"Meaning of life" games

The Game Room
1

It’s always been popular to think of life as a game, and especially a video game, in the Matrix era. But which games incorporate either the “meaning of life” or else “the object of the game” - and, which does it best?

What I can think of:

I know some video games have instead of win/lose binary conclusions, varying endings such as Silent Hill. Some, like Deus Ex, try to cater the ending to the type of gameplay. I guess this is sort of a “karma” game, where the outcome resembles your philosophical gameplay behavioral bent. I’d love to hear more about these sorts of games.

Then there are games that aren’t so philosophical but still have uncertain objectives. Mao is a great example but requires too many spoilers to discuss here. A more discussible example is Fluxx, a card game where the objective is one of many rules that change.

An early example is the HHGTTG text adventure, in which you can ask any NPC “what is the objective of the game?”

So tell me about all games of any sort that play with an uncertain objective, or get even deeper with exploring the meaning of life through gameplay, or get creative about tying gameplay style with ambiance and outcome. And which does it best.

2

I’m not sure if Ultima IV meets your parameters but its certainly the first game that I can recall that tried to do this as part of gameplay. Quoth wikipedia:

I never managed it, and got sick of the message “You have lost an eighth” every time I infringed the game’s rules about probity to gain a nice looking advantage.

3

Good example, keep em coming.

4

Infocom’s Zork III: The Dungeonmaster.

It’s a game where you can score all points available and still not meet the ultimate goal. Because the points (7 or 8, can’t remember) are awarded by overcoming the puzzles/obstacles, but you get a special item each time you overcome the obstacle in the correct way that will actually further your goal.

(E.g. Minor Spoiler In one early puzzle, you encounter what seems to be a threatening being. There is more than one way of winning this, and killing it is not the right way. If you kill it, you don’t figure out what it is. If you choose another way to defeat it, you discover that it’s actually a simulacrum of yourself–obviously the guys at Infocom were fans of The Empire Strikes Back–and you win something it has in its posession which is necessary for you to ultimately win the game. But regardless of how you defeat it, you get a point in your score.)

5

Some of the Tex Murphy games did this. Depending on how much of a cynical bastard you are throughout the game, you get different endings. It strikes me that actual different endings are no longer quite as common, come to think of it; usually, it’s the same destination, just getting there a different way…

6

In Careers boardgame, you decide what mix of money, fame and happiness you’ll pursue before the game starts.

7

In The Sims 3, which is a very open ended game, there is no real set goal, just what you set for the sims in the house being played

One big change from Sims 2 however, is a more sophisticated personality engine, TS3 Sims are assigned traits that define their personalities and how they interact with the world and each other

For example, I created a female Sim and put her in a Nun’s habit, then assigned her as many “bad” traits as I could (6 open slots), Evil, neurotic, hot headed, inappropriate, mean spirited, and put in the positive trait of “charismatic”

I liked the appeal of an “evil nun”, my goal for her was to basically be evil, antisocial, and mean, seduce other aims then break their hearts by cheating, getting into fights and being generally disruptive
Her goal for “winning”, I.E. the Lifetime Aspiration goal was to be “Emporer of Evil”

I started her on the right track, emotionally injuring a couple male sims (and ending up carrying their babies to term) but she had other ideas in mind for what she wanted to do with her life…

She became obsessed with gardening

I couldn’t keep her out of the garden, now she’s no longer an Evil Nun, she’s a Master Gardener with maxxed gardening skills, her garden is large and efficient enough to not only supply her and her two teenage sons (who share a similar gardening obsession ) with world class produce, but she even sells the extra back to the grocery store and makes a small profit

I had no intention of making her a gardener, the game AI made that decision on it’s own

8

When I saw the question, the first thing I thought of was the SimCity series, which doesn’t really have an “ending”; the objective is whatever you want it to be.

Do things like flight simulators count as “games”? In Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-Plane, the “objective” is to fly a plane from Point A to Point B (which may or may not be different from Point A), although the choices of Point A, Point B, and plane are left up to the player.

9

Dear Esther sounds like it fits.

10

PLANESCAPE: TORMENT is all about this: you start play as an amnesiac, promptly start dealing with a slew of problems that can be solved either with violence or by reasoning with people, and have to answer riddles – what can change the nature of a man? – while coming across story after story of folks who made bad deals that ruined their lives, in between accepting or rejecting offers to join up with guilds who subscribe to (and vigorously sales-pitch) this or that philosophy.

You can drop out of the game early on by sacrificing yourself to maintain a stalemate between two factions; you can, by building up your wisdom at the expense of your strength, help another character gain a greater understanding of his spiritual beliefs (by teaching them to him as they dawn on you); you can defeat one notable enemy by realizing he’s like unto your split personality and so can be integrating back into your psyche upon threatening to commit suicide – or going through with it, taking him down with you! – and on, and on, and on.

11

The Civilization games have a variety of completely different win conditions. Sure, you can just conquer the world if you feel like it, but you can also build up a culture that overawes the rest of humanity, or diplomatically get yourself elected to victory through the UN, or develop your science and technology to the point where you can depart for the stars. I’ve met people who say that it just doesn’t feel like a real victory unless you conquer everyone, but also people (and I’m one of them) who feel the same way about the space race.

12

Holy sweet mother of God, I thought I was the only person on the planet who remembered that (and the fact that one of the limited few career paths available was “Ecology”).

I’m an Ecologist. :slight_smile:

13

The Paradox games (Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings etc…) notoriously don’t have any goals - they just give you a nation-state and a starting historical setting and then fold their metaphorical arms. You can play them to try and recreate history as much as you can, or use them as a sandbox for “what if the UK had been part of the Soviet Bloc”, or conquer the entire world as Azerbaijan. Your call.

Another that comes to mind is Der Guilde, an obscure German economics game with some roleplaying aspects tacked on. It starts off very simply with your created character establishing a tiny business in a new town, but as the game (and the familial enterprise) progresses you also get to found a family, have rivalries with other families in town, get into politics, or hire people to kidnap the Cardinal’s son to secure his vote for when you apply for a bishopric.
There are competing AI players, and you can set a competitive objective for the game (like “first one to reach X dollars wins”, or “first one to become Elector-Count”), but I find it’s better enjoyed as a pure sandbox, dicking around and making up stories of great age-old feuds.