Video games are often about shooting things because that is an easy mechanic to implement. You make a bullet appear in your world, have it travel across the board, and see if it hits anything. Or, you point the “gun” at an alien, draw an imaginary line between the gun and that alien. If the line touches that alien, pow! Fire off the gruesome death animations and cue the visceral sound.

Guns are often easy to create and fun for the player to shoot off, that’s why we see a lot of shooter games out there. I play a lot of games with guns in them, so I have little to no standing to say that games with guns are bad.

I myself do not design games with guns. I believe in the power of alternatives.

I practice a martial art called Aikido. Aikido’s approach to martial arts can be seen as sort of oddball. Most martial arts teach you how to efficiently break bones and cause bodily injury, and to go all out right away. I see it like handing someone a gun and teaching them that the gun is the best tool to use in most if not all situations of conflict. The problem is that once you pull a gun, it really escalates a situation.

Aikido teaches us that sometimes deadly force is necessary, but we must be aware of the situation. Often we can bring the situation to a point where the attacker realizes that they must stop or get really hurt. We can go all out (pull a gun) if we have to, but we don’t always have to.

So what’s that have to do with games? I like to design games and stories where players don’t have easy access to the power of guns and must devise other ways of getting out of problems. Those games aren’t nearly as showy, but I think they can be more satisfying especially when the player is cast into the role of the underdog.

Later this week I’m going to write a bit about the disappearance of the underdog in a lot of popular culture.