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[Razz]

Being completely earnest, I would like to hear why Paint by Numbers or anyone else who is very interested in the "gameplay not morality" aspect of the game why they are so excited about this game.  I mean, why does a game about being Serial Killer appeal to you so much, if you're not interested in any moral or ethical questions?  Maybe there should be a separate thread, but I genuinely want to know.

Because it presents lots of gameplay opportunities. I mean, I play first person shooters where killing things is completely normal -- I don't see how this is any worse

[Seth]

Sorry, I should have been more clear:

Why does playing the role of a Serial Killer appeal to you so much? (I realize your second bullet touches on this)

edit:  I didn't mean for this to be confrontational, I apologize that it came off that way, I just meant with my original question I was more interested in the attraction to the Serial Kiler aspect of the game rather than more typical stuff like character customization.

[Paint by Numbers]

Like Keyser and rAzz - super replayability. CrimsonKing's working on implementing an entire PG city full of people, and I love programming PG, so it'll be entertaining just to see. I also want to replicate serial killers from real life or from fiction just for the hell of it. And, of course, because I really am that juvenile, I think it'll be fun to drop sex toys around the scene of the crime or whatever just to see what happens. Plus, it seems that you'll have a very complex time avoiding being captured, which should be interesting.

I have no issue with that questions being asked, since it was actually about the game.

Edit: Oh, a more confrontational question, asked specifically to me. My answer is because it lets me do all the things listed above.

Another edit: Clarification.

[Melly]

Focus the discussion on the game itself from now on. Deviation won't be tolerated.

[Paint by Numbers]

Thank you very much, Melly.

[Xion]

seth, it doesn't appeal to me because it's about being a serial killer, it appeals to me because it looks like it's gonna be rad-fucking face-smashingly awesome game (that happens to be about being a serial killer).

The whole thing about stalking your victims beforehand alone (if you so choose) very much differs from just about every other game that I know of, where it's usually more of a "shoot on sight" type deal, or even when you do have to observe them it's more of a forced wait for them to ie. get to a place where you can less riskily take them out.

Plus the whole mental profile thing with the multiple personality disorder and victim profiles etc. seems like a nice way to add variety to the game so that not everyone is playing as a generic stalker-killer. Increases replayability tenfold. I like how they don't seem like they'd necessarily make the game more difficult, so much as make the game difficult in different ways, which is something that very much interests me.

Beyond that, the detail of the combat looks pretty damn amazing, and I especially like that you don't appear to be able to stab someone/thing fifty times and still expect it to have half of its hp left. Injury-based fighting systems have always interested me but they've always seemed harder to make intuitive than hp-based systems, where how dead you are is directly related to a single variable. This is why IVAN confused me sometimes, cuz I'd have like half my hp left but I'd die from a blow to the head, and it was a weird, hard-to-read mix of hp and injury.

Also, the whole thing about leaving evidence behind and the consequences of your actions ranging from capital punishment to community service and the justice system seems pretty damn rad, and I hope he pulls it all off well, because that could be some crazy mad shit to have in a game right there.

Just the emergent stories that could come from this is like, woah, man. I mean you hear about those kinds of stories in DF and other Roguelikes and stuff, but it'd be nice to have some of those kinds of stories in a more modern setting. But in a more modern setting it's kind of hard to rationalize emergent stories where you kill alot of things - as in most other RLs - unless it's in a war or something. Anyway whatever. I'm lookin' forward to this shit like a broke man to a paycheck.

[Swattkidd]

I hope the comments about complaining and being a "baby" weren't directed toward me because thats far from what I was doing, I was just trying to have a discussion and add to it of how people feel about this game, but I guess thats not what people want.

Anyway, the game does look pretty interesting and I look forward to seeing how it evolves.

[Contrary]

How about I just say that I enjoy serial killing very much in real life, therefore I like this game. It's not the appeal as an intellectual puzzle or challenge, it's not how technically impressive it is, but it's simply that the subject matter is perverse and I'M perverse.

The REAL question is why people play abstract games like tetris.

[Melly]

Contrary, don't try to add fuel to the fire, please.

[Seth]

How about I just say that I enjoy serial killing very much in real life, therefore I like this game. It's not the appeal as an intellectual puzzle or challenge, it's not how technically impressive it is, but it's simply that the subject matter is perverse and I'M perverse.

The REAL question is why people play abstract games like tetris.

Come on, not one of you is attracted to this game because it's very specifically about being a serial killer?  That's disappointing.  I don't know if you guys just aren't admitting it or if it really is all about gameplay for you guys.

Personally, the game appeals to me because it is about serial killing, even if that makes me a little uncomfortable.  Sadism is a very human thing. I think this game has a chance to say something powerful about the subject.  It probably already has.  I mean, with the roguelike presentation, it's very easy for people to shut off their empathy for these at signs, and really focus on the intellectual challenges of the whole process, and the thrill of taunting police, etc.  I mean, isn't that how serial killers act?  Without empathy, and as though the whole thing was just a game?  This game could be a very interesting glimpse in how serial killers view the world.

EDIT: Sorry, is this too much about ethics or morals?  I wasn't intending for it to be, exactly, but I'll go over to the other thread.

[William Broom]

GET YOUR OWN THREAD! PLEASE!

Ok.

[capn.lee]

The police interaction is the bit I am most looking forward to, I like the idea of trying to cover all of my tracks as I work and not leave any evidence. I hope it includes some kind of police-report style DF legends mode so I can see the mistakes I made or maybe even who the police suspected before me etc.

I won't talk about the morality here for obvious reasons but I will say that until this thread, I'd never really seen a knee-jerk game supporter. It is the firm advocates that have behaved childishly and I think they would benefit from listening to potential concerns instead of just pretending that any criticism is foolish and misguided.

Back on topic, I'm less interested in the 'preset killers' part, if anything, it should be up to the player to custom create his own Dahmer rather than it be supplied, it's attracting the wrong crowd.

[FrankieSmileShow]

Yeah. The police part is something that interests me a lot too.
It got me thinking about how the mechanics would work for a virtual criminal justice system working against you, every detail that could go into it to give a very organic, "realistic"-ish result, from the criminal's perspective.

Imagine how this could work. You are a criminal, performing atrocities daily. You end up seeing people interrogated about murders, the interrogations get closer and closer to where you live --possibly giving you a hint that you should travel further to commit the crimes because you've been doing them all around the same neighborhood, hinting the police that you might be living there.
You see a bunch of ripples of the investigation going on about you, and only have a very indirect, vague feedback on how it is progressing. But while you only see the surface of it, under the hood, the investigation is ridiculously complex!
Maybe you could try and somehow screw it up by placing conflicting evidence (a strategy the police could pick up on if you are not clever enough), and see it having realistic impacts on their progress somehow.You could find a way to frame someone else, or give off falsified evidence to put them off your track. Maybe you could find a way to watch the investigation closer to get a better idea of its progress and how to deviate it more efficiently, though doing this would be a very risky endeavor in itself.
You could go in the opposite and very boldly give the police calculated clues, or ignore the investigation entirely and be the messiest serial killer in history, and somehow still avoid getting caught by being better and faster than the police.

But, under the hood, how does the investigation work? Whatever evidence you leave at a crime scene has a varying chance of being found (based maybe on how well you hid it, and how passionate and professional the crime scene investigation was, something that could come from how horrible your crimes are, the overall criminality rate of the city you're in, the size of the police force, how long you have been active...). Wed have to know the exact information that evidence found can give to the police in identifying your M.O., identifying you/forming a description/database about you that gets more and more precise as time goes and evidence is collected, possibly being able to predict your next likely victim if you are following a pattern somehow.
Maybe they would be able to trap you somehow by triangulating where you might live, finding patterns in how you work to craft some sort of trap, like a fake victim matching your MO perfectly, walking through your activity area hoping you will take the bait... this could become ridiculously complex! It might require some research into police work, too. Like, how exactly does X type of evidence helps a police investigation, what sort of information is gathered from what type of evidence?....

Maybe the police could even resort to using esoteric means when the investigation becomes hopeless, I heard that some police forces actually use so-called mediums (they were never actually useful in an investigation above dumb luck of course, its appalling what our tax money can pay for sometimes...) This would be possibly one of the biggest triumphs in the game, when you place the police into this state of complete hopelessness about your case, so much they're asking fucking fortune tellers to help them out. The investigators could throw their badge and try to catch you off the books! Or maybe they could give up and leave the force in despair, replaced by a new guy with different tactics, who might catch you---or suffer the same fate as his predecessor. Maybe you could be actively threatening them personally to get them off your case, or strangely decide to send them money as a consolation prize. Along with a note "Better luck next time, chief! :I "

It seems to me like a system like this could warrant an entire game on its own, it sounds like making it realistic enough to be interesting would require complex systems that would rival dwarf fortress in their obsessive detail. That type of gameplay would also fit a game about lesser crimes in the vein of Thief: the dark project, but murder (and rape!) adds a lot of things to hide for the criminal; disposing of the body, keeping the crime scene clean... Rape itself is a very awkward line to cross for videogames of course, but its an even more "dangerous" crime to be committing in this context. Rape could be making the police particularly passionate about catching you, maybe making some investigators working overtime and finding evidence they wouldn't have otherwise. Its also more dangerous in itself, as you are likely to literally place DNA evidence... inside the victim. Or on the crime scene at least. It adds a lot of additional weight to the importance of making the perfect crime.(heh, treating rape as just another gameplay element, I guess that's what happens when you decide to separate this part of the discussion entirely while it is so intricately connected to the game...)

The game could go even further and even make a very intricate justice system for when you are caught and are on trial, and the game could continue when you are thrown in prison. You could even somehow be able to escape prison, but this should go from very hard to nearly impossible depending on where you were sent to; and when you are out, you would be constantly on the run...
Or maybe the game would just end when you are caught and condemned. (Yeah, this is probably preferable, this theoretical game's complexity is spinning out of control enough as it is)

While that game probably wont go this far into realism on the detectives side, it got me thinking a lot about how such a ridiculously intricate criminal system would work in a game, it might be worth investigating further.

Of course, this possible side of the game isn't the only appeal, but its the one that got me thinking at least... and I didn't even try the game yet!


TL,DR:
Got me thinking about what a cool AI-controlled criminal system could look like in a game like this. The giant paragraphs are a train-of-thought kinda thing where I blurt out ideas on how such a system would work.

[s0]

It'd be cool if playing as a stereotypical "cold-blooded, heartless killer" wasn't the only option. The dev could implement a mechanic where, under certain circumstances, maybe depending on your attributes and/or psychological state, your character gradually starts regretting his crimes and turns himself in to the police or commits suicide automatically.

[Paint by Numbers]

Whoops, I totally forgot about the thread over at Bay12. It has a lot of information gleaned from CrimsonKing put together in a more efficient manner. Added link to OP.

[Akari]

The dev could implement a mechanic where, under certain circumstances, maybe depending on your attributes and/or psychological state, your character gradually starts regretting his crimes and turns himself in to the police or commits suicide automatically.

That is in the plans, at least according to the character creation video linked back on page 3. At 1:09, there's a psychological trait you can pick called "Guilty Conscious" which does pretty much exactly what you described.

[Akari]

Whoops, I totally forgot about the thread over at Bay12. It has a lot of information gleaned from CrimsonKing put together in a more efficient manner. Added link to OP.

...and this also apparently tells us that the whole project is a hoax and doesn't exist.

[Paint by Numbers]

Welp. Fuck.

[Nate Kling]

Wow that was a strange turn of events.

[DrOctapu]

I'm still calling bullshit until we get a post saying it was a troll on the place where he originally posted it. I'll be seriously disappointed if it's true. The youtube account says "Hai /b/," which almost guarantees troll.