RE 5, Racism, Poverty

Yesterday I reached a threshold with this Resident Evil 5 discussion on race. I'm extremely frustrated that everyone is talking about RE5's racist imagery, and essentially ignoring what I'm calling 'perpetuation factors' of African stereotypes.  And yes, the trailer itself does have racist imagery, and being able to see it doesn't make you a racist.

The Game Overthinker said it really well in his take on the RE5 issue. 

[Africa is] "...a region that's often scary enough what with all the wild animals, crippling poverty, near-constant civil wars, and an omnipresence of AIDS so thick that the local warlord's roving death squads can cut it with their machetes."

I highly recommend listening to it, as it's an essential side of the discussion.  Here's another article which further highlights the viewpoint of privileged youth.  Here's a good interview with N'Gai Croal (may he consult in peace) where he clarifies his take on the situation.

So yes. Capcom messed up by taking a baseball bat to the anthill instead of a decidedly more tactful approach.  Even though the anthill is gone, all the critters are now everywhere and really mad.  (It's not a perfect analogy, but I think it's close enough.)

Now, a lot of folks are arguing here and there that gamers as a whole need to start taking this discussion seriously, if games and games journalism are ever going to be taken seriously as a whole.  I think that means we need to broaden the conversation from just racist imagery, to include perceptions of Africa.  

Let me make this clear: I'm not saying that racism and understanding racist imagery is not important, or any less important. 

It's a good idea to teach people that yes, a white guy shooting only black people appears racist, and this is why.  I also think it's a good idea to teach people that yes, many parts of Africa do in fact brutally kill each other on a regular basis, and this is why.  (Tribal law, religious tradition/superstition, lack of education, suppressing economic factors, etc.)

And, naturally, not all of Africa is like that.  There is in fact some good in Africa.  Probably.  Somewhere.  I would expect.  I hope. 

I'm not an expert on African history or culture, otherwise I'd feel much more comfortable going into the points I brought up.  I'll see if I can cobble a companion post together, soon.

If you're still apathetic on why all this matters, or vehemently think it doesn't, than I invite you to take a look at the following two links, courtesy of Brinstar's fantastic blog: Acid for Blood.

A primer on privilege: what it is and what it isn't

“Check my what?” On privilege and what we can do about it

Mega Update #1 - Part 3 - Zombie CCG

This is going to be large update to my Zombie Survival Horror CCG system.

I'm still working on the prototype decks at the moment, but here is my proposed ruleset. My big goals for the CCG are balance, atmosphere, and simplicity.

Quick Summary: Each 'side' has their own deck. The cards are split into seperate categories - creatures, equipment, resources, and tactics. The turn structure starts with Draw, then Deploy, Combat (shooting, then melee), and Reinforce. Endgame has yet to be decided.

(I should note, before we go any further, that some of these mechanics are highly inspired by my years of playing Games Workshop's games.)

Each card has a Power value on it, from 1-10. This value is used for balance reasons (let's play with 200 point decks), and for 'rolling.'

A card demands a 'roll,' flip the top card of the library into your graveyard,* if the revealed card's Power is equal to or above the needed value, the effect succeeds.

Types of Cards:
Resource Cards provide a player with the meta-currency to purchase other cards. For instance, a pistol's Deploy Cost is 4 ammo. Any unused resources are lost at the end of the turn.

Tactics Cards are miscellaneous effects or events - from Barricades to Sniping to Dramatic Returns.

Equipment Cards bestow bonuses to creatures when attached.

Creature Cards have several defining values:

• Speed: Determinds order in combat
• HP: The amount of times one can be damaged. Some attacks do more than 1 damage.
• Hit: The number which must be rolled, or higher, to deal damage in close combat.
• Aim: The number which must be rolled, or higher, to deal damage when shooting.

Turn Structure:

• Draw
• Deploy
• Combat
• Reinforce

Draw: Draw 1 card into your hand. This value be modified by other cards.

Deploy: Discard resource cards to 'purchase' creatures and tactics from your hand, and put them into play.

Combat: This phase is split into Shooting and Melee.

• Shooting: Only creatures with guns can attack, but everyone may be attacked. Highest Speed goes first.
• Melee: Everyone can participate, even if they fired in the Shooting subphase. Unless modified, everyone deals 1 point of damage. Highest Speed goes first.
  

Reinforce: A second Deploy phase, without offensive Tactics.

Current questions/ideas floating in my head:

• Endgame: Victory Points? Survive x turns? If Victory Points, how to tally? Count up graveyards after x turns?
• *Rolling: Into graveyard, or back into deck - shuffling at the end of the turn? (If into graveyard, player must change strategy based on potentially lost cards, in exchange for damage dealt. Or, recycle only successes/failures back into the deck?)
• Damage: Strip creatures of equipment before dealing them damage. (Vehicles breaking down, guns jamming, dropping melee weapons.)

Whew. Now to copy and paste this into at least two other forums.

Blogspam #1

First, dear future readers, forgive me for the rapid-fire posts which are about to commence. I have a lot to catch up on.

Due to my membership in the Darkfall clan Oromea, I got to sit in on a developer IRC open house for Exanimus. A zombie MMOG in the works.

I'm kind of worried, because RCT (Rotting Corpse Team - the devs) seems to be composed of a good chunk of people from outside the gaming industry. They say they've gotten a large part of prototyping out of the way, and are working on their middleware products playing nicely together. I don't know what to make of that exactly - I almost translate that as 'we have a ton of money, let's see what we can do.'

Jealousy is probably a large part of that, though. I'd love to take a look at their design document and see what kind of mechanics they're planning. The forums have spurred a bit of creativity within me and I have some pretty cool ideas that I'd like for them to implement. Hopefully, one day, they'll notice my wonderful posts and let me in on it. I think having an online world of dramatic horror would be simply amazing - with zombie abilities reaching into the meta-physics of horror. Causing survivors to stumble or trip with fear, reload slowly or drop the reload altogether...

...I can hear the heartbeat getting louder as the zombies get closer...