April 9:
Looking deeper into the empathy thing with games I want to use as examples:
That Dragon, Cancer (talked about during January Day) - pathos in storytelling
Undertale (why do people choose the “good” route? that’s a philosophy question Ash would probably know - will have to reach out for that Collaboration C!)
Does pacifism feel better? (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137280299_7)
Military tactics in order to get people to kill each other include dehumanization, which is seen in Undertale - the characters are not only monsters but they are actively trying to hurt you (self-defense could be assumed) however you can still choose to be a pacifist and win by not resorting to that “fight” mechanism (separate endings)
Bartle’s Player Types for Gamification (https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/bartle-s-player-types-for-gamification) include killers, achievers, socializers, and explorers. Socializers make up the majority of the population (makes sense why games like FarmVille and Animal Crossing appeal to so many even outside of quarantine).
My Bartle results: 87% Socializer, 60% Explorer, 47% Achiever, 7% Killer (I’m assuming they’re all on their own 100% scale as compared to being 100% cumulatively - http://matthewbarr.co.uk/bartle/index.php)
Why this is important stuff: the way to make a game more applicable and start to teach things like empathy is to appeal to the majority (that’s easy with a big group of Socializers, but you also want to add aspects that will appeal to the other groups initially - thus why games like Undertale have hidden secrets and battle mechanics)