Ok I will admit that I am a prude but I think that if we haven’t already we should establish a line of what we can put into this game without being graphic. Personally I think the game should max out with a rating of T. I will include more M rated concepts below I think we should avoid.
Intense Blood and Gore. I personally think that a hard T level of blood should be enough for what Thrive is going too do. I don’t know much about game development but in order to add in massive blood splash and gore that would stain the world the devs have to do more work than it would be worth.
Sex Scenes. I don’t know if everyone agrees with me but adding sex scenes into this game would probably be uncomfortable. I personally would be uncomfortable with clicking a button that starts a Walking with Dinosaurs style sex scene and I know what your saying I’ve gone too far but avoiding this might actually be the best choice. You could make a version similar too spore’s mating mechanic but it has more innuendo and instead of the creature laying an egg it goes up to the mate and the camera cuts out before they begin. This could possibly be easier to animate because the game would have too figure out how the creatures would do it before running the animation.
Private Parts. I don’t think I have to point out it would be uncomfortable to see your creature’s parts blowing in the wind as it walks around. I know some of you are saying this makes it less realistic but Walking with Dinosaurs, Beasts, and Monsters never included the private parts and they where all hyper realistic. I think this is an aspect I shouldn’t have to argue about.
What do you guys think. Is there anything I didn’t cover you think we should avoid. This is relevant to every stage but I think it is most relevant to this. Feel free to start similar topics about other stages.
Sorry if may grammar is bad. English has never been my best school subject.
I agree that violence and sex scenes should be toned down, but I disagree that the species genitalia have to be censored, as the reproductive system will be designed by the player with the rest of the body in the editor.
What if the player is old enough and wants to see? It’s not like those scenes would be very similar to what humans look like when you know what they are doing.
Gore definitely isnt needed, but alien species might have completely different colors of blood and different organs, so it might not look as gruesome as we think. Having options would probably be better.
If a dev sees this I would like too know what they think.
Also responding too DeepSix I don’t think private parts will be tied too reproduction because you could add them if you want but all the game needs too know are the creatures breeding habits and that the creature has the ability too of course. What I’m saying is I think breeding will be in the behavior bar or something similar rather than the base biology.
Another aspect we should debate about is should going to the bathroom be part of the game play. I personally do not want to think about my creature’s bathroom habits because that just seems weird to me but what do you guys think. Should there be pee and poop buttons.
There isn’t necessarily a need for the game to show our creatures defecating. Though it would certainly make the game more realistic.
Also, instead of double-posting you could edit your post instead.
LordLovat
(Thrivist Philosopher and Grey Jedi )
10
For me it would be fine about poop and pee being a part of gameplay, but appearing censored, as I’m not with the idea of showing ALIEN POOP when Im playing and have dinner later. Just my opinion.
I’ll share some perspective on all of these.
At what point would these happen?
As the game starts from the microbe stage, the player is going to see stuff like gametes being combined and primitive digestive tracks, way before playing as a big creature. At what point would you start censoring? Or would it make sense to not draw a hard line like “sorry your creature is too much like a proper animal, we can no longer show it pooping.”
It would only be a thing in the Aware stage, I think. Besides, nature is already cruel and gruesome. The only reason why we (the Occidentals) don’t witness so much violence is because of human justice. As for how to censor dynamic reproduction/gore scenes, it’s just about changing the camera’s angle.
I’m not sure about the other stuff but I don’t see a specific reason not to include gore. There is no way thrive’s graphics will be good enough for it to look genuinely disgusting and we already know where creature’s blood vessels and internal organs are from the editor. At this point it’s just a matter of actually rendering them during gameplay and applying some effects to make it look like a wound.
I never meant to say there wouldn’t be gore I was just saying it shouldn’t be intense. I’m sure what Sentiant said about the gore graphics would fit nicely into a more T oriented rating (if we had ratings). I don’t think we would ever have to bother censoring the violence.
Excessive gore is different by each person while sex, private parts and defecation is all known. I’d say have an option to disable each but have gore on as a default.
But how would that be programmed? It should be dynamic yes, but how? It would all depend on the species’ biological composition (e.g. vital fluids or components, reproduction organs) and societal composition (e.g. language).
Then, the camera would detect those factors and change its behavior depending on them, but how much work would that need?
Gore would be realistic and quite honestly required to make the game an immersive experience.
Sex scenes on the other hand… eh…
I don’t really want to watch my giant floating jelly brain creatures mating, but maybe that just me.
Maybe the camera can just fade to black during those scenes, with suggestive vocalizations but nothing visual.
