Family psychology

bey bey · 2013-05-18 06:18:12

This popped up in my mind in the middle of some different thread and I think it's an idea well in the spirit of the game:

I noticed that killing family doesn't really feel bad psychologically so wives get clubbed for a few bucks. How about a simple edit: Since you turn into a murderer, your personality changes. This causes your wife and children to leave you with half your cash. They will never return. So it's an easy choice if you want to have them around or not. Assuming some changes to their mechanics, that would make it slightly less attractive to kill somebody elses family for petty cash or at least emphasise that you accept turning into a monster.

It might mean at the current state of things that people take this as a positive chance to get rid of the burden of family but upcoming edits should change some things about family so I still think it should work fine.

segarch · 2013-05-18 07:35:02

Yeah there's definitely something about building a sense of morality (or a sense of violating morality) into the game. At the moment, the wife character is basically an easily accessible vault from the perspective of the intruder, and from the perspective of the house builder the wife is a vulnerability that is impossible to protect - the sooner she's gone, the better. And the kids just make the system more vulnerable to brute force attacks, so the sooner they're gone the better.

Right now the story - one about a family - is not present in the gameplay, where family members are more of a liability and provide no benefit.

dalleck · 2013-05-18 08:12:03

segarch wrote:

Right now the story - one about a family - is not present in the gameplay, where family members are more of a liability and provide no benefit.

This.

bey bey · 2013-05-18 08:17:21

Oh, I got an idea: How about adding a kidnapping element! Killing the wife gets you nothing, but you can kidnap her and ask for ransom (half the vault). The owner decides what to do and the killer decides to kill her or let her go. (Would work with kids as well.) Holding her could drain the holders funds because he has to feed her etc. until the house owner logs on and makes his choice.

Apart from that, yeah, the benefit of the wife (fund increase) is not well balanced with the trouble she represents to the house owner.

Matrix · 2013-05-18 08:24:58

bey bey wrote:

Oh, I got an idea: How about adding a kidnapping element! Killing the wife gets you nothing, but you can kidnap her and ask for ransom (half the vault). The owner decides what to do and the killer decides to kill her or let her go. (Would work with kids as well.) Holding her could drain the holders funds because he has to feed her etc. until the house owner logs on and makes his choice.
Apart from that, yeah, the benefit of the wife (fund increase) is not well balanced with the trouble she represents to the house owner.

I would love some game mechanics in that direction.

Also the husband would be able to rescue his wife for free if he manages to break into the kidnapper's house.

dalleck · 2013-05-18 09:00:32

Matrix wrote:

bey bey wrote:
Oh, I got an idea: How about adding a kidnapping element! Killing the wife gets you nothing, but you can kidnap her and ask for ransom (half the vault). The owner decides what to do and the killer decides to kill her or let her go. (Would work with kids as well.) Holding her could drain the holders funds because he has to feed her etc. until the house owner logs on and makes his choice.
Apart from that, yeah, the benefit of the wife (fund increase) is not well balanced with the trouble she represents to the house owner.
I would love some game mechanics in that direction.
Also the husband would be able to rescue his wife for free if he manages to break into the kidnapper's house.

Hehe I can see this all getting a bit Fargo-esque, with kidnappings becoming a large thrust of the game. I do think this would be slightly hilarious though and would love to see if for laughs- "What, my wife has been kidnapped AGAIN?".

------
What I think we should all realise is that while Jason Rohrer is a brilliant and original developer, he is very conservative when it comes to his game designs. What I mean by this is (from my experience) he is a lone developer who is very much in control of what he does and doesn't do. He is quite clear and definite on what he wants and where he wants to go with his projects. So (as I have said from my experience) I have found he does not like to dilute his games with too many additional features/directions.

So I wouldn't keep your hopes up for additions such as kidnapping, as I think it moves away from the central theme of the game. However, I believe it is a great idea and what we actually need is for us to nurture a modding scene and start churning out some independent versions of this game.

I myself have considered something I would call the 'Dungeon Doctrine' where you would play both the evil dungeon creator and the good hero going in to rescue maidens from dungeons.

setz · 2013-05-18 10:02:17

Although I like the discussion started here, the only problem I see with your original though bey bey is that having your family disappear is kind of a good thing and not a punishment. You can make your house much harder from the first step. Most people would opt to do this and then houses would become even more of a grind.

bey bey · 2013-05-18 13:01:02

It's definitely true. The benefits of having them around have to be increased drastically I think. But I don't see how this could be implemented.

As to the likelyhood of this change: I am not the developer, yet far as I know Jason's games they are a lot about psychology and choices. That's the point behind the kill-the-wife-option. I think that it's a brilliant idea that could be slightly expanded by a simple kidnapping option without much hazzle - always emphasising the moral choice involved. It might even be about more than half the safe.

The "rescue" option seems a bit over the top to me and would remove the stress from the moral choice of paying up or not.

Oh - but this idea might be something: A kidnapped wife might mean that the kidnapper CANNOT LEAVE HIS HOUSE while holding her for ransom. So he'll basically render himself inactive as long as he is waiting for the husband to respond. (He would have to be required to make the choice before any other action.)

It might actually be a fair balance: killing the family is pointless in itself, rendering it highly immoral. Kidnapping will come at a price (inactivity) and still require moral choice (upon non-payment: kill or release). The house owner can still chose to act upon the kidnapping or not.

The positive effect of this might be that there would be some real interaction between robber and robbed and thus a more "real" feel to the action.

Apart from that, some safeguards to the family should be introduced. It might simply be done by allowing them to cross switches and floors/trapdoors etc: that way one could design a electric/trapdoor layout that makes killing the escaping family impossible or at least more difficult. (They could activate&deactivate their own way vs the spot the killer is in.) Hm, but then the question would be what happens if the die in tryout. Oh well, we'll leave the talented Mr. Rohrer to figure that one out.

jasonrohrer · 2013-05-21 21:02:23

Yeah, I am conservative with my designs. A lot of designers throw every possible thing they can think of into a game (beds! cakes! mice! bats! jump-boots!). That's a valid and rich style of design, but it's not my style.

Coming back to the family as liability, I believe that's been fixed in the forthcoming v6 in a pretty simple way: the family stays put and doesn't start running to the exit until they see the robber. Thus, it becomes possible to protect them, because the robber has to find them. Of course, they have to still have a clear path to the exit.

Though now I've realized that it might be possible to overprotect the family.... put them down a long, snaking hallway with 9 pitbulls in it. More thought needed here.

edwardoka · 2013-05-22 04:37:17

jasonrohrer wrote:

Though now I've realized that it might be possible to overprotect the family.... put them down a long, snaking hallway with 9 pitbulls in it. More thought needed here.

Make it so that when the pitbulls are enraged (ie. have had line-of-sight to the robber), they will go for family members as well?

da11eck · 2013-05-22 06:35:28

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yeah, I am conservative with my designs. A lot of designers throw every possible thing they can think of into a game (beds! cakes! mice! bats! jump-boots!). That's a valid and rich style of design, but it's not my style.
Coming back to the family as liability, I believe that's been fixed in the forthcoming v6 in a pretty simple way: the family stays put and doesn't start running to the exit until they see the robber. Thus, it becomes possible to protect them, because the robber has to find them. Of course, they have to still have a clear path to the exit.
Though now I've realized that it might be possible to overprotect the family.... put them down a long, snaking hallway with 9 pitbulls in it. More thought needed here.

Here is suggestion:

Before you begin your life with your family and money you must choose a defensive or aggressive family. A defensive family will be based on your new rules and you will not be able to place pitbulls. If you choose an aggressive family however, they will behave with the old rules (i.e., run), but you can place pitbulls (and perhaps have more money too).

Now, another addition would be that dead/sleeping pit bulls would be treated as dead family members, thus stopping a families run immediately. This means aggressive houses which use pit bulls at the entrance will now be a valid way to stop the intruder from getting to the family (A-D-ing at the entrance just won't cut it anymore), as once that pitbull cuts off the families exit, the jig is up. This also means that with defensive houses being free of pit bulls, the intruder cannot cut off their means of escape by abusing this trick, which means the family will always get to the exit if they can.

Not necessarily a solution, but a direction towards a solution possibly.

Last edited by da11eck (2013-05-22 07:12:42)

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-05-18 06:18:12

Family psychology

#2 2013-05-18 07:35:02

Re: Family psychology

#3 2013-05-18 08:12:03

Re: Family psychology

#4 2013-05-18 08:17:21

Re: Family psychology

#5 2013-05-18 08:24:58

Re: Family psychology

#6 2013-05-18 09:00:32

Re: Family psychology

#7 2013-05-18 10:02:17

Re: Family psychology

#8 2013-05-18 13:01:02

Re: Family psychology

#9 2013-05-21 21:02:23

Re: Family psychology

#10 2013-05-22 04:37:17

Re: Family psychology

#11 2013-05-22 06:35:28

Re: Family psychology

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