Civil Resistance: Imagine a (Virtual) World Without Guns

12 May 2011 By 8 Comments

Civil Resistance: Imagine a (Virtual) World Without Guns
A Guest Article by Brendon Chung

I’m currently re-playing Half-Life. At the moment, I’m heading into the mysterious Lambda lab, where I’m told the last hope of resistance lies. It’s a game worth re-playing, and it holds up remarkably well. But there’s another reason why I decided to fire Half-Life back up. And it’s sort of embarrassing.

Here it is: the first time I played it, I cheated my way through the game. Back when Half-Life first came out thirteen years ago, there were two sections of the game that consistently twisted my nipples and made me cry uncle: the underground rail-train chapters, and the Xen chapters. The former is because the soldier enemies are soul-crushingly brutal, and the latter is because I’m terrible at jumping puzzles.

But now, I’m playing it honest. No more cheat codes, none of that monkey business. I’m enjoying it immensely; I guess somewhere in the past several years I picked up how to not play terribly. And in spite of inspiring a new wave of single-player first-person shooters in the intervening years, Half-Life still impresses with its clever scenarios and puzzle-solving elements, not to mention having a deft hand at sprinkling its story bits.

I love the world that Half-Life creates. I love the variety of obstacles and the mysteries it raises. What’s the deal with the G-Man? Was the resonance cascade intended to happen? Who sent the military? What was the extent of Black Mesa’s dabbling in teleportation experiments? Why is Gordon Freeman preternaturally inclined to bludgeon everything that moves?

Facetious as it is, that last bit got me thinking. During the introductory tram ride, we’re informed Gordon Freeman is an MIT Ph.D graduate, and is now a research associate in New Mexico’s Black Mesa Research Facility. After the lab disaster, Gordon Freeman proceeds to spend the next several hours shooting rifles, throwing grenades, and firing rockets into hundreds of military personnel and extraterrestrial wildlife.

So, as a thought experiment: what if Half-Life was designed with zero combat? I’m not talking about a “remove bad guys” hack, I’m talking about if the game was designed from the ground up in such a way that Gordon Freeman never holds a gun. In fact, take any game with great worlds – Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Pathways into Darkness, Deus Ex. In these games, there are many things you can do that don’t involve guns – could a full-length game be built around those things? Is run ’n’ gun combat a necessary part of this game genre? Is killing things needed in order to be commercially viable?

The Portal games do just that. They’re first-person shooters in that they’re played from the first-person perspective, but they eschew conventions of guns, ammo, reloading, and monsters running around. Players concentrate solely on puzzle-solving; Valve makes this even more frictionless by setting Portal in a test lab, creating a convenient mechanism for shuffling players from one puzzle arena to the next puzzle arena. It should be noted that Portal is considered a relatively short game, as compared to its Half-Life brethren; would Portal’s puzzley gameplay have worked if it was 11 hours long?

I made a snack-sized game some years ago, Gravity Bone, that had this goal in mind. I wanted to make a game with a rich, colorful world of espionage and mystery, but arm the player with very un-gun-like “weapons”: a tray of wine, a ball-peen hammer, a Nikon camera. It was an experiment, and I was surprised to hear from a lot of people that they wanted more of this. Gravity Bone takes maybe 10 minutes to complete; I’d love to see how this type of game would stand up in a longer format.

One full-length game that has taken and run with the no-guns approach is Amnesia: The Dark Descent. In most games, you shoot bullets into monsters, and the monsters drop dead. Not so in Amnesia. Basically, Amnesia is a thriller in which monsters can (and will) eat you, so your best weapon is to run and hide in a cupboard like a scaredy-cat. And boy is it effective. Every several minutes I have to pause the game and take a break, because I get way too wound up by all the spookiness.

In closing: less guns; try it, you might like it.

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About the Author

Brendon Chung is the founder of Blendo Games, an independent games company that started up in 2009 and is based in Los Angeles, California. The company has developed titles for Mac, PC, Linux, and Xbox 360. It has created many great games, such as Gravity Bone and Flotilla. Brendon has a great deal of experience in the industry, and even used to work for Pandemic Studios before starting up his own venture.

Share your thoughts: Would a first-person game, like the one Brendon describes above, work without guns for the player to use? Furthermore, could such a gameplay mechanic work in a 10-hour long game without getting repetitive or dull? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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  • http://www.electrondance.com Harbour Master

    Brendon, Gravity Bone was definitely something special, much thanks for giving us that. I’d say there’s more to it than simply a lack of weaponry. Its surreal nature and humour, together with its unexpected ending, transform it for a game without guns into just a damn fine experience. But I guess you could come back at this and say all that happened because you did away with guns which would be a fair point.

    I might add that Thief was also a game less about the combat, despite the heavy reliance of the blackjack to knock people out. I would hazard a guess that it has more in common with Amnesia in that respect (disclaimer: not played Amnesia… yet).

  • http://www.bnbgaming.com Armand K.

    Excellent read and raises some great points. As short as Gravity Bone was, it was an absolutely lovely game and its guns free approach was a major part of that.

    I sometimes find myself wondering why so many of the games I play are about shooting, when it’s something I know nothing about in real life and don’t much care for. Building games that could be as fun as shooters without that one key element could potentially open up such a large world of gaming we’ve all but ignored thus far. Be it survival, spy/espionage like your lovely game, puzzle games like the Portal series, or just about anything that’s not specifically about shooting things.

    Keep up the excellent work and would love to see more articles from you in the future!

  • http://www.tap-repeatedly.com Max

    I welcome with open arms any games that do not have me shooting bullets at things. Enjoyed your thoughts, Brendon.

  • Chad M.

    That’s a fantastic article.
    While gunplay is a pretty no-brainer way to set up conflict (as violent conflict is perhaps easier to set up than others, particularly for games), it isn’t necessary. That’s why I’m always disappointed when RPGs skimp on noncombat skills. I’ve quite proudly worked my way through Fallout 1, 2, and 3 with very little fighting, sneaking and hacking where I could and using a high Speech score to get through.

    I think Amnesia is the perfect example of a genre that NEEDS weapons removed. A great way to make horror work is to make the player feel powerless. Making your demise a very real part of the game can be pretty harrowing.

  • http://drakesdoomsdaycorner.blogspot.com/ Drake Sigar

    Mirror’s Edge would have been perfect if they removed the combat, made it twice as long, and refined the controls.

  • http://tap-repeatedly.com/ Gregg B

    Great piece and reminds me of when I used to thumb through my Edge magazines until I came across a page that didn’t feature a gun in a character’s hands (seriously try it the next time you’re reading a games mag).

    Over the years I’ve grown tired of gunplay and conflict making up the bulk of AAA experiences, and it probably explains why I’ve warmed to games where there’s been more emphasis on other gameplay elements. I found Penumbra’s clever blend of horror action and traditional inventory-based and physics puzzle solving very refreshing, not least having to avoid confrontation wherever possible. Thief: The Dark Project, on the right difficulty, insisted that you didn’t kill anyone and that turned encounters on their head; you had to think your way around problems rather than just letting rip with your arrows from the shadows.

    I know my mum was never a fan of all the ‘fighting’ games I used to play as a kid so perhaps that’s why I’ve become more receptive to them as I’ve grown up. One game (or mod) you might all want to check out if you get a chance is Research and Development for Half-Life 2. It’s pretty much a Penumbra: Black Plague/ Amnesia: The Dark Descent puzzle-based approach to he Half-Life 2 world. There’s plenty of action and movement to the game it’s just there’s no combat so dealing with the Combine is a totally different experience. It’s probably as close as you’ll get to Half-Life without guns.

  • Michael Straight

    Just wanted to second the recommendation for the “Research and Development” mod for Half-Life 2.

    It’s exactly what you’re asking for and it is fantastic.

  • YourMessageHere

    The problem is reconciling conflict with interaction. It’s necessary as a component of narrative to have some sort of conflict in a game if it is a game with any sort of story, and it has to be something the player is actively involved in (i.e. not passive cutscenes). It need not actually be violence, but it’s a lot easier to construct fighting mechanics than it is to make a game where a player can interact by speaking at will.

    I recently played Mass Effect 2 through. I’ve heard the title characterised as a “guns and conversation” game, as distinct from a true RPG. It occurred to me that it was sort of telling that the same button is used to talk as to take cover; I would like very much to have used my conversational abilities to shout at people attacking me and charm/intimidate them into surrendering or running away, rather than having to always kill enemies. If successful, a small paragon/renegade bonus should be given. That way, it would be possible to minimise combat as much as possible – essential for true roleplaying, I would have thought.

    I think it’s also significant why people play games and what they want out of them. Personally, I see games as an opportunity to do things I can’t do in normal life. Talking and running (yes, +1 for removing the guns from Mirror’s Edge) are things I can easily do; shooting isn’t.