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[ravensgrace]

I would hope that ANY child old enough to play a game like Dwarf Fortress (certainly someone 8-10 years old) would understand that starving to death and actually dying from it, is slightly different from being hungry.

Actually, I lost my father when I was about 10½, and I can assure you that the concept of death is still too abstract at that age, but please don't let that stop you from hoping.

Also, in response to something you said earlier: No, changing the response text regarding the kid's head being smashed in wouldn't necessarily change much when it's broken, bleeding, and on the floor anyway.

What's displayed on the screen?  What about loo[k]?  Is there a screen cap posted somewhere?

[Othob Rithol]

It seems like you (a whining, defensive parent) are attempting to place the responsibility of making a voluntary source of non-broadcast entertainment "child-safe" on the artist, instead of taking up the responsibility yourself.

Call me a troll if you like, but if you want your child to play DF, maybe you should take the time to edit as much as you can out of the raws, and then sit down with the kid and talk about all the stuff you couldn't take out.

To expect the world to make itself child-proof is an affront to two of the most basic of parental obligations: To protect the child, and to prepare the child for adult life.

When I was 8 I lived in West Germany. I was quite aware that at any given time I could be nuked. Whereas I did not quite understand death in all its subtle nuisances, I understand it meant no more me, no more mom, dad, brother, dog, or cats.

In roughly the same period of my life I threw a large rock at another child I was mad at. It struck him in the skull, and tore his scalp. Blood everywhere, his father cursing me, and me crying because I realized how much pain my anger caused. (on an aside, the kid was fine...stitches but no concussion or fracture...we became really good friends).

The point of the anecdotes is that a child of that age may not fully grasp ALL the details, but it can grasp the general concepts. Likely your lack of understanding death was precisely the reason you gave for understanding it. The death of a parent is much harder emotionally to grasp then the death of 14 blinking "g"s.

edited for objectionable use of the third person

[ravensgrace]

Othob, for someone capable of intelligent response, or at least the outward signs, you've made extremely broad assumptions about my intentions for posting this thread.  Furthermore, phrasing your response in the third person doesn't mysteriously make you more objective when the "good intentioned parent" is actively participating in the thread.

This is an actively developed game with a huge fun factor, great future potential, and almost limitless possibilities.  How exactly am I at fault for wanting to introduce it to a younger audience?

I'm beginning to feel like I've mistakenly stepped into a Parents Against Sex, Drugs & Violence rally and I'm being told video games are too harmful for children and I should avoid them or write one myself.

Call me a troll if you like, but perhaps someone is reading into my posts more than is written there.

[Granite26]

Maybe a listing of what you personally find inappropriate for younger audiences would be helpful?

[G-Flex]

I'm beginning to feel like I've mistakenly stepped into a Parents Against Sex, Drugs & Violence rally and I'm being told video games are too harmful for children and I should avoid them or write one myself.

You're the one calling for censorship here, and the only person I've ever seen on this forum or the IRC channel who has.

Oh, and regarding your comment earlier: Yes, body parts are visible on the screen and can be examined in detail, and you can tell what kinds of wounds a living creature has at any time. I'm not going to post a screenshot in order to tell you that a very basic feature of the game exists.


I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but what I'm saying isn't that games are too harmful for children; it's that you're trying to impose extremely unrealistic expectations upon the game. You expect to remove the "adult content", yet there are many parts of the game which may be disturbing to young children than are feasible to remove. You could massively edit the raws to prevent some things, but not without damn near crippling the game, anyway.

The fact is that if Dwarf Fortress isn't something you think your children should be playing, then try to expose them to something else in the meantime, even if they would have the sort of attention span necessary to deal with it (hell, it's an alpha-stage game with a million quirks and a lot of bugs and a steep learning curve). Why do I say this? Because developing the game with censorship capability would be an extreme headache. Toady would have to make sure that every single thing that is implemented, and that he implements in the future, has a "kid-safe" version available. For instance, to refer back to my previous example, he'd need to make combat and injuries work without body parts or organs being involved, which is hardly something you can expect him to do.

There's also the fact that at this stage of development, it would probably be much more worth his time to work on, well, the actual game, instead of devoting the huge amount of time it would take to produce a censored version. And even then, like I said, it would be difficult/annoying for him to maintain that version as development continues.

[Inquisitor Saturn]

There's really no conclusive evidence that seeing violence in cartoons and video games in turn causes violence in children. It really only happens if they witness it in real life.

Besides, the violence in DF is so abstract that you can hardly tell anyway. All you really see is little ascii characters turn red. And last I checked, red is a color in the crayola box.

[G-Flex]

Of course it's abstract, but then again, so is the entire game.

If someone is capable of parsing the abstract nature of the graphics and the game world, then he's capable of understanding that yeah, that's Jim's leg on the ground right now, in a pool of blood, or yes, that dwarf just died because he hasn't eaten for a year. I'm not saying the kid would be able to understand it in its entirety, but more than enough if he can understand the abstract nature of the game well enough to actually play it. Hell, I've seen enough ADULTS coming into the forum/IRC who have trouble picking it up, so if a nine-year-old can understand how mining works, what all the symbols are, and how to keep track of things, then they're capable of noticing what the gory details are as well.

I'm not saying that a nine-year-old shouldn't be allowed to play the game, mind you, or that it would have any sort of horrible impact on the kid; I'm just saying that the kid would be able to tell what's going on a lot more than certain people are guessing.

[Granite26]

Come on guys, sometimes you have to let the easy ones slide...  I agree with ya'll that making core changes to what, in effect, is a very complicated and brutally realistic world simulator is a bad idea and onerous.  That being the case, it serves no purpose to point it out or get snippy about it.

Now then, back to the case at point.  What could be done (by modders) to make DF more PG, and would that be enough?  I know that most (if not all) of the language is editable in the raws.  The torture ethics are there as well.

[catpaw]

I know as kid playing civilisation (1) all the time with a friend of a pretty conservative religious family. And his daddy always standing behind us shaking his head, he doesn't find it good that you have to destroy the other civilisations. We sitting there. "And did you already attack that city?" "Yes all atzteks are gone, next we gonna remove chinese before they trouble us".. and his dad, no no no you don't...

I think we were 10 or so...

[Granite26]

If that's the case, spore is the way to go.  About the only way to successfully play that game is to go around making friends with people.  It's more care bears than wild kingdom, even in the creature phase.

[Dolohov]

Definitions of "age-appropriate" vary wildly.  I would suggest amending your suggestion to be more concrete.  For example, instead of a single switch, how about,
BLOOD (ON or OFF) -- killing things does or does not produce blood.
CHUNKS (ON or OFF) -- keep bodies whole, don't produce severed arms and heads
Heck, I might turn those both off just to increase performance a bit.

I would wonder, though, whether there aren't more appropriate games for kids that age.  This is a game where dwarves go crazy and kill themselves or each other, nobles have dwarves beaten up when they've done nothing we'd consider wrong, where pets get caught in traps, or killed by goblins, and kittens can be butchered for food.  These things would all be a bit more disturbing to kids than many of the messages or red splotches.

[Chthonic]

I could see some of the taunts being a little bit much for very young children under some parenting regimes.  Those can be edited (easily) in the raws.

When I have children (which will happen sooner than later, my wife pointed out the other day) I probably will not be trying to veil the effects from their causes.  Children are learning machines--it's what they do--and if all they learn about the effect of being struck or thrown off a cliff (especially in a game that's a world simulator) is that "the dwarf falls down" . . . I don't see that as being an appropriate outcome at all.

I wouldn't want them to be on the playground throwing rocks at each other and being surprised when "The spinning brick strikes the classmate in the head!  It is mangled!"  It's what happens.

[Granite26]

I could see some of the taunts being a little bit much for very young children under some parenting regimes.  Those can be edited (easily) in the raws.

When I have children (which will happen sooner than later, my wife pointed out the other day) I probably will not be trying to veil the effects from their causes.  Children are learning machines--it's what they do--and if all they learn about the effect of being struck or thrown off a cliff (especially in a game that's a world simulator) is that "the dwarf falls down" . . . I don't see that as being an appropriate outcome at all.

I wouldn't want them to be on the playground throwing rocks at each other and being surprised when "The spinning brick strikes the classmate in the head!  It is mangled!"  It's what happens.

Don't disagree...

[ravensgrace]

You're the one calling for censorship here, and the only person I've ever seen on this forum or the IRC channel who has.

We can already censor temperatures, weather, and water flow.  ZOMG, what's next?  You sound like McCarthy looking for reds.  If I'm calling for censorship then so is every person suggesting an option for altering an aspect of the game from the original design.  Oops, there goes the whole mod community...

Please, stop being so outlandish.

Oh, and regarding your comment earlier: Yes, body parts are visible on the screen and can be examined in detail, and you can tell what kinds of wounds a living creature has at any time. I'm not going to post a screenshot in order to tell you that a very basic feature of the game exists.

A red comma doesn't traumatize a child that isn't already traumatized.  I stand by my original thoughts on this subject.  For that matter, if what some parents felt was "inappropriate for children" was applied to my children then they could never read Howard, Moorcock, or even Tolkien.  I'm protective, not insane.

I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but what I'm saying isn't that games are too harmful for children; it's that you're trying to impose extremely unrealistic expectations upon the game.

You don't seem to impose that same restraint when speaking for the developer.  Doesn't he count as someone else?

You expect to remove the "adult content", yet there are many parts of the game which may be disturbing to young children than are feasible to remove. You could massively edit the raws to prevent some things, but not without damn near crippling the game, anyway.

No, I expect to turn it off, just as I'm able to with the weather.  Crippling the game?  That's a ridiculous overstatement, because the complex mechanics of DF hardly rests in the language files.  Unless Toady has us all fooled. 

The fact is that if Dwarf Fortress isn't something you think your children should be playing

Except, that I do think they should play, and thus, this thread was born.

Because developing the game with censorship capability would be an extreme headache. Toady would have to make sure that every single thing that is implemented, and that he implements in the future, has a "kid-safe" version available.

Or, he would simply have to disable or replace word groups [A-E] of [A-Z] with [AA-EE] in the words array.  Please don't presume to know so much about Toady's code, unless you do, and in that case: Share!

For instance, to refer back to my previous example, he'd need to make combat and injuries work without body parts or organs being involved, which is hardly something you can expect him to do.

ASCII organs or body parts aren't in my definition of adult content, as I've said.

[ravensgrace]

Maybe a listing of what you personally find inappropriate for younger audiences would be helpful?

Ultimately I felt it should be a consensus, which is why I left it so broad.  Of course, that makes it difficult when someone jumps on the opposite bandwagon without actually reading the whole conversation.  *cries of censorship echo in the distance*

Anyhow, now that I've seen how easily files are to modify in the raw folder I don't feel there is much that needs changing.  Perhaps some of the minor mechanics, such as torture, but only from a human/dwarf perspective.