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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: etc.

Today's game planners can be called psychological masters, using a variety of mechanisms to stimulate parents to play time to play, or ignore the possible consequences of abuse of violence.

In 2003, Ken Hall served as artistic director of Scottish game developer Realtime Worlds, where he helped produce the popular free game APB. At the time, F2P games were still in their infancy, and the company's strategy was to attract casual players to play for a long time and find ways to encourage people to spend in the game. But when Hall heard that South Korean players spend an average of 35 hours a week playing "wanted" after work, he suddenly regretted it.

"We have inadvertently constructed an addictive play cycle." "most people don't worry about video games being addictive, but I'm really dissatisfied with the consequences of that game," Hall said. "

Hall decided to leave the gaming industry and start creating large public works of art, such as a dense array of pins that glow at night, and people can press down or pull out pins to create custom-shaped works of art. To raise public awareness of environmental protection, he also created a life-size orca skeleton inspired by a whale washed up off the coast of Canada.

Public works of art in which anyone can participate in the creation

Hall spent six months making orca skeletons and carved more than 200 bones out of cedar wood. Hall often spends his spare time creating personal projects and has been involved in the development of BMY 17 Flying Fortress, an air combat simulation game set in World War II, in which players fly bombers over Europe. In order to ensure that the game can be accurately restored, he also specially interviewed several pilots who have flown BMY 17. Hall particularly liked the experience and later talked to some of the veterans who had driven Sherman tanks on the battlefield and dictated them.

While away from the gaming industry, Hall used the experience of World War II veterans as material to create an audiobook. Most people are in their eighties when interviewed, but deep down, they are still not completely out of the shadow of the war. One veteran recalled that he woke up several times in the middle of the night, pinched his wife's neck and mistook her for a German soldier. Another veteran said he woke up on the bedroom floor and tried to climb out of the burning tank. Another told Hall that 35 years after the end of World War II, he was driving with his mother. When there was a sudden sound of thunder, he started backing up at full speed, and his mother had to pull his arm hard to make him stop.

"these stories made me really realize that not only were they traumatized, but they could not get rid of the pain for the rest of their lives."

Hall is explaining the creation process of orca skeleton to children. When Hall re-enters the game industry in 2017, he hopes to create a game that will make people feel the cruel and long-term consequences of war. After years of development, Hall led the team to produce the Sword of Destiny (Destiny's Sword), which was launched on Steam in October.

"Sword of Destiny" is a sci-fi theme online game, which is mainly played by team combat strategies. Players command a future peacekeeping force in the game, as a force commander, you need to always pay attention to the mental state of the members, observe their abnormal signs, and react, otherwise their performance on the battlefield will be affected. For example, it is necessary to observe whether soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and alcoholism, bags under their eyes because of fatigue, nightmares at night, or frequent fights. Hall says the development team hopes to resonate with players when they assign tasks, perform tasks and help them recover.

Hall believes that today's games will intentionally or unintentionally ignore the cruel side of shooting. "We don't want players to experience what it feels like to be a soldier on the battlefield, no one wants that experience, because it's like hell." "instead, we show players how the character responds to emotions after a disaster," he said. "

Some studies suggest that if video games are full of violence, empathy is like an antidote. Sarah Cohen, a video game researcher at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, points out that if the consequences of behavior are shown, teenagers are much less likely to imitate character violence. "adding emotional trauma is a good way to make the game look more real while reducing harm to players."

There are a lot of elements such as chase, shootout, arrest, prison break and so on in "comprehensive wanted", which is even worse than "three people and one dog".

But Hall doesn't just want to describe the consequences of the war, he also wants to stay away from the evil side of game development. Today's game planners can be called masters of psychology, using a variety of mechanisms to stimulate parents to play. For example, if you are away from the game for too long, the crops will die because they have not been watered, or your combat effectiveness will be left far behind by the enemy. "you can clearly distinguish those games because they require you to spend money on 'shields' so that you can get a good night's sleep." Hall explained.

For comparison, in Sword of Destiny, players will not get any reward if they play for too long.

Some large developers and publishers have hired a group of psychologists to design mechanisms for games to encourage players to play over and over again, and during the development of Sword of Destiny, Hall's studio 2Dogs Games worked with a psychologist to make sure there was no similar mechanism in the game. In addition, they hired game economics expert Raman Shocklizad, who previously worked at Wargaming and worked on the development of Battleship World and Tank World: blitzkrieg, has been calling on developers to adopt an ethical approach to designing gameplay mechanisms and payment models. According to him, in both games, the mechanism to induce parents to play time was added after he left Wargaming.

"the Sword of Destiny does not contain any mechanisms that are unfriendly to consumers, such as gambling, card drawing, randomly increasing threats, and unfair time requirements." Shocklizad said.

Sword of Destiny is not the first game to incorporate mental health elements. Many games based on the works of horror writer Lovecraft, such as Dark Dungeon, involve psychological themes, and mental health is the core of game narrative and play in Hell's Blade: the sacrifice of Sena. However, Shocklizad said that the development team of Sword of Destiny treats the soldiers in the game as real people and listens to the advice of mental health experts when shaping the character, thus making the character more real. " If you want to succeed in the game, paying attention to the physical injuries of soldiers is as important as psychological stress. Most games ignore the mental health of the character, and even the physical damage of the character often magically disappears after each battle. "

But from an economic point of view, it is difficult to make a friendlier and milder game. 2Dogs Games hopes to raise $10 million to turn Sword of Destiny into an online game, but it ends up with only $1.55 million, which is about enough to make a stand-alone game. Of the $1.55 million, $1 million comes from the Canadian Media Fund, and another $550000 is a loan from Hall's home mortgage. The game was crowdfunded on Kickstarter and raised only more than $20, 000.

Sword of Destiny made its debut during the 2019 PAX East Exhibition

2Dogs Games has approached more than 60 potential investors who are reluctant to fund Sword of Destiny. Hall believes that, on the one hand, this is because more and more players are beginning to resent F2P's play mechanism and profit model, thinking that they are predatory. On the other hand, what is even more ironic is that since Sword of Destiny does not adopt a similar mechanism, potential investors are worried that it will not be able to make money. Hall admits that the relatively emotional psychological elements of Sword of Destiny are difficult to impress investors because it means it is likely to be unattractive to traditional players.

But Hall believes there will always be players who will like the Sword of Destiny-after all, the Strange Life series, which also incorporates mental health themes into play, has been a huge success. Still, investors are worried that players will not buy the game.

"as a start-up studio, we are making an innovative game based on the emotional interaction between players and characters, and using a profit model that is completely contrary to industry standards, which makes many people hesitant.... in our contact with us, almost all investors were excited about the Sword of Destiny at first, but finally decided to wait and see."

"it's a well-intentioned game, but maybe it's a little too hard because it talks too bluntly about mental health." Nick Bowman, a game researcher at Syracuse University in the United States. He pointed out that in the third-person shooter Special Action: a chance of Life, the development team also discussed mental health issues in war, but expressed it in a more subtle way. The protagonist of the game has experienced a deep mental degradation, and when the game is over, the player is not even sure whether he is still a good person. However, the main purpose of players playing that game is not to experience emotion, but to shoot the enemy.

The Sword of Destiny depicts mental health problems in a realistic way, but will players really recognize and pay for them? In the Sword of Destiny, mental health problems become so obvious and direct that the game loses its entertainment and becomes more like a sermon. Bowman describes Sword of Destiny as a "empathy simulator" and thinks it's more like a passion project-the development team is passionate about Sword of Destiny, but it may be difficult to inspire players' enthusiasm.

"my idea is that if Sword of Destiny is used as a teaching material in class, it will work very well, but this is probably not the goal of the development team. this is probably the root cause of the conflict, and players tend not to seriously evaluate the game experience if they see it as an educational game or an interactive movie." Bowman said.

Rafael Bocamazo, a counselor for Sword of Destiny, disagrees. Marzo, a clinical director of Take This, a mental health nonprofit that serves the gaming industry, believes that the development team has integrated mental health topics into the game in an unprecedented way. Although some other games have included mental health as part of the narrative, few games let mental health affect the performance of the character.

"in order for your players to make the best use of their abilities, you have to fully manage their relationships and psychological needs. This setting is quite unique and I have never seen it in other games." He points out that in the game industry, no one can tell which games will attract players. If the development team blindly imitates the fixed routine, then creativity will be limited. "people are always willing to try new things, and the success or failure of any game is accidental."

This article is compiled from: http://www.wired.com/ story / destinys-sword-empathy-2dogs-video-games/

Original title: "What It Takes to Make a Kinder, Gentler Video Game"

Original author: CAREN CHESLER

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