alt Hacker News> I'm not sure if that has any impact on how fun a game is.
It might if the game has a more-than-perfunctory story, because authors often incorporate their political or religious beliefs into their stories. (This is usually a good thing: most of the novels that people love would be nothing if stripped of those themes.)
It's unfortunate that The Good Scott Adams occasionally gets mixed up with The Evil Scott Adams. It's so ironic that they share a name.
Many people know who the The Evil Scott Adams is, because he's such an unrepentant attention starved troll who is notorious not only for making a sock puppet to praise and flatter himself as a genius on internet forums, but for his obsessive unvarnished hateful bigotry, racism ("blacks are a hate group"), misogyny, conspiracy theories, anti-health-care-for-poor-people ideology, and Trump boot licking, and he obsessively infuses his MAGA religion into everything he says and does. Enough said.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Good Scott Adams, a pioneer of the Adventure game genre, who is devotedly Christian, but in the kind, uplifting, well meaning, Jimmy Carter kind of way. He's a really nice guy, who did lots of quality groundbreaking work!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams_(game_designer)
He didn't infuse his original games in the 70's and 80's with ham fisted Christian themes or any kind of bigotry. And he did a Bible based game in 2013, but it was clearly labeled as such, not trying to sneak religion in through the back door.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scott_Adams_Adventure_...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130408091921/http://www.msadam...
He showed up to do an AMA on Hacker News:
https://madned.substack.com/p/the-further-text-adventures-of...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29330015
Somebody asked him about his faith, and he sincerely talked about his religion, but didn't evangelize or anything like that, he just talked about himself when asked.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29330732
cenazoic on Nov 24, 2021 | prev | next [–]
To piggyback on MPSimmons’ question, have you played any of the interactive fiction from the 1995 revival on?
I read in your interview that you consider your company Clopas as a ‘company of Christians’, rather than a ‘Christian company’, and that you make games “[which] God can use in His glory to uplift people..”
Can you discuss more about what ‘uplift’ means to you, and how it’s reflected in your games? What’s an example of a non-uplifting game/mechanic?
I’m not a Christian, but I find this idea a fascinating one. My mind first goes to something like RDR2, which while perhaps not uplifting in the traditional sense, reminded me of the awe of natural beauty (or God’s creation, if you prefer). Or do you mean more like - the game somehow inspires the player to be a better person, for various definitions of ‘better’?
Thanks for taking the time today!
ScottAdams on Nov 24, 2021 | parent | next [–]
You raise execellent questions. Thanks for asking!
To me uplift means to leave the player in a better state than when they started.
To bring them closer to God's Glory and plan for their life. To see the Universe and as an incredible place to be and to see Life as an incredible gift from our most awesome and loving Creator.
I am looking forward to an eternity of exploration, discovery and insprired creation due to the agency of my savior and friend Jesus.
ScottAdams on Nov 24, 2021 | parent | prev | next [–]
I did miss your first part of your questions and appologize. In most cases I have not played most IF that is out there. Though Myst stands out as an incredible exception to that. But it of course was mostly non-verbal and delight to eyes.
Part of the reason of not playing many is a reticence to accidentally steal a puzzle idea (via absortion as it were) and the other is simply I have way more fun writing, coding and designing :)