This is just another game in the ongoing stigma of mental health problems. Just because the patient suffers from BPD does not mean they are scary!!!! Seriously would reconsider the title of this game....
notmixmastacopycat
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It's interesting to me that in the beginning of this comment you write explicitly that morality and ethics are subjective, yet the entire time you hold your specific viewpoint high up as if it were objective truth. In fact, in a different comment thread you go as far to say that what you're exclaiming is a "universal truth".
There's really no point in arguing with someone that engages with ideas in this manner, that their sense of morality is above everyone else's - that the system of ethics they operate within is infallible.
My stance exists counterpoised to yours; that ParkMinJoke not only CAN write about what they want but they are free from the shackles of an overarching morality that tells them not to.
Now of course we can have a diatribe about what this means in greater contexts outside of the game - as you tried to do with the comparison to Mein Kampf - but it immediately falls flat on its face as soon as you actually start to understand the context of the abuser in this game. It is not someone who's actions are explicit outside of narration, no acts are shown and this main character (you) aren't heralded as a role model. In fact you are, by playing as the character, effectively doling out his punishment for the crimes he has committed.
To uphold laws as the grand dictation of morality is problematic to say the least. Of course I can point to many times that morally depraved acts were completely legal (see: police bombing of the black liberation project MOVE, the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, slavery, etc.) - yet we still understand these to be morally reprehensible. UNLESS of course, you hold the legal system up as the definitive guide to morality. As for "unwritten laws" I'd argue they are equally as unimportant as written laws. Laws, as they exist today, primarily are to keep working class people down while uplifting the rich. This is why a black man who steals 53 dollars from a store gets sent to prison for 15 years and a CEO who funnels billions of dollars (again, theft) only sees 40 months in prison.
I see very little point in addressing most claims that you are making because the foundation of those claims are found on a morality that is flawed in nature. I'd suggest taking a step back and re-examining how you define morality before you try and have a conversation like this.
I will clown on you for saying ridiculous things however:
"Speaking of books (which you definitely know less off, considering giving me European literature)" lol biggest cope I've seen - what are you trying to convey with this message? Obviously you don't know Marquis De Sade as you kept calling him Italian and said his work was from 1976 (???).
"WHICH IS MOSTLY PLAYED BY CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS" lol the themes in Silent Hill 2 are literally worse than, and I can't stress this enough, the creator of the game simply saying the word "child abuser".
"It's an application, a game application." the fact that you differentiate between art and video games is quite frankly the worst aspect about the arguments you present *yawn*
"The person should not engage with themes like that in this manner, that's all it is and that's true." true according to who? You? Some random person on the internet? Literal nonsense statement.
"that's just wrong, it's as simple as that, because of many reasons, written above" you literally give no examples on why you are right. Quite literally you're arguments are "I'm right because I'm right" or "I'm right because my morality is based on laws, which are right". Which, most funny of all, laws agree with me here. There is no law in any country (that I know of ) that prohibits you from expressing a character as a child abuser. I mean for christ's sake, since you're such a European literature buff I'm sure you're aware of Nobokov's Lolita? A story about a child abuser and how romantically it paints his abuse. Best seller in many countries!
"If you think differently, be my guest, I won't change my argument and solid opinion about this" You're argument is useless and your opinion isn't solid, for the reason I stated above.
This entire comment section stands as a monument to our moralities and how it affects the people surrounding us. While you spent the last week harassing and bullying this fledgling game designer, who clearly does not speak English, I was able to foster in them an engaging way to think about narratives. I gave them constructive advice on how to improve the way they tell the story within the game, what did you do again? Repeatedly say that you're reporting the game because you disagreed with the word choice, even after they changed it? While, yes, I'd concede you offered criticism is was not constructive, it was destructive.
You could have said "The theme is immature and tasteless, child abuse is a heavy topic and I'd consider changing the reason why the player character deserves punishment." Yet instead you chose to insult and bash them. You talk about morals as if you are pious, yet given your track record on this thread, the way you talk to game designers, and the way in which you responded to other people - I'd say you're anything but pious.
Unfortunately I'm not a game developer, I'm a writer, so I can't give you any meaningful critique when it comes to how to fix gameplay issues, but once you do that I'm sure the game will be a lot more fun!
One of my biggest issues outside of glitchy gameplay was the lack of variation, maybe make the key placements a bit more challenging. I'd also say that it might be more fun to organically give the player hints, rather than having it pop up at the bottom after a given amount of time. Maybe something like a journal the player can check, giving the story a bit of narration alongside hints of where the key is. Idk how complex that would be though because I don't develop games lolz - just some food for thought!
I think overall this is definitely a good structure for a game, but missing some elements that would really make it pop, I think it's just stuff that comes with growing as a developer maybe. Good luck on your journey ☺!!!
Video Game Itch.io log 12/8/21: RoomooR (2021) by ParkMinJoke
In RoomooR you take the role of the child abuser who is trapped in a claustrophobic room - your sole purpose in here is clear: to escape by any means necessary.
What ParkMinJoke lacks in effective bug testing - as navigation can be quite difficult as you're constantly clipping into objects rendering your character immobile - they make up for in effective and engaging story telling.
While the exposition of the story, as it was originally intended, can only be found through responses of ill-found detractors, it is still very clear through the gameplay if you look hard enough.
The room is a clear metaphor for the vitcim(s) that he had abused: a smiley face that commonly adorns test papers in grade school, a piggy bank - a child's first interaction with understanding economics, a television, and headphones1, alongside a variety of other things that may be common in a child's room.
While this may seem like your average room escape game at first glance the creator, ParkMinJoke, plays with the audiences expectations by repeatedly putting the player (child abuser, for those keeping track) back into the same room that they had seemingly escaped. Perhaps this is an homage to the now defunct P.T. (2014) in which a player repeatedly is thrust in the same hallway over and over having to solve various puzzles by understanding the minutia of the hallway itself.
In a Sisyphusian manner the player repeatedly finds themselves in the room of the, in my understanding, child they had abused. What's interesting here is ParkMinJoke's dual purposed use of mixing up the layout of the room, first subtly through misplaced keys, then very noticeably as the room shifts and bends beyond what is concretely possible. It is not a stretch to say that perhaps the player (child abuser) is living inside the psyche of the child they had abused; that they are inside the mind of a fragmented child as their reality starts to fracture due to the trauma.
Of course this happens over a period of time, as most trauma tends to affect the brain. It is not until the child fully starts to understand the gravity of the trauma that the room becomes heavily distorted. Interestingly enough studies have shown similar gaps in memory by those afflicted with PTSD and those who have Alzheimer's - there's also a connection between the central motif of RoomooR and The Caretaker's Everywhere at the End of Time.
In both pieces of art a person's mind is gradually fragmented to the point of no return. Whether or not this was intentional on ParkMinJoke's part is uncertain to me, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.
As the player (child abuser) progresses through the psyche of the mind of the child they had traumatized a figure starts to appear - a long slenderman-esque character with a smiley face mask. Perhaps this is a reflection of the player (child abuser), first coming off as a friendly person only to be a predator underneath, a wolf in sheep's clothing as they say.
It goes without saying that clearly this game is one that brings to the front the player's own moral ideology. Should the child abuser stay endlessly trapped within the loop of the mind that they traumatized? It is not until the very end that the subtext becomes text (spoiler warning) as you hear over a loud speaker that you (child abuser) are to be put to death as a criminal. This retroactively gives context to the situation beforehand - it is not the mind of the child that you are in but rather your own mind. That you are trapped in the hell that you believe you deserve before you are put to death for the crimes you have committed.
This is interesting, as it draws forth a moral question, is capital punishment a worthwhile cause? For ParkMinJoke I believe the answer is no. The player (child abuser) in face of the death penalty creates a fragmented hell for them to exist in, a punishment beyond the state's. For the player (child abuser) being relinquished onto oblivion is not fair punishment, it is the absence of punishment, it is absolution of their sins. The Sisyphusian hell that they would be in is only stopped in the presence of the state and capital punishment, being put to death.
In this ParkMinJoke draws an interesting comparison between punishment as seen through a Christian lens (I must be punished for eternity) and a Western - that is to say American and Totalitarian - lens (I must be punished equal to my crime). We see this in the way the game fundamentally holds punishment as one of its main themes. In some sense the player themselves are punished by being forced to listen to weird music and play a game with controls that aren't the best! Perhaps, in this sense, ParkMinJoke is creating a post-structuralist critique, using the medium of video games themselves to comment on morality, punishment, and Christian understand of those two.
Overall I'd rate this game a 3/10.
1 The use of a giant television and headphones in the room that represents the child's fragmented mind is beyond clever to me. Not only does this game come face to face to very pressing moral questions, but it critiques society at large. Was the child not already abused? In these two objects we have incredibly organic storytelling: a story of a child who is neglected by his parents, parents who care much more with giving their child distractions rather than actually engaging with them. Perhaps the player (child abuser) was able to so easily coerce the kid because the kid is lonely due to being neglected by their parents - a bit of speculation on my part.
First off narrowly defining this art as having to fit into specific paradigms of having "some type of boundary" and "NSFW context" makes no sense - who is defining boundaries in this scenario?
Secondly, obviously mixmastacopycat was referring to a colloquial understanding of "protagonist" and "antagonist", that is to say, "good guy" vs "bad guy". While this obviously muddies the waters of this conversation it's clear what their intention is, to establish the framework that the creator wanted: for you to fear the character that you play as.
The works in a dual-folded manner:
- It forces the player to consider themselves in a way they typically do not, having to engage with perhaps a more immoral aspect of themselves. The player says "why am I a child abuser?" which, very clearly with your responses, elicits an immense emotional response. This, in my opinion, is one of the truest essences of horror, engaging with the shadow self, truly questioning your own role in the greater morality of the world
- It gives context to the events that are unfolding to the character.
Take for example the video game Silent Hill 2, that deals with similar topics. Sexual abuse, playing as a bad person, etc. Over the course of the game you're forced to confront not only your own understanding of these heavy topics but also how the character has operated within your moral understanding of these topics.
Furthermore to limit art by saying "we are not allowed to play as child abusers" is to ignore a vast and long history of artists that have come before that do exactly that, albeit with literature instead of video games. Marquis De Sade famously had entire novel surrounding child abusers as a form of satire around the French aristocracy, the church, and the state. In his novel 120 Days of Sodom, De Sade goes into nauseting detail surrounding the "triumphs" of the "heroes" of the story - of course "triumphs" and "heroes" he uses to describe the depraved acts of child abusers. By framing them in this way he was able to show the relationship between how people viewed the upper class (priests, aristocrats, kings, etc.) and the acts that they commit (abuse, exploitation, imposing of their will).
It would not be just as easy to substitute "murderer" or "thief" for "child abuser" as child abuse is such a heavy handed topic, it is immediately visceral and shocks the audience. It causes them to think about the actions that they are doing. "Does this person deserve the punishment held within the game as retribution for their abuse - what is the structure that holds up my understanding of crime and punishment?" In some sense this game serves as a thought experiment in which you play God. You can choose to engage with the game, play as an abuser, and in that effectively punish the abuser - at the same time you can choose not to play as the abuser, essentially forgiving him of his sins. This is, without a doubt, one of the GREATEST aspects of the game I'd argue.
To say to ParkMinJoke "Your art is wrong" is not a criticism of the game, it is not valid, it is vapid and trite. Your own inability to come face to face with the topic at hand is a shortcoming on your part, not a shortcoming on ParkMinJoke. Next time I'd suggest saying "this topic is triggering to me, add a trigger warning" which I believe is the main point you were trying to make - that there is offense to be had with this art because it is triggering to, if not you, many people. To try and silence ParkMinJoke and their art, however, is to try and silence all art in of itself.