Most games that play through the perspective of a sentient being will land in a category of violence as game play. There are a few exceptions, but those games are often dismissed as not being “real” games with enough challenge to them. Once you figure out the cause and effect of a visual novel – where the game play is interacting with other characters – then the game becomes predictable. In puzzle and point-and-click games, the game can feel challenge-less in the next replay.
There are other mechanics in games. Look to mobile games like Angry Birds, Candy Crush, and Bubble Burst to see that we aren’t exactly at a loss for alternative game play mechanics. What separates game play mechanics from mobile apps meant to pass the time and triple-A games is the integration of story and mechanics – a reason to keep playing.
The point of Angry Birds is to pass the time on the bus, the toilet at work, and waiting at the doctor’s office. There is some general story that goes with it, the pigs versus the birds, but the reason you’re playing isn’t to find out what happens to the birds. There are games, both mobile and triple-A, that only run on mechanics and those that only use story (think player versus player multiplayer and visual novels), but the games that try to balance both try to integrate the mechanics into the story the best they can. This is where combat based RPGs come in.
Combat provides the game with a seamless mechanic, a consequence if you lose, and a mechanic in which you can approach the problem with several different approaches that don’t need to be completely thought of by the developers ahead of time. In a point-and-click game, it might make sense that this item and that item put together will help you in your situation, but the game might be programmed for two other items to help you out so you need to find that combination. In combat, you can be given a shotgun, a rifle, a bow and arrow(s), and a knife, and you can decide your style of fighting the baddies. If you want to do another replay, you can decide to challenge yourself by only using the bow or only using the shotgun, both coming with their own set of pros and cons.
In the face of most antagonists, it’s not a far leap to make to think that someone might send someone after you with deadly force, so fighting for your life makes sense. It doesn’t make sense to play a round of a Candy Crush type mini-game to convince someone not to kill you.
Lastly, real time combat and turn based combat, to some extent, provide several challenges to the player: coordination, split second decision making and acting on reflexes. While some mechanic alternatives can hit some of these, rarely do they hit all of them at once.
Until we can find a replacement mechanic that challenges reflex, hand (or thumb?) eye coordination, split moment decisions, and a sense of urgency that blends seamlessly into stories, we’re going to have to accept that violence has a real and irreplaceable role in video games.
Video Games Deconstructed 