Non-combat games and skipping content were hot topics this week, but I’m still kind of sorting out my own thoughts on the matter. An intense battle that we barely survive, even a virutal one, is an easy way to flood our brains with exciting chemicals. How do we simulate that without the fighting? And have designers already unknowingly created a solution by introducing stealth classes as the true “fast-forward” characters?
Anyway, I would like to know: what is your favorite non-combat game experience? It could be a game with no combat, or it could be a game with a peaceful flash of brilliance.
For my part I would probably point to watching this Let’s Play series about Yume Nikki, a Japanese art RPG. It’s gorgeous and disturbing, and there is almost not even a second of combat throughout the whole thing. To be fair there is no way I’d have the patience to play this myself. It’s as much a work of art, I think, as it is a game.
I used to love the old LucasArts adventures, though it’s been a long time since I played those.
More recently, I was really into The Sims 2 before I started playing WoW.
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My favorite games were always combatless adventure games — Sierra, LucasArts, and even older-school than that with Infocom text adventures. I loved figuring out puzzles like how to get past the dragon without killing it in KQ1 or the frigging babelfish in Hitchhiker’s Guide.
Combat does not make a game, and I’m completely flummoxed that there’s a section of the population that thinks it does. What the hell? Have these people only ever played Call of Duty?
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This goes way back but I loved a game called Myst. You were on an island and had to figure out puzzels and clues to advance the storyline. At the time the graphics were pretty awesome.
Though there were the cute little androids who would shoot you, I would argue that Portal is a great non-combat game. The androids were effectively stationary gun turrets and were therefore more of an environmental hazard than combatant mobs. It’s really a puzzle game with potentially lethal consequences for failure.