Comments on: The Suicide Game: Player Perception of Self-destruction in a Game

By: Jesper

Jesper — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:19:56 +0000

The Wired article links to it, but unfortunately you have to have a subscription to view it.

By: Fabian

Fabian — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:50:51 +0000

Here’s a little related article on Wired.com. The Ravaja paper sounds interesting. Anybody have a copy?

http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2008/03/gamesfrontiers_0310

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:50:41 +0000

Just in case you are still curious you might want to check out
Karoshi at http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/27431 or http://www.venbrux.com/karoshi/karoshi.zip. Seems to be in the same general ballpark. Far more gamey, but still…

By: Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:16:34 +0000

Atlus and Sting’s upcoming game titled “Baroque” came to mind while reading this. A remake to be released on the Wii and PS2, IGN has a a good preview up that discusses the mechanic in question. Sorry, but from where I type this I am unable to provide the link myself.

By: Fabian

Fabian — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:43:32 +0000

Good point, Sam. I was thinking the same thing. Also, I find that in a situation when a gamer has to suddenly quit his game session (time to leave the house, interruption by friends, etc.), they tend to not simply switch off the console but instead (if possible) kill of their own avatar, as if it’s somehow “wrong” to quit a game without the avatar having died.

By: Philip Tan

Philip Tan — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:32:22 +0000

We built a class-based shooter in GAMBIT with a suicide bomber character. However, the rapid respawning and ability to change the class (not to mention the character being a bunny with a molotov cocktail) takes much of the sting of “death” away. In fact, it’s a popular character for players who don’t enjoy aiming with mouselook, since all you need to do is get close to your opponent and blow yourself up.

Once you include ragdoll physics, the spectacle of painful death can be mesmerizing. You don’t technically “die” in Skate, for instance, but mess up a skateboard trick and your character will perform a graceful, complex ballet of pain, including faceplants, clotheslines, and the ever-popular stair-rail up your crotch. Not only can you customize your character to look a lot like your real self, you can record every spectacular spill and watch it in slow motion, from different angles.

By: nick

nick — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:45:38 +0000

I don’t really get the sense that my bomb in Every Extend is “me,” but here’s the “quick manual” to the game:

EveryExtend quick manual

Blow up self to involve enemies.

How to play
Arrow Key Move
‘Z’key Blow up self

You can play with game pad

By: Sam Tobin

Sam Tobin — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:58:00 +0000

Is there something like a seeking the “good death” style of play? I don’t mean just the grim heroics which lie something somewhere between a “stiff upper lip” and “gambatte” when your side of the screen fills with blocks in Tetris or you are overwhelmed with undead in Boxhead. I’m thinking here of the kind of play which is often pushed outside the circle of games, which is the stylized exploration and fiddling of “sandbox games” like the GTA series. The bliss of jumping a BMX off a overpass is not in spite of PC death but because of it, at least in part. Here I can’t help but think about Freud’s death drive by which “Everything living dies for internal reasons”. Why not game sessions, PC “lives” or durations of play? If the game and play are always finite and separate in someways from life might it be that to play them is to play with how we end this aberrant state, and return to the inorganic/preludic?
Plus, suicide by grenade in Halo is really fun.

By: Jesper

Jesper — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:12:35 +0000

I think the issue is basically the fictional representation/motivation of the concrete player task. In Every Extend, it is not “you” that is blowing up, you think?

By: nick

nick — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:22:29 +0000

I guess I could elaborate on that – I’m thinking that there are quite a few “suicidal” actions essential to the mechanics of existing games, including Every Extend, an interactive fiction piece which I won’t name for spoiling it, and The Suicide Bombing Game. If you give suicide (“blow self up”) a cheery frame, as in Every Extend, no one has a problem with it. And it seems like The Suicide Game here could be reskinned as a “pick up the four objects to make yourself into a golden god” game, which would not trouble players. So, I wonder if this issue of self-destruction really has anything to do with the rules and workings of a game.