How hard is it to make this game kid friendly?

Started by josefrees, October 16, 2022, 12:36:56 AM

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How hard?

Very Hard
Hard
Meh
Easy
Very Easy

josefrees

This is the only game where I can have my little pony, Pokémon, Magic, and basically whatever anyone would want. She's 8.

Personally I don't think it would be that hard all the options are there I'm just not sure how to enact them. My main priorities are keeping violence to a minimum and solvable. I'm mostly worried about random event stuff I guess but I am sure you all can show me some other pitfalls.

There are probably easier games to make kid friendly but this is the only game I can think of where the storytellers are so malleable to the gamers' desire

Canute

It is allways the question how non-violence you want the game.
Killing and butchering colony animals at example, for farm-kids a normal behavior but for city-kids maybe traumatic.
You can use the basebuilder option for story teller to disable raid and/or  disable these events with the scenario editor.
But whats about mental breaks, like berserk/killing spree.
You maybe need to disable the whole social thing.

But then the question what you have still left of Rimworld.

But to disable all the gameplay things you don't want have, you need to learn modding to disable them.
But i think some of these gameplay mechancis are hardcoded and can't be modified with just XML patches, that mean you need to learn C# too and find the mechanic at the core.dll.
Not a simple task for a beginner.

You maybe should consider to give your kid some lego/playmobil games or other kids game like slime-rancher.

lowdegger


brucethemoose

Modded Minecraft is the game you want. There are mods for everything you mentioned, and its kid friendly ootb.

You can search for curseforge mods on curseforge, or on this very helpful aggregator: https://www.modpackindex.com/mods

Pangaea

I'd say the game already is fairly kid friendly, in the sense that it doesn't have visual violence. All this nonsense with human hats, slavery and organ theft isn't something people need to do. I don't, and have played for hundreds upon hundreds of hours.

What is cool about the game, and may make it suitable for children too, is the creative and problem solving aspects. Even at low difficulties, the game will throw problems your way, and then you need to try to solve it. And you can build bases however you want, only the imagination stops you. And that is certainly not a problem for kids ;)

Ofc ourse there are raiders and gunfights and people die, so it's hardly Sesame Street, and I kinda doubt you can entirely remove that from the game. Maybe you can disable all hostile factions and godmode/mod relations to be +100 with everybody else or something like that, and that would stop or greatly reduce raids. I don't know, but it's such a core part of the game that without it, you're kinda just left with base building.

The game is sort of a creative playground, so in that sense it's fitting for children. The rest... you have to decide yourself I suppose.

josefrees

Thank you for this post. You have put into words what I would have said on the subject. Can you say more? It's like you are speaking for me. The way the challenge system is setup you can tailor not your own needs. War criminals cry about war crimes, why does no one cry about helpers and saving everyone.
Also think there is too much thought going into the question. How do I prevent w hungry lynx from eating a rabbit? Cry or tame it?

I thought I was crazy until I thought kid friendly Rimworld meant how do I explain charizard roasting squirrel for dinner because I was raising a gamer instead of some minecraftian LMFAO

khun_poo

You could create a scenario that force every pawn to be non-violent, remove all hostile faction, set AI storyteller to be Peaceful or custom and toggle every hostile event off.

Ilya

8yo is old enough to get the full rimworld experience. You don't need to change anything. It's actually pretty tame compared to a lot of things that kids see. Just make sure to start her on an easy difficulty setting so she doesn't become too frustrated by the difficulty, but don't completely remove events and raids because it's good for kids to learn to struggle and solve problems.

Canute

Hey dad.
The doc said you are sick, your heart is broken.
Lets grab the next salesman who knock at the door, imprison him at the cellar, then the doc can get his heart for you.
See you later at the hospital, after i finished playing Rimworld.

DreamHollow

Quote from: josefrees on October 16, 2022, 12:36:56 AM
This is the only game where I can have my little pony, Pokémon, Magic, and basically whatever anyone would want. She's 8.

Personally I don't think it would be that hard all the options are there I'm just not sure how to enact them. My main priorities are keeping violence to a minimum and solvable. I'm mostly worried about random event stuff I guess but I am sure you all can show me some other pitfalls.

There are probably easier games to make kid friendly but this is the only game I can think of where the storytellers are so malleable to the gamers' desire

Sorry to say that you would have to cut a lot of the Core content.

The game is filled with references to fictional drugs, violent weapons, atrocities, dangerous warbands, raiders, lethal world events (like radioactive fallout), and that's just the stuff that I can think of from the top of my head.

If you found someone passionate enough to mod out most of the Core content and replace it with completely different stuff, it could maybe work, but the effort required to do so would practically make RimWorld an entirely different game.