Next, I agree that the piece doesn’t present much of a narrative to contextualize the killing. We don’t have anything to go on within the work except the statement that killing the man means the player loses. Venbrux, in the discussion thread linked in the post, says, “This game is not a statement against or for anything, neither did I have the intention to spread a message.” I don’t think he was trying to make the statement that “killing is bad;” rather, he’s operating from that assumption.

Where I think this title breaks new ground is in the permanence of the killing. In most games, your choices don’t have permanent consequences; you can always restore a saved game. What Venbrux has done is make the man’s death as permanent to the player as it would be in the real world. It’s not an artistic statement. Everyone knows death is permanent (theological discussion aside). What he does is make a clever twist on the way the player views interaction.

I agree that Shadow of the Colossus, Portal and Bioshock represent death more touchingly, but none of them incorporate the permanence of death into the player’s experience so directly.

Clearly this game is saying “killing is bad”, but it does it in such a blunt, forced and obvious way that it comes off as extremely ungraceful and unimportant. Does the “you win” or “you lose” text need to exist? What if the player in-game felt justified in killing this man? What if the man was a mass murderer? What if the man would’ve killed the player if given the chance? You willfully skip over all the important counter-points on the idea of killing and opt for the easy way out, making the game look childish in the process. Due to this the game also makes me feel like you’re just a bad game designer, and making the game have “an obvious artistic statement” is like a license for you’re games to be simple and incomplete.

A good piece of art would do away with the simple morality play and aim for something more sublime. Execution simply isn’t it, and the pretentious airs found about your blog lend one to the thoughts that evolving “games as art” isn’t the goal so much as it is “sound like I know what I’m talking about with no regards to form or function to make myself look good.”

Furthermore, do gamers really need to think about the consequences of killing in such a blunt manner when it’s been covered in plenty of other games before yours? Shadow of Colossus has giant beasts, that when killed don’t come back, merely, they lie there, bodies decaying in the sun. Bioshock as you mentioned, does a similar thing with Little Sisters (regardless of if you harvest them or save them): Big Daddies wander around aimlessly, pounding on their hiding holes in fits of rage and sadness. The death of companion cube, and it’s inevitable destruction weighs heavily on the players mind, especially when GLaDOS sees fit to rub it in.

Changing the save files so that ones actions can never be rewritten doesn’t create a profound reaction, rather it just smacks the player in the face with cookie-cutter morality. Especially since there’s no motivation or story either way to drive the how and why behind the gamers actions (which would, actually give the game context and better meaning behind “killing=bad.”