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The Little People In Your Games

Posted by Zonk on from the creeeepy dept.

1up.com's Crucial Classics series has a feature up discussing the little people inside your games. From the article: "...someone realize[d] that it was a niche to be exploited by computers, which up to that point weren't particularly cuddly. To be fair, neither were Little Computer People, confined as they were behind the fourth wall of a monitor. Which was probably for their own safety, as they were just the sort of creatures that might die a horrible smothery death in the arms of a little girl."

34 comments

  1. Great writeup by ArmorFiend · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great writeup! After an entire paragraph I have no clue what this story is about, Zonk!

    1. Re:Great writeup by atomic-penguin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, it is a horrible blurb. "Little Computer People" is the name of a game for the C64/Apple II. It is the original life simulation game. Think of it this way...

      "NetHack" is to "Diablo" as "Little Computer People" is to "The Sims".

      --
      /^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
    2. Re:Great writeup by Vargasan · · Score: 1

      It's about "The Little People" in games.

      I'm just not sure if it's Halflings, Gnomes, Goblins, Dwarfs, Pixies or Kobolds.

      Wait, this is about Dungeons & Dragons, right?

      --
      Putting the romance back into necromancer.
    3. Re:Great writeup by ArmorFiend · · Score: 1

      I even bought that game, one of only three such games I bought for my ][e, and I still failed to draw the connection.

  2. GG Editors by JFitzsimmons · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can't RTFA even if you wanted to on this story. After you click through the advertising, there's no article!

    --
    Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
  3. Link to the article by Russellkhan · · Score: 5, Informative

    The link given just leads to the main page at 1up. The actual article mentioned can be found here.

    --
    Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
    1. Re:Link to the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Thanks for posting the article. I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice your time for the /. community. Unfortunately, and Mr. Khan has nothing to do with this, the article sucks ass.

      Note to Slashdot editors: Please take Zonk to rehab. He's been smoking entirely too much crack.

  4. Why the Apple II version? by newrisejohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think the Commodore 64 version looked a hell of a lot better. Those were the days, man.

    I played this when I was five. The original disk still resides somewhere at my parents, along with a dead C64.

    1. Re:Why the Apple II version? by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      Ditto. The C64 was addictive as crack; i hated the whole Tamagotchi/virtual pets for years, only to realize i enjoyed the granddaddy of them all games back in my childhood.

    2. Re:Why the Apple II version? by tealtalon · · Score: 1

      That game was amazing for it's time. I think the guys name was Steve? Or maybe I just named him that. The crazy bastard loved playing the piano, and cards at the kitchen table. You had to scratch his head to make him feel better. Get food delivered for him to eat. Sorry but you just brought up a bunch of memories of playing that game. I would love to find an emulator and ROM of if anyone has links.

    3. Re:Why the Apple II version? by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      Lemon 64 has it for download. The VICE emulator runs it flawlessly, and it's available for every platform you could imagine.

    4. Re:Why the Apple II version? by Jarlsberg · · Score: 1

      There was also an Amiga version, which was pretty nice: http://www.lemonamiga.com/reviews/view.php?id=91

  5. Not sure why this was even posted by Russellkhan · · Score: 0

    OK, I made my last post before I RTFA. Now that I have read it, I don't know why anyone thought it was interesting enough to post here. All it is, really is a review of a 1985 C64/Apple ][ game, with a sidebar mentioning later games/products that are similar but more successful.

    I know I'm not supposed to grumble about it, but I've submitted much more interesting stuff than this that got rejected.

    --
    Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
    1. Re:Not sure why this was even posted by bartyboy · · Score: 0

      I agree.

      The article feels like it's a review of an old Sims game. "Feed, water, go to the can, etc" sounds a lot like a game I could play right now, with better graphics, AI and sound.

      It's nice to get nostalgic once in a while, but make sure it's over something that will really get our gears turning.

    2. Re:Not sure why this was even posted by Russellkhan · · Score: 0

      Looking it over, and thinking about the splash page that seems to be what is actually linked, I'm now guessing this is just a badly written, paid ad from 1up.com.

      --
      Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
  6. So /that's/ what that is. by b00m3rang · · Score: 1

    I've seen screenshots used in Fark Photoshop contests, but I couldn't figure out what game it was.

  7. Re:Why is this even here? by mogalpha · · Score: 0

    That's totally the wrong way to make a LEEROY joke. But then again, it was a gamble, knowing that you only had a 32.33%... (repeating, of course), probability of pulling it off.

  8. Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by MiceHead · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I think it's interesting that people abuse the systems; and that the systems possess the capacity to be abused. The article points to a now-defunct website created by someone who enjoyed torturing their simulated being in Creatures. An excerpt:
    Her name is Slave. After I created her I started by hitting her constantly for about 5 minutes. Then I taught her all the words(using the SST) so it would be easier to make her scared of her surroundings. After she knew all the words, I placed her in a small area, surrounded by the FF Cob, with 5 Grendels. I left her there for about 20 minutes, beating her when she attempted to defend herself from the Grendels. After she was sufficiently traumatized, I put her back in the garden. In the Garden I forced her to Get, Look, Push and Pull everything around her, all the time, constantly beating her. I made her fear running so I wouldn't have to deal with that little problem(you fellow torturers out there know how annoying it is to chase them down once they get away). I also forced her to eat weeds, rewarding her when she did so. At the time I exported her, she's a quivering mass of fear. She might eat, if you're lucky, but she probably won't survive long enough for food to do any good.
    Also worth noting is some of the feedback this fellow received, including various death threats. The most well-known cases of abusive behavior towards simulated lifeforms probably occur in The Sims. From a Wired article on same:
    To Wright, one of the most memorable albums told the story of a woman's abusive relationship and how she eventually got out of it. But a search on the Sims Exchange of the word "abuse" reveals that Sims albums have become a common therapeutic tool. All told, 63 albums deal with abuse issues.
    Many of us have probably stomped anthills in our youth, (or worse?), and bullied/been bullied. Does this power dynamic fall along the same lines? The example from Creatures, above, surprises me. But I will admit to building a Sims household with a swimming pool and no ladder.
    _______
    Epidemic Groove - An indie-developed casual RTS/Action hybrid for Windows.
    --
    We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
    1. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by vga_init · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I was reading that Norn torturer's site and it's rather puzzling. It kind of disturbs me that he would do something like that to the poor little creatures, but I have trouble relating to his mindset. It's a big grey area, and I would never do what he did personally, but it's not at all inconceivable that the person is very sane and has an understandable motivation for doing it--shock value, for instance. What would be more disturbing is if he DIDN'T have a site and still did what he did (he appears to be very methodic and organized, which may simply be part of his desired affect). I think he's probably just being anti-social.

    2. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by Babbster · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Choosing evil over good in a videogame like this always bothers me for some reason. For example, Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic obviously had the option to go to the dark side, and I played through it once like that. Halfway through, I was disgusted enough with my character that I wanted to quit - it took me three days to play through the game on the side of good, and two months to bring myself to finishing the game evil. I recently bought Jade Empire and played through it "open hand" (good), started playing "closed fist" (evil) and haven't touched it again since. I can't even kill a bloody Sim...

      What makes it odd is that I have no problem playing a game like Dungeon Keeper or GTA and being VERY evil.

      I'm rambling, but it does make me wonder if perhaps a game that gives the choice between being good and evil (with unique rewards for either) would be worse for small children than something like GTA. Of course, it's possible that I'm just over-sensitive. :)

    3. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's a big grey area, and I would never do what he did personally, but it's not at all inconceivable that the person is very sane and has an understandable motivation for doing it--shock value, for instance.

      I haven't actually looked at the site in question, but it's a pretty fun moral question regardless - can a collection of bits and bytes really be considered 'alive', and can it really 'suffer'?

      I think one of the aspects which will make it seem like 'torture' is the apparent response of the computer program, both visual and aural. If all it had was just a plain set of numbers on the screen to indicate the current weightings in its neural network or whatever, I'm sure people would have few objections - I imagine it's more the apparent realistic responses to suffering that the human brain responds to...

      There's a really cool game I played recently, Darwinia, which has some characters which really affected me.

      *SPOILERS AHOY!*

      Visually, they're identical, non-animated green stick men, but the sounds they make are absolutely perfect. Happy chirruping if they're 'happy', mewlings, wails and screams if they're injured or killed - and given there's some utterly fearsome battles in the game against some hundreds of Virus-infected Darwinian clones, it kind of gets to you after a bit. Seeing the clouds of red and green souls rising above a battlefield is bad enough - but the utterly dead, destroyed, no-chance-of-resurrection ghosts of Darwinians killed by a Soul Destroyer are just awful. It's probably the closest a game has ever got to making me cry...

      But they're all just aspects of a computer program, with incredibly simplistic AI. Probably even simpler than the Little Computer People of The Fabled Article. But still... ;-)

      --
      Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
    4. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by JoeD · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The thing is that after awhile, there's nothing left to do BUT abuse the guy.

      I had a copy of LCP for the Amiga. At first, I played it straight, keeping him fed, playing games, etc. It was kinda neat.

      But that got boring, especially since it really wasn't all that complicated a program. So I decided to see how far I could push it. You deliver food and water to him, and you also deliver food to his dog.

      I decided to see if I could get him to eat dog food. After all, if you're REALLY hungry, and that was all that was available...

      So that's all I gave him - dog food. He turned green and got really sick and spent all his time in bed. I'd do the pat-on-the-head thing, and he'd smile his sickly green smile. I'd deliver more and more dog food, but all he'd do is put it in the cabinet.

      He never did eat the dog food.

    5. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by TrippTDF · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you are on the tip of an issue that is just starting to develop. Although one is not harming a living thing, or even a thing at all, are we still doing something wrong? Is it a negative on our psyche?

      Here's a disturbing question that will take your issue a little further: If one were to use CGI to create photo-realistic child pornography, that was not based on the likeness of actual children, would that be wrong? No child is being exploited, and the veiwer is supposedly getting to see what they desire, no strings attached.

      this is NOT an endorsement of such an idea. I'm posing the question as it's relavent to the topic. No flaming intended.

    6. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's the fact that a game like GTA or Dungeon Keeper doesn't really show the ramifications of evil behavior. If you succeed in Dungeon Keeper, you just killed a bunch of adventurers, but it's not really driven home that the adventurers might have had a life, interests, loves, hates, fears, or any sort of multi-dimensional personality. Likewise, in GTA, other humans are targets for the bumper of your car, generally.

      However, for the most part, games with multiple paths generally intertwine those paths. Usually there's an option to help or hurt an individual. Once you have this choice, and have been introduced to the personality of the NPC you need to make a choice about, it becomes a lot harder to do bad things to that NPC.

    7. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by True+Vox · · Score: 1

      Ok, first lemme just preface: Wrong or not, it is (at least in the USA, as far as I know) illegal. VERY much so. As for wrong, I donno. To me the logic against CP is that it hurts children. If no children are hurt, can it be considered bad? But I reckon that that's your question restated, so it's a moot point.

      --
      "Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox
    8. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How sad. I wish there wasn't so much killing in games. The games are not real, but the players are. Has anyone bothered to notice the players are? And we have souls!

    9. Re:Abuse of Little Computer Lifeforms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a negative.

      I would speak to the general case of abuse aimed at adults or bots, though; it is obvious in our society that simulated child abuse must be banned outright.

      But as far as abuse aimed at adults is concerned - not only does virtual abuse affect the person who is viewing or creating it, but it could set a pattern in which human beings interacting in virtual environments come to believe it is okay to treat one another very badly in ways they would not in real life. I'm not saying we should sanitize everything. It seems obvious some things are out of bounds no matter what, though, and other things are bad for the spirit even if they cannot be legally banned without giving too much to censorship. If our society could get a definition that some things are "bad for the spirit" and apply it, social force would serve to ban things for which legal banning is too much, and toleration too little.

  9. Little Computer People by zoeblade · · Score: 1

    OK, the actual article is here. My own write-up on the game is here. The Zzap!64 review is here.

    For those of you still not sure what this is, it's a game where you have a person in your computer, and you can feed him (they're all male for some reason), buy him books and records, ask him to play the piano, and scritch his hair. If you don't feed him, he'll go to bed, turn green, and die. It's a pretty original game, and you can get the C64 tape re-release second hand for around its original cost of £2.99 quite easily. It's reminiscent of tamagotchi and, I've been told, The Sims. It's quite good fun, anyway.

  10. i hear the little computer people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i hear them talking in my head they are talking the little computer people they are telling me what to do oh the little computer people they are in my head they are in my head make them stop they are talking to me make them stop make them stop make them stop

  11. Johnny Castaway by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

    Johnny Castaway (1993) from Sierra On-Line was an entertaining screensaver. While it wasn't really a game (no user input), people found it quite addictive to watch. The free version does install on Win98SE, haven't tried XP.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  12. Little People by Valen1260 · · Score: 1

    Like Guardian Bob and Dot Matrix?

  13. What the HELL is it with the webmasters? by wowbagger · · Score: 1

    What the HELL is it with these moron webmasters who decide the optimal way to present an article is GREY TEXT on a white background!

    Do these people have no clue about contrast? Do they actually WANT to make it harder to read their content?

    Or is it the fact that there is very little content to this article, and they want to use the Wired approach of "we will make it impossible for an average reader to read this in less than three hours by using bad color schemes, so that people will think this article was deep and profound rather than a shallow recap of history with very little original thought."

    Or perhaps, like the little bastards in the story who torture their Sims, the owners of this web site wish to abuse the "little people" (read: US) on the other side of their screens?

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    www.eFax.com are spammers
  14. Crucial Classics. by Alkaiser · · Score: 1

    If you're going to resort to alliteration, don't force two words together. In the words of Bill Walton, "that's just terrrrrible".

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    Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga