On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 12:42:52PM +0100, Nils Dagsson Moskopp wrote: > > please keep debian-devel-games@lists.debian.org in the loop. > > > > On Tue, Mar 04, 2014 at 08:39:20PM +0100, Mateusz Jończyk wrote: > >> 2014-03-03 18:37 GMT+01:00 Nils Dagsson Moskopp <nils@dieweltistgarnichtso.net>: > As far as I understand it, in Germany, for a text / recording / drawing > to be a criminal matter, it must depict actual abuse – meaning a child > has to be abused for the document to be created. On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 04:48:06PM +0100, Iwan Gabovitch wrote: > cartoon pornography depicting minors is illegal in Canada, South > Africa, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines. AFAIK the Netherlands belongs in that list, too. But I'm by no means an expert on it. However, this has no effect on the discussion: the parts that are illegal in those countries can be hidden by the game, so it will be very easy to remove them from the source package, and distribute only the rest (packaging them in a separate external package might be possible, but I would spare the trouble, really). The images of child abuse are entirely optional, and the the game is very well playable without them. > Off-topic: Does this mean that the stereotypical hentai comics that > commonly depict rape, child abuse, dismemberment etc. are not legal to > posess in NL as well? AFAIK (but IANAL) for graphics, only child abuse is forbidden. Any other drawings of criminal acts are not a problem. I think the idea was to make digitally composited movies illegal, where the viewer might think that actual abuse happened. The reason was that then the defense of "this movie wasn't real" doesn't lead to the need to investigate if that is true. However, the law is written in a way that even cartoons are illegal. > > - With only one single exception (which may well turn the whole story > > around eventually, but didn't so far), _ALL_ children in the game (all > > of them girls) use every opportunity they get to exclaim how much they > > like sex. > > I think this happens only on game paths where the protagonist is a > pedophile. Well, in that case, it's really easy to become one. ;-) After your description, I think my choice at Mohammed's place might have triggered it. But there really wasn't a "good" choice IMO. Bernd would be a killer (and probably die at the hands of the guard as well), be killed without doing anything, or allow child abuse to happen. I tried all options, but in all cases the next thing that happened was that he woke up from the dream. I assumed my choice didn't have a lot of effect, so I just continued. I think the last option I tried was to allow the abuse, so that must have marked him as a pedophile. Later, when freeing the twins, I could either leave them locked up, or trigger abuse and free them. I wanted to reject the abuse, but free them anyway, but that wasn't an option. Anyway, from your description it seems that the other paths are significantly less bad in that respect. > > - The protagonist starts out as hating the abusers and going after them, > > but gets confused when he finds out the girls are doing it all by > > themselves. The player gets to decide how to handle this confusion, > > but the option of becoming an abuser is hard (but not impossible) to > > avoid. > > Most people I know had it the other way around and it did take them > multiple tries to get to the “pedophile” path even when trying. Interesting. In that case it is just unpredictable. > A player feeling that abuse is inevitable might mirror the dissociative > feelings of an actual abuser feeling guilt and regret – it seems to be > an illusion, since as far as I have played there is always a way out. Yes, but sometimes it takes several save and load cycles; it's not always obvious which choice leads to abuse. And as I wrote above, the alternative isn't always what I would want either. But it could be that the path I was on was just filled with it, and other paths aren't. > > Firstly, for "healthy" people like myself, seeing this (even with the > > abuse images turned off, there is still a lot explained in the text) > > causes remembering it at inappropriate moments (which is any moment that > > I'm not playing the game). I very much dislike this, and it is the > > reason I stopped playing. This need not be a reason to exclude the game > > from Debian, but it may be, IMO. > > I am terribly sorry and hope you get better. Thanks, it isn't that bad. I just wasn't enjoying it because of this. > reacting to it similarly to a splatter horror movie or non-mainstream > fetish porn. My reaction to those kind of movies is also similar to this. ;-) > (Disclosure: I consider killing strictly worse than sexual abuse.) I agree with that; the reason I don't have a problem with killing in most games is that there is no emersion. I don't like first person shooters, really because of that reason. I don't have a problem killing monsters or even people in a game like Battle for Wesnoth, because it feels more like taking a piece from a chess board: just part of the game, without feelings. > I think that the same argument – that the content might be a “hook” to > people considering a deed – comes up every single time when discussing > media containing taboo (often violent and / or pornographic) content. True. And you might be right that a warning is enough. > As an entry point, I would recommend this analysis of sex crime data: > <http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1999-effects-of-pornography.html> Very interesting, thanks. > I believe “Bernd und das Rätsel um Unteralterbach” to be a polished > Ren'Py game, both a work of art and a good example of several things > other games currently in Debian do not present. Technically, it is well > written, drawn and composed (soundtrack is over 50 minutes long) and > demonstrates how you can do things with Ren'Py that depart from the > normal visual novel flow (like the Ace Attorney mini-game or the Day of > the Tentacle end-game). Plot-wise, it has an unsympathetic protagonist, > a long story with several endings and may evoke seriously uncomfortable > feelings in the player / reader, something that contemporary games do > rarely, if at all (in my opinion, only Jason Rohrer games come close). Yes, I agree it is a very high quality game, which is technically excellent. > You may not agree with me that games too often contain a sympathetic > protagonist who, even if wrong, is not obviously mistaken, I agree that this is almost always the case, but I don't have a problem with that. I like perfect heroes, even if they aren't realistic. :-) I totally understand that people who like stories where characters get corrupted feel that there isn't a lot of supply on that side, though. On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 03:12:47PM +0100, Tobias Hansen wrote: > From Bas' analysis it seems that this game clearly exists to tend to > the child abuse fantasies of some people. And has some lame attempts > to justify this (like making abuse optional or letting the children > initiate it in the game). You misunderstood me. My worry was that it might feed some people's fantasies, not that it was created for that purpose. I feel the main point of the game is to make the player feel uncomfortable. It succeeded very well at that for me. ;-) Thanks, Bas
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