Reading Richard Clark’s opinion piece “Is Death In Games Cheap?”, I got thinking about death in games. Some of the comments gave more stuff for thought, and my imagination ran wild. How can games emulate death meaningfully, why do we care about death – and what is death, anyway? Let’s start by defining death. When defining something, wikipedia is often helpful, so let’s ask them: “Death is the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism.” From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death Death, in English, is that a living being is gone. So why would we care? Based on nothing but my own experiences, it seems like when we humans start to care about something, we’re crushed when its damaged or gone. Its clearly the case with other people. As we get to know people, we start to care. As we start to care, we will mourn the loss of him/her. And the longer you’ve known them, the closer they’ve been, the worse it gets. Compare a far-away relative with an old friend, for example. Interestingly, the same thing seems to account for non-living items. Remember that new CD, watch, phone, vase? Or perhaps an old gift? Surely, it’s frustrating when it […]