambiguity into my games. Sometimes a Fat Man is just a Fat Man. Maybe if you played Fallout or even know the real world history, you know what a Fat Man really means, what it really represents.
You have to recognise the objects, the framing, the goals and also anticipate what the future holds, the exact situational awareness structure.
If you think about it, all games have this structure. Observe the move. Work out what it means. Anticipate the next move. It applies from a turn based rpg to a first person shooter to macroeconomic and geopolitical manoeuvres and wars lol.
In all my games there is a hidden thing. You win if you discover the hidden secret and generally lose or get a mixed outcome otherwise. Maybe this is unfair?
