Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TempAcc]

Eh, with what we got so far, it kinda looks like one of those hamfisted and unintentionally hilarious PETA games. We kinda need more info on the actual plans for the game rather than just random ideological banter :v

Four legs good, two legs bad?

Eight legs better

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Astral]

I'm actually not too surprised by the majority of B12's reaction to this... I mean, you're talking about a group of people who discuss slaughtering mermaids for their bones in the same breath as they do on various strategies of rampant child abuse. Some little piggy's story of horror is just another day for this crowd, as opposed to the atrocities committed on a daily basis it's a bit boaring.

[Bohandas]

It needs to have an Animal Farm type angle where you can sell out your fellow bacons for fun and profit.

[LordBucket]

I'm actually not too surprised by the majority of B12's reaction to this... I mean, you're talking about a group of people who discuss slaughtering mermaids for their bones in the same breath as they do on various strategies of rampant child abuse. Some little piggy's story of horror is just another day for this crowd, as opposed to the atrocities committed on a daily basis it's a bit boaring.

Thank you. I was wondering if I was going to have to be the one to point that out.

We're trying to determine whether there is an audience for a vegan survial horror game set in the real world

Like others are saying, there's not enough information here to give you a definite yes or no. There's always a market for good games, regardless of setting. There's also very little market for bad games, regardless of setting. You're offering us a setting and not much else. If it's a good, then yes, great! But the fact that you're only offering a setting, as if that's the important thing, isn't encouraging.

To answer your unspoken question, no, I would not have any interest in playing a game solely because it's about what you say it is.

I advise making a good game, and then using it to deliver your message. Not bashing us over the head with your message in a pathetic excuse for an almost game.

if you have any ideas let us know.

Well, having a website that actually works would be a good start:

“Help us make a survival horror game with a vegan lining. Feedback about our idea and landing page urgently needed. http://thndr.it/1R9huTP”

pigsodus.com

Yeah, "website doesn't exist." So I google 'pigsodus.' This less than an hour old bay12 thread is both the #1 and the #2 google search result. So, yeah. You have nothing. Oh, wait!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRZqEQBjEIo

Seriously? A MENU demo? You're demoing the MENU? You made a demo video of a menu...that does nothing? You mouse over the buttons and oh wow they have mouseovers, but you don't actually press any of them because, let me guess, they don't do anything?

I know we are a little cryptic about the gameplay, but rest assured - everything will come in time.

Those are absolute suicidal death words coming from a game designer. When you say that, especially in view of the above, what I hear is "we have absolutely no clue what we're doing, but we're passionate about our message and the message is the important thing, not the game. In fact, I'm not a game designer or a programmer or an artist and I have no clue what I'm talking about. But surely somebody else who knows about that stuff will step up and deal with it."

There are plenty of people here willing to offer useful tips and advice. Some of us are even former game developers. Come back when you either have something to show, or definite questions, or anything at all more than "oh, we're cryptic...but it'll all be great, honest!"

[Dansmithers]

barbaric

endless sea of suffering

Oh great, another message of how we should defy our natural roles as predators and become hippies- wait, what's that?

it is also inefficient

Ok then, I'll bite

Sounds like an interesting concept, but honestly I can't see how you'd do it without being preachy.

[LordBucket]

I can't see how you'd do it without being preachy.

Oh, that's easy. For example:

Option 1
Create a first person view nightmare simulator where you're the pig and your task is to escape the slaughterhouse. Include vivid, graphic depictions of animals being slaughtered. Every time you fail and are caught, show yourself being slaughtered with copious amounts of blood. Bonus points for making it VR compatible.

Have no narration, no preaching, no taglines...nothing. Simply show the scenario for what it is, with you in the role of the pig.

Option 2
Same as before, except all of option 1 is exclusively act 2 of the game. Act one takes places on a farm house and is a a first person RPG with dialogue between you and the other farm animals. Include multiple romance options and make it kind of like a dating sim, with several cute pig girls to choose from. Show them very happy and make the animals all kind and nice and lovable. Show nothing to do with humans. No mean ranch hands, nothing. Act one is exclusively to establish emotional rapport with the characters.

Then introduce act 2 as what happens when you're taken to slaughter. End act 2 with the horrific realization that the friends and lovers you had during act 1 didn't make it out.

Option 3
Put the player in the role of the slaughterhouse owner. Portray the animals as affectionate and loving. Balance the game such that being kind to the animals is cost ineffective, so to succeed you have to "cut corners." Where cutting corners means forcing animals into cramped cages, not using anaesthetics, not giving them proper medication, feeding them the corpses of their fallen, etc. Graphically show the consequences of the actions the player chooses to take. Occasionally have disgruntled employees abusing animals. Have there be no in-game consequence for allowing it. Allow players to choose to be the bad guy, allow them to play the bad guy, and apply absolutely no judgement of their actions. Only show the results, and let them come to their own conclusions.

Option 4
Do what I have Candy Get in the Van did. Put the player in the role of potential bad guy, but give them no prompting as to how they should behave. However, put in achievements and different game endings for different play styles. Make use of compulsive 'I have to unlock everything!' gamer behavior to allow players to convince themselves to do things they would ordinarily never choose to do. Offer absolutely no moral judgement, no preaching, nothing regardleses of what the player chooses. Simply put the player in the position of getting to decide what to do and then seeing the consequences of it. For example, make it possible to build a sunshine and rainbows ranch where no animal is ever killed and only given hugs and pretty ribbons for their hair and money is made exclusively from non-lethal things like shearing wool during summer. Have an ending achievement for that kind of gameplay, but provide no preaching to say that it's the correct playstyle. Simply allow it as a valid playstyle and allow the player to choose or reject it.

But design the game to allow every possible sort of ranch, each of varying levels of cruelty, and keep showing them those missing achievements, so that the completionist streak compels them to play the darker, more sinister playstyles. And as above, offer no values judgement of their choices. Simply allow the player to choose, and show the consequences of his actions. Even if that means letting them be the bad guy and getting away with it and letting them win. Done well, this can be far more deeply horrifying than a more direct approach.


Lots of ways to effectively communicate the message without being preachy.

But you don't do it by making a silly little 2d platformer where 90% of gameplay is jumping on floating things trying to evade rancher sprites, with industry fact text blurbs as your end of level rewards.

[Neonivek]

I loved that game where you had to be a successful Third World Farmer. That game had a message but it used its message to make itself a good game first.

You could win the game, especially if you knew what you were doing. Yet the hardships really hit home after a while. You really realize how much luck is involved in their survival because simply getting sick can ruin a run, or failing to get water for your crops, or just shifting economic tides.

Yet it was a game... You really could succeed and excel. It never let its message interfere with being a good game, while still delivering that message with all the impact it needed.

SURE it could have just been a doom clock where you are forced to lose over and over again... But then I would have immediately forgot about it.

[ZebioLizard2]

Option 1
Create a first person view nightmare simulator where you're the pig and your task is to escape the slaughterhouse. Include vivid, graphic depictions of animals being slaughtered. Every time you fail and are caught, show yourself being slaughtered with copious amounts of blood. Bonus points for making it VR compatible.

Have no narration, no preaching, no taglines...nothing. Simply show the scenario for what it is, with you in the role of the pig.

Sounds like that one level in Bart's Nightmare on the SNES. Just more simpsony obviously.

[h3lblad3]

it is also inefficient

Ok then, I'll bite

Let me bite a little harder:

"We have the tools, and the technology to put an end to hunger. There is enough food to go around."

"During the food crisis in 2008 there was enough food for everyone in the world to have 2,700 kilocalories."

Food waste is a huge issue.

The efficiency of meat as far as feeding people doesn't particularly matter, there's more than enough to go around. So the argument shouldn't even be framed in that manner.

[Shadowlord]

Chipotle made an anti-factory-farming game for marketing purposes, or at least that's what it sounded like. I have no idea how good it was as a game, though, or what it's actually even like, since they apparently only ever released it for iDevices.

[Bohandas]

Set it to a heavy metal soundtrack.

[Nick K]

Lots of ways to effectively communicate the message without being preachy.

An issue I'd have with some of the suggestions is that they aren't realistic. If the message is that what slaughterhouses do is wrong, then the game should accurately depict them, not an exaggerated version. For example, if killing animals without anasethetic is illegal, then a game that implies it's what abbatoirs actually do would be manipulative and misleading.

[Bohandas]

Set it to a heavy metal soundtrack.

If you can license them, GWAR's got a bunch of songs that would fit great, such as You Are My Meat (Explicit)

[Shadowlord]

This post should probably have a trigger warning, if, like, you can be triggered by DoA regulations explaining how one should design a device to destroy animals' brains to in order to render them "unconscious."

For example, if killing animals without anasethetic is illegal

It's not.

Even if we ignore how the NRA would flip out if anyone in congress tried to propose banning the killing of animals without anesthetic, and consider only livestock:
https://www.animallaw.info/administrative/us-slaughter-humane-slaughter-livestock-regulations

That appears to list regulations for various means of rendering certain kind of livestock insensitive to pain (through inducing unconsciousness or death) prior to butchering them. Mind you, I have no expertise in this, I just googled.

The first one is through putting them in a CO2 gas chamber. "The carbon dioxide gas shall be administered in a chamber in accordance with this section so as to produce surgical anesthesia in the animals before they are shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut. The animals shall be exposed to the carbon dioxide gas in a way that will accomplish the anesthesia quickly and calmly, with a minimum of excitement and discomfort to the animals. In swine, carbon dioxide may be administered to induce death in the animals before they are shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut."

The second one is with "captive bolt stunners," which are described thusly: "Acceptable captive bolt stunning instruments may be either skull penetrating or nonpenetrating. The latter type is also described as a concussion or mushroom type stunner. Penetrating instruments on detonation deliver bolts of varying diameters and lengths through the skull and into the brain. Unconsciousness is produced immediately by physical brain destruction and a combination of changes in intracranial pressure and acceleration concussion. Nonpenetrating or mushroom stunners on detonation deliver a bolt with a flattened circular head against the external surface of the animal's head over the brain. Diameter of the striking surface of the stunner may vary as conditions require. Unconsciousness is produced immediately by a combination of acceleration concussion and changes in intracranial pressures."

You can also shoot them in the brain, or use "Electric current. Each animal shall be given a sufficient application of electric current to ensure surgical anesthesia throughout the bleeding operation."

Now you can certainly call this anesthesizing them, if you want to - the DoA certainly seems to want to, but that can't really obscure what it really is.

Those regulations probably aren't everything there is on the subject, though - the methods listed don't appear to apply to poultry, and that page doesn't mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita (kosher slaughtering) either, which is completely legal in the USA.

(But to be frank, it doesn't particularly bother me.)

[Neonivek]

No one is going to be seriously heard if they attack Kosher.

---

Now if you actually meant anesthetic as in chemical anesthetic... goodness that is an expensive thought.