june gloom on 30/7/2013 at 22:13
You're Polish, you're already racist, so good job on the copout and not actually answering my questions.
SubJeff on 30/7/2013 at 22:41
Fwiw I don't think that race diversity has any place in Postmortem, Yakoob. That isn't what the game is about.
It'd be like having one black guy in an early Ming Dynasty court thriller just because you wanted some diversity.
Chade on 30/7/2013 at 22:54
I think deth's point is that having an even mix of races should have been the "not even thinking about race, this is just how things normally work" choice. (EDIT: it is, of course, very easy to make this argument when you've grown up in an ethnically diverse country which does normally work that way).
That said, Yakoob's world seems to correspond pretty closely with settings that historically were dominated by white people, so I think he gets a pass.
SubJeff on 30/7/2013 at 23:10
My point is he shouldn't need a pass.
You shouldn't even be thinking about it.
Yakoob on 30/7/2013 at 23:33
SubJeff - which is exactly why I havent even considered it until someone else pointed it out. And Chade's right on mark too, as my main inspiration / references are pretty homogeneous. (Btw latest version is up with some major tweaks, new features, and sprites, if you check the tester forums :> still looking forward to your new feedback as compared to original alpha!)
But going back to the topic, I noticed Jim Sterling (
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7831-Go-Fish) just posted a video on the whole Fish thing. Should be... interesting.
Chade on 30/7/2013 at 23:40
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
My point is he shouldn't need a pass.
You shouldn't even be thinking about it.
Oh, I don't know. I think there's a legitimate issue here. What does someone think about race when they're "not thinking about race"? Is it all white? Is that acceptable? Should media be held responsible for creating or changing that default?
I don't feel strongly about these questions. I suppose I'm lucky I don't have to. But I can easily imagine people arguing that the answers are "the default is all white, that's not acceptable, media has created this situation, and should be responsible for changing it: perpetuating the all-white normal is not a harmless or neutral position".
Anyway, regardless of the right thing to do in general, Yakoob clearly has a good reason to have an all-white cast in this specific case.
Kuuso on 31/7/2013 at 00:39
There's nothing wrong with creating games/art/whatever, where there's no politically correct racial distribution/only white people. It's only a problem, if it goes against the internal logic of the art. If I make a novel that is set in the middle of Finland, there's no reason I have to shoehorn different races in it (swedish or russian maybe, others only if it actually involves them majorly). If it is in Baltimore, you can still do it, but you have to think it through a bit more since the afro-american community is such a prominent part of the whole city.
Besides, it can be much worse, when a white dude like me tries to portray other races. Why whiteness is a hidden default in media is mostly because white people just write white stuff, because they're not black or asian. The root of the problem is that it's mostly white people creating media content and the people from other racial backgrounds have to become white to be successful. This is also why people like Romero are fucking legends, because his old-school zombie movies are basically dead white people against living black folk.
Muzman on 31/7/2013 at 04:15
Back to the dull gossipy stuff for a second. I was watching an interview with Ed McMillan from a little while ago just the other day. They were talking about Indie Game : The Movie and how it was originally following quite a few developers and boiled it down to just three in the end. He said that one of the criticisms of the film he heard a lot was that it didn't show any failures, as that's more the norm in games development after all. But, he says, Fish was the balance story as far as the film makers where concerned. They had to cut the numbers of stories down to a manageable level and wanted ones that would run the gamut. He was the one they thought could well snap or flame out. The cautionary tale, as it were. Kinda interesting.
Chade on 31/7/2013 at 12:15
Hah! Who said arguing on the internet is useless? For some reason, this argument made me recall something I've been trying to remember in vain for at least fifteen years ... here is a completely off-topic interlude:
I've often had a vague idea that the indigenous australian life and mythology would be a great setting for a fairly classic action rpg game. You could throw in a bit of everything: relationships with different families, religions, hordes, you've got a great setting for survival mechanics, some really great creatures without any embellishment at all, and heaps of other great creatures with only a little bit of embellishment, some unique weapons, and unique mythology which could be a great source for pretty much anything from story to abilities, taboos, companions, enemies, background, etc.
Anyway, the source for this idea was a children's book, which I remember thinking (when I read it in primary school) was a well told and approachable story of one man's quest against evil, as well as an authentic exposition of aboriginal mythology. I've often wanted to go back and look at the book again, and see if it really does strike that balance of approachability and authenticity that I thought I saw as a primary school student.
But damned if I could remember the darn book's name! And for some reason, talking about discrimination and setting just now reminded me that it had something to do with being "under the hill" ... and (
http://www.amazon.ca/Darkness-Under-Hills-Bill-Scott/dp/0195542746/) here it is! "Darkness Under the Hills" by Bill Scott. Thanks guys. :)
demagogue on 31/7/2013 at 12:48
I'd love to see a game set among native Americans before Europeans came because I'm very curious about how the land was like back then, or even a first contact story, but from the NA's perspective.
Edit: I've thought about making something like that myself, but aside from an impossibly long list of things I'd like to make, I'm also sensitive to the fact I'm not really the most authentic author to tell that kind of story, and there's a not-very-honorable history of whites telling Native American stories...
But then I think if I do my homework & am authentic about it, I shouldn't feel like I'm categorically forbidden to do something like it either. I'd also like to make a game set in Japan and I don't have much qualms about that after living here a number of times now.
