When we talk about morality in art, we often want to teach lessons to the person viewing that art. Video games are no different in trying to teach lessons. But how we teach lessons – especially moral lessons – is important, and much tougher than we may think.
Tag Archives: video games
On Storytelling: Philosophical Narratives
Storytelling is a core part of creating games, but as we try to make more and more complex stories, what should we be aiming for? In this essay I explore the idea of how to incorporate philosophical questions into the storytelling process.
Moral Choices: On Judgment
Video games with moral choice systems often like to judge the player for their choices. But these judgments are likely undermining the very purpose of having moral choice systems. So what are the pitfalls of implementing judgments, and how might those pitfalls be avoided?
Moral Choices: The Missing Middle Ground
Morality in video games often looks at good and evil, but tends to miss the interesting conflicts that take place between those two extremes. How might games be better able to portray a sense of moral greyness that is interesting and reflects how morality actually works?
Missions, Missions, Everywhere…
There is a subtle difference between a game designed to be engaging and a game designed to eat up your time, and sometimes it can feel difficult to tell the difference. This essay examines how games can cross the line into having so many options it ultimately hurts the game.
The Cool Factor
Making video games look and feel “cool” is a great way to make them fun. But chasing after that coolness can be something of a double-edged sword. And so it’s important to think about how that attempt to make a game cool can get in the way of making the game fun.
Bugging Out
Bugs and glitches are, for better or worse, a primary component of video games nowadays. But how should we view the prevalence of bugs, and buggy games, as players and as a community as a whole?
On Traveling
One of the most basic elements of a game is how you get around it. But what are the ways in which movement can go wrong? In this post I’ll look at Cyberpunk 2077 to help explain some ways in which basic movement can run into major issues.
On Simplicity
Video games have become increasingly complex over the years, but to what extent does that complexity get in the way of those games being good? In this essay I’ll examine the value of trying to think about video game systems in a simpler light.
The Copying Trap
Inspiration often leads to a kind of mimicry, but this mimicry can be a trap that developers often fall into. If you’re trying to make something new, how do you go about making something that’s really different?
Abstracting Games 