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[Ice Water Games]

A game about gift, debt, egalitarian and hierarchical societal modes, inspired by an Intro to Cultural Anthropology class.

It's my first try at representational games, although its goal-free so it still ain't exactly a conventional game.

Here it is on Kong: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Hplus/meritocratic-individualism

I think it's finished, but I am still here for feedback, and that's why I'm posting in the feedback forum!

[Noyb]

Very interesting. I began by essentially trying to distribute my food (I'm assuming that the resource is food since it grows scarce in the winter) fairly among my four neighbors. With the fast procession of the seasons, it felt like a lot to try to keep track of until I realized that the circles showed me how equal the exchanges were.

After keeping everything in equilibrium for a while, I tried pushing one of my circles to one of my neighbors. I was surprised that this caused me to own my neighbor, since I had mapped the action to sharing food. Did the game take this as meaning that the neighbor was so dependent on my crops that they were essentially a part of my lands? Am I physically buying the land. I didn't expect that the same mechanic would map to both a philanthropic transfer of food and a greedy purchase of land. They're both based on a transfer of wealth, so it makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose.

I then started playing the game as a typical RTS, shifting my mental goal towards owning all of the tiles. I was surprised to see the wealth/food concentrated in the initial tile, which led to a disgusting feeling as I neglected most of my increasing territory just to get enough food to the edges of my domain in order to expand my territory before winter hit.

My centralized control of the game's economy grew quickly unsustainable. Past owning one or two extra tiles, even if I wanted to distribute the food equally, my sequential control of food transfer coupled with my human reaction times made it impossible. To achieve my new goal of conquest, I had to stop caring about sharing resources equally, leaving most tiles with 0 or 1 food units at most times. I had an initial aversion towards letting this happen, since I equated the resource with food, which would mean that these areas were starving.

I also noticed that there weren't any major, lasting consequences to letting this happen, which could either mean that you're taking a neutral stance on the subject or that you're explicitly modeling a system where the player takes the role of an oligarchist who never actually cares about the suffering of his people in the land grab playstyle. However, this also gives off the impression that all of the territories are generally self-sustaining in my first playstyle, undercutting some of the negativity that would be associated with starving neighboring territories, causing them to stop trade with you.

During my land-grab playthrough a few territories were reclaimed by my neighbors, but in general I never felt in danger of losing my grip on the countryside. I never felt any ill-effects of their refusal to trade. Feels like a system which works only when everyone is honest, and falls apart completely in the presence of a single greedy bastard, a role taken by a certain type of player. Rather effective conclusion, even with some of my initial confusion.

[Repealer]

Loved it, IT was cool trying to control my resources and take over the whole neighbourhood (even though that wasn't the point :D) and distributing all of my goods to multiple properties when the snow was about to hit so I'd have enough from the big influx to push it onto one property and take over someone else's.

Some suggestions I do have is have some win conditions for either way you play. I can see how you wanted us to keep the peace, and not outbuy everyone, but a large percentage of your playerbase will want to take over the whole neighbourhood.

Anyway, loved the game mate, needs some original touches, but the idea behind it was well executed

[Ice Water Games]

Wow Noyb, thanks for the amazing feedback!!

It's really interesting to me that you felt guilty leaving households with little to no food. The reaction does make sense, given the obvious implications of the representations. I left starvation out of the model, thinking of the food counts more as excess food.

I am glad to hear that you were initially confused that gift could cause debt and eventually ownership in this model. That was one of my starting points, intellectually, but I didn't realize that the message was still being communicated.


I wonder if modelling starvation would create a sharper message? It would definitely change the message a bit. I think I'll play with a couple of alterations to the rule set.


Thanks again!

[Ice Water Games]

Hi Repealer, thanks for playing   

I am pretty set on not having any win conditions, and I am actually perfectly fine with people playing it however they like! I think that almost everyone who plays it will inevitably end up trying to purchase the entire landscape, and I designed it with that in mind.

Thanks for the feedback!

[lansing]

Argh, I hate bird noises.  Unplayable.

[Repealer]

Argh, I hate bird noises.  Unplayable.

LOL

I'd turn this into legitimate feedback by maybe adding a small button on the form so we can get rid of sound.

[Ice Water Games]

@lansing, Repealer:
Okay, now you can hit M to toggle sound on/off. I have an aversion to adding this kind of feature, because I've designed the game with the sound in mind; it seems wrong to let people just turn it off. But that's ridiculous. People can always turn their volume off anyways, and I have no right to be so controlling! Probably I should get in the habit of implementing these things right off the bat.

@Noyb:

I wonder if modelling starvation would create a sharper message? It would definitely change the message a bit. I think I'll play with a couple of alterations to the rule set.

I had played with this idea initially-- it seemed natural to model this aspect of the system-- but it got complicated too quickly, and so I left it out. On returning to this decision, contemplating re-inserting a starvation mechanic, I realized that starvation isn't what this game is about. It is probably true that a centralized system is not as efficient as a distributed one, and that it's more likely to lead to pain, but this game isn't about those ideas, which I feel are already very strongly represented in the arts. This game is about more fundamental ideas of gift, debt, ownership, and, I am realizing, the continuity of time.

I appreciate the suggestion, and I think I could probably make a more emotionally poignant game by including starvation, but I think I would also be clouding my message. I am concerned that I would be replacing my message with a less novel or personally honest one.



Anyways, enjoy not having your ears raped by bird noises!

[Noyb]

It is probably true that a centralized system is not as efficient as a distributed one, and that it's more likely to lead to pain, but this game isn't about those ideas[...]

I got that from the game even without a strong deterrent to letting the numbers drop to zero. Interesting how it's a natural consequence of your model. If you feel this isn't one of the main points of the work, can I ask why you chose to model a centralized system?

I appreciate the suggestion, and I think I could probably make a more emotionally poignant game by including starvation, but I think I would also be clouding my message. I am concerned that I would be replacing my message with a less novel or personally honest one.

That's legitimate. I believe that my issue with the lack of a starvation mechanic was mostly a conflict between my expectations for the game's message/rules and the game's actual message/rules.

This game is about more fundamental ideas of gift, debt, ownership, and, I am realizing, the continuity of time.

The idea of selfishly giving gifts in expectation of a later payoff is an assumption that is built into many games. See any RPGs with a quest/reward system, giving gifts in the Sims in order to directly raise a compatibility meter, adventure games where solving other people's minor problems circuitously helps you achieve your goal.

When the gift is so large that the recipient cannot possible repay it, does this gift morph into the purchase of a life debt? Is it still philanthropy when the recipient is helped, regardless of the donor's motives?

[Ice Water Games]

I got that from the game even without a strong deterrent to letting the numbers drop to zero. Interesting how it's a natural consequence of your model. If you feel this isn't one of the main points of the work, can I ask why you chose to model a centralized system?

Thank you for this question. It really made me go back into the game and think about it.

You may well have pointed out a big flaw in my game there, or something that's hindering my message.

The game is also about meritocratic individualism, the prevailing Western idea (simplified here) that if someone can exert their power to take something, it is the best thing for them to do. Or the illusion that the world works that way -- that the people who are in power are those who have the most merit, not just those who are the most cut-throat, or lucky. That if someone lacks power, its because they also lack merit.

I think that it was important to me to model the system in this centralized way to emphasize the centralization of power, to show power being taken from many households and put into one. The difficulty of distribution that stems from this decision I think might cloud my message, as you've pointed out. But I also think it lubricates the gameplay by adding a mild challenge to the task of exerting your power further and further outwards. It encourages the player to overcome this challenge, to forget what they're doing and just push out until there isn't anything left to take (which encouraging this play style was my goal). It also causes I think a more total destruction of the interactions that make the initial system state beautiful. I wanted to create for the player an experience of destroying the beautifully noisy and chaotic but self-balanced system to assert an inherently stagnant, silent, bland, totally unbalanced system.




I really appreciate the thoughtful critique. It's helping me think about this in different ways.

[Triplefox]

The first time I played the game I just stayed in equilibrium forever and never tried taking over others - I wasn't aware that the mechanic existed.

Trying it again with the explicit goal of conquest was an interesting change.

I get the impression that a larger scope with more details would flesh it out into a really compelling "meditation" on large-scale governance/ethics questions - for example, adding comparative advantage dynamics in the form of more explicit resources, production and trade. As well, there could be varying endgame conditions - some which express the goal of GDP growth, territory control, etc., and others focusing on quality of life, environmental impact, etc. The idea being that a "pure competition" metaphor does not lead to the highest ending score. This was explored at least as far back as M.U.L.E. and your current game bears a strong resemblance to that one, with the seasonal cycle and celluar automata dynamics.

[eddietree]

First impressions: User interface doesn't seem very user friendly and definitely not intuitive. More feedback (visual/audio) would be nice. Also, the bird noise really gets annoying after awhile.

[Qqwy]

my two cents:

Playtrough #1:
I started off by distributing quite equally amongst my neighbours, but at some point I started to focus my attention on one of them, and took them over. Then I tried to conquer the whole map.

Playtrough #2:
I tried give almost nothing at all. At some point, one of my neighbours took me over, and I was gone from the game. However, the game continued afterwards of course as some simulation of my computer-opponents beating eachother, slowly.

Playtrough #3:
I tried to get a small empire, not being the master of the whole map, but not having only one tile either. In this playtrough I found out that when you take over the 'origin-area' of a certain empire, you automatically gain all their land.


A few opinions:
-The seasons move very fast, a little too fast for me. The graphics on all the areas also changed so fast that it became confusing at some points.
-I really like the idea of the 'relationships' that fade away when nobody gives something to the other person.
-All computerplayers think in exactly the same way. This of course gives the choice of what the player wants to do fully to the player, but it might be interesting to see how players would react if they would encounter an agressive computerplayer.
-I find it very strange that the trees on all area's exept the starting-area vanish after a year. Why is this?
-Why do players lose all their stuff in the winter? (anything more than four gets brought down as following: 5->2, 6 or 7 -> 3, 8 or more -> 4) It was very hard to distribute everything equally, since you get your huge amount of resources in the fall, and there is almost no time to distribute it to your different places.

[Ice Water Games]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

I get the impression that a larger scope with more details would flesh it out into a really compelling "meditation" on large-scale governance/ethics questions - for example, adding comparative advantage dynamics in the form of more explicit resources, production and trade. As well, there could be varying endgame conditions - some which express the goal of GDP growth, territory control, etc., and others focusing on quality of life, environmental impact, etc. The idea being that a "pure competition" metaphor does not lead to the highest ending score. This was explored at least as far back as M.U.L.E. and your current game bears a strong resemblance to that one, with the seasonal cycle and celluar automata dynamics.

I agree that this could be a really interesting game. My understanding of the field of economics only goes so far as to have a hardly founded belief that it basically evil (mostly because I strongly disagree with the way economists abstract people). As such, I wouldn't feel comfortable making a game that claims those things to be true. Maybe if I knew more about the subject!

First impressions: User interface doesn't seem very user friendly and definitely not intuitive. More feedback (visual/audio) would be nice. Also, the bird noise really gets annoying after awhile.

I agree. This game in general is pretty unfriendly towards its audience, and that's one of my issues with it. I also seem to gravitate towards sounds that are super irritating, and I need to get around that. The irony is that the player is supposed to miss the bird sounds when they're gone, but they're more likely, I think, to be happy about it.

[1]-The seasons move very fast, a little too fast for me. The graphics on all the areas also changed so fast that it became confusing at some points.
[...]
[2]-All computerplayers think in exactly the same way. This of course gives the choice of what the player wants to do fully to the player, but it might be interesting to see how players would react if they would encounter an agressive computerplayer.
[3]-I find it very strange that the trees on all area's exept the starting-area vanish after a year. Why is this?
[4]-Why do players lose all their stuff in the winter? (anything more than four gets brought down as following: 5->2, 6 or 7 -> 3, 8 or more -> 4) It was very hard to distribute everything equally, since you get your huge amount of resources in the fall, and there is almost no time to distribute it to your different places.

(1) I am glad that people are frustrated with the seasons moving too quickly, that it hinders them. (Like I was saying above, the game isn't exactly friendly to the player.) I'm not so glad that the graphics rotate in a way that is unclear. I'll take note!

(2) I wanted the player to be the sole cause of any kind of dysfunction in the system. Everyone else acts in a way so as to create perfect balance assuming the player's cooperation. It's important to me that there is only variety in your own decisions, so that it feels like you have more responsibility for what you're doing.

(3) If a household is owned by any outsider, the trees get cut down in the following winter. This is also true for your own household, it's just that it would pretty much never happen that you'd let yourself get bought out.

(4) This is because the resources are supposed to represent physical, farmed goods. It's actually modeled based off of yams and their monetary uses in the Trobriand Islands. By having the majority of goods be destroyed every winter, it makes the goods themselves unimportant, and the debts/relationships that giving them away creates more obviously important. The idea is basically that you can fit maybe 4 or fewer units under your roof each winter; the rest rot or are frozen. This is actually the starting point for my making the game.

Thanks for the extensive feedback! Also, for playing 3 times. It really is designed to be toyed around with, not played through once, as a narrative.