Post-Nihilism and Goals in Video Game

 Other than the cycle of expectation, doubt, reality, and relief, there is something else that we can learn from archetype in story. It is the relation between mentor and shadow. Previously, I said that mentor and shadow work to drive moving forward. Without them, the hero in the story will not have a willingness to do an adventure. In our life, mentor and shadow is the representation of good and bad, right and wrong, positive and negative, all the things that work in contrast, with each is located at the opposite side of the spectrum and always fight with each other. In a story, usually, at the end of it we will see either mentor won over shadow or the opposite (most of the time it was the former). Similarly, in our life we always believe or being told that the right would eventually win in the end. If this is the nature of the interaction of mentor and shadow, the right and wrong, where they always fight between themselves and in the end there is only one which become a winner, this create a question. Is it true?

Game, Kohlberg, and Kant

Lately, there are many games which include moral choice as one of their features. Games such as Fable, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Skyrim will determine whether the action that player did is good or bad, and give the consequence based on how well mannered the player in the game. Personally, not only it makes game more interesting and gives much agency to the player, but also I believe it could help the player to measure the morality of every action that s/he did in their lives. Even though currently there are no evidence showed that the player who plays a game with moral choice feature increased in the number of his/her moral action (at least from what I know), I think it’s a good idea to see how exactly some action are seen as having positive or negative moral value. By doing so, maybe we can further improve the moral choice in our game.

Through out my research, there are two theories about moral value that captivated me. They are Kohlberg’s stages of moral development and Kant’s moral philosophy.