• funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    To take the devils advocate position: is conflict not necessary for drama, and effective conflict is one that affects its audience?

    • aleph@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      The issue isn’t the use of conflict as a dramatic device per se; it is essentially forcing the player(s) to perform a seemingly unnecessary and unpleasant action against their will.

      The fact that both main characters in the game appear to immediately decide that violently murdering their child’s favorite toy is the only course of action and that no alternative is offered is really jarring. Giving the player some agency in choosing an alternative way to to go about it would have solved the problem completely.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Giving the player some agency would get all players avoiding this scene completely. Nobody would do it. And yet there’s plenty of other games that force you to do things you don’t agree with, for the sake of the story being told. Not sure why people get mad at this one. Once you play it you realize it’s their lowest point, and they start changing and rebuilding after that.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        I’m curious about comparing this to say - the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops: The Line, or the airport scene (“no Russian”) in COD, rescuing Ellie instead of giving humanity the cure in The Last of Us…

        All things that are arguably a lot worse than pulling a leg off a stuffed Elephant and all require on-rails player action in a game.

        • aleph@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          The difference is my six-year-old daughter isn’t going to be playing Spec Ops: The Line or Call of Duty.

          • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            This is not a game for your six-year old. It’s a game talking about divorce, ffs. It’s the main theme, and they mention it a lot, if i remember it correctly. They receive counseling from a book of love, full of Latino sex innuendo.