[Release Date: February 28, 2023] How would you make a game about a topic as important, complex, hard to talk about,, and NOT fun at all as domestic violence against children? We chat with Mathew Staunton about his game in progress on this topic and the ethical and design challenges it faces.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: Alright, Hello, everybody! we’re here with a Matthew Stanton, a Phd. Originally from a Northern Dublin Ireland. he’s a historian, publisher, printmaker currently teaching and supervising research in the printed image department of the Eco the arts decorative in Paris, France.
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Shlomo Sher: His main research interest on the aesthetics of Irish Nationalism and the History Historiography of Child, M. Maltreatment on the Island of Ireland. And notice I didn’t say anything about video games in there.
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Shlomo Sher: and this is what makes it so interesting. Right?
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Shlomo Sher: for several years he’s been working with artists, musicians, and academics to develop an experimental historical practice to propose a healthy public discussion of child maltreatment, and we’re here to talk about the game that he’s been working on on a childbel treatment. Matthew Stanton. Welcome to the show!
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Mathew Staunton: Thanks for having me and Happy New Year. It’s the I think you’re the first adults I’ve had a chance to say that to cause I’ve I’ve said it’s a lot to children. But I was grown up to get that so Happy New Year. I hope it’s a a better one than
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Shlomo Sher: then last year it can’t be too difficult. But thank you very much. Yeah. So i’m, i’m hoping for a better year for sure. Yeah, I I always want a better year, though you know they you know I feel like they keep getting better for me. I’m. I’m on the up and up now.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah, th. This is our first episode, recorded in 2,023 right which is just awesome, so, Bethie, let’s jump into it. You’re a historian.
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Shlomo Sher: and you’re making a game about child abuse. Those 2 things seem really far apart.
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Shlomo Sher: how did you get to the point where you designed in this game?
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Mathew Staunton: Well.
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Mathew Staunton: as you as you can imagine, a child abuse is a difficult subject to talk about in in public. It’s a difficult subject to
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Mathew Staunton: to keep people
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni focused on, because their first instinct is to go away and get out of the room and go and see if there’s a better talk going on in the in the next room, 250,
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Mathew Staunton: and very quickly. When I, when I started to
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Mathew Staunton: to talk about the history of child maltreatment. At conferences I realized that it was. It was very difficult to to connect with people.
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Mathew Staunton: If I was doing something that was purely
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Mathew Staunton: historical looking up
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Mathew Staunton: data, looking at archives.
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Mathew Staunton: I’m. I
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Mathew Staunton: I I started trying to connect more with people
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Mathew Staunton: and to talk about my own experiences. What i’d seen in school what i’d seen as a child
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Mathew Staunton: in
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Mathew Staunton: in Dublin
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Mathew Staunton: and to try to to make a connection and to provoke an emotional response rather than an intellectual response.
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Mathew Staunton: And
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Mathew Staunton: I was in a few conferences where I was with colleagues who are doing something a little bit more academic.
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Mathew Staunton: and the people in the audience were in associations of survivors of maltreatment, and they didn’t connect at all with the academic approach. They
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Mathew Staunton: they switched off
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Mathew Staunton: when I try to do something a little bit more.
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Mathew Staunton: Maybe
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Mathew Staunton: it was a little bit awkward. It was a little bit clumsy at the beginning, because I didn’t know how to. I didn’t have the structures to do that
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Mathew Staunton: They connected immediately. So
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Mathew Staunton: I started to look for ways for things that made me feel something, and
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Mathew Staunton: I came across
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Mathew Staunton: Brenda Romero and the the
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Mathew Staunton: The mechanic is the message series that she did, and I never managed to play any of the games, because
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Mathew Staunton: with those games there’s one copy of each, and but the idea
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Mathew Staunton: got me
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Mathew Staunton: got me all excited that that something could happen in a game that could completely turn your stomach upside down
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Mathew Staunton: on. Make you
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Mathew Staunton: rethink what you’re doing, or put you in a position where you have to make a moral decision that’s absolutely repugnant.
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Mathew Staunton: and
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Mathew Staunton: it’s the closest. I think you can get
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Mathew Staunton: without doing something that is actually repugnance to experiencing something of
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Mathew Staunton: some of these things we look at in history
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Mathew Staunton: with with Brenda. Romero does it. She had a game. She has a game on the colonization of Ireland
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni, which is quite emotional as a a a subject for Irish people. She has a game about the putting people in trains during the holocaust to go to the death camps one
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Mathew Staunton: and a game about
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Mathew Staunton: exploiting migrant workers in in restaurants. So some very different subjects. But there’s a there’s an emotional impact, and I said, well, that that’s
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Mathew Staunton: something that I could potentially do.
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Mathew Staunton: and I had also come across a game that you probably know very well this war of mine, the Polish game, I mean it’s it’s had such a huge impact, I think, on the on the landscape of of of game design and and and
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Mathew Staunton: it’s I mean, they’ve put it on the curriculum in in Poland. Now in the schools. It’s really
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Mathew Staunton: yeah, it’s it’s. I think it’s the first video game that’s ever been put on the reading list in in in a in secondary school context.
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Mathew Staunton: And I went back to it while I was thinking about
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Mathew Staunton: coming on to your podcast, and I hadn’t played it for a while because it’s a different. It’s a devastating game to play your
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Mathew Staunton: and they’ve added a Dlc. And it’s with children, and I haven’t noticed that going through.
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Mathew Staunton: and it’s even worse now, because you have a child to look after, and when you leave the house your child is is by herself in the house, and you come back, and the child is there on the floor. The house has been broken into. You’ve just had to hit a priest with a shovel
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Mathew Staunton: You’re devastated because you’ve been doing horrible things to get food for your child, your child. I have to face burglars. It’s
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Mathew Staunton: it’s it’s it’s not a game that you could
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Mathew Staunton: describe as as fun or entertaining, or or but
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Mathew Staunton: it it it makes you feel something.
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Mathew Staunton: And and there’s a this, the game element of of the challenge of the strategy.
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Shlomo Sher: a party. You can win it. I’ve never gotten through. All my people always get killed. I’ve I’ve read that of the millions who played it. 2 or 3 finished it that they intentionally made it very, very hard to win, because essentially they’re like it’s extremely difficult to survive, and they wanted to convey the tragedy even more. Yeah, I I love that. I love all these influences. And that, Brenda Romero is.
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Shlomo Sher: you know, launching all these other people into doing things like this is is really great.
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Shlomo Sher: you know I I speaking of this war of mine, because you know
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Shlomo Sher: I I I was, you know, when when
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Shlomo Sher: When
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Shlomo Sher: I heard that you were making a game about child abuse I, You know I was like. Has anybody else made a game about child abuse. It seems like a a rich topic, right so I googled it, and the first 2 things I ran into were old games where you got the beat up, Kits.
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Shlomo Sher: and you know that was that was the idea right now, you know.
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Shlomo Sher: I’m assuming that that’s not what you have you have in mind, right? But you know those games were supposed to be fun, and I think it’s easy to get how beating up on kids in a video game Might be fun to some people in a comic sense. Right? Right? All right, Angela Mery. Kind of you know. Shot shot comedy.
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Shlomo Sher: sure, right. but you know.
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Shlomo Sher: whether or not you think that sounds like You’re kind of fun. You can see how these people thought it might be fun. A serious game about child abuse like this war of mine is not about fun.
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Shlomo Sher: No, and I mean, don’t we play games for fun, right? I mean, what specifically were you trying to get the player to understand or to get from a game like this? If fun is not the objective.
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Shlomo Sher: Now, mind you mean Andy kind of talk differently about this. Andy says, Well, there’s different types of fun.
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Shlomo Sher: I don’t think fun is the right way to talk about a game like this war of mine. But you take it any way you want to take it.
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Mathew Staunton: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think some people think it’s fun to jump off of buildings and and base jump with a parachute, and that’s the opposite of fun as far as i’m concerned, or or
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Mathew Staunton: on on a roller coaster, I mean, and and and people, I think, when they go and see a horror film they’re doing something that
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni, because there there’s a moment. There’s an hour and a half 2 h where they can. They can experience something that they they can’t experience in real life, and I don’t think that’s fun, but it’s it’s a moment where you can have some form of 150.
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A Ashcraft: You can release something, or you can. You can be provoked into thinking. And that’s I’ve I’ve I’ve come to. I’ve come to realize that Catharsis is one of the things on my list of of different kinds of fun. And Catharsis is really important.
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Mathew Staunton: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s what i’m.
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Mathew Staunton: I’m aiming for to a certain extent, with this this game. And but
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Mathew Staunton: it’s sort of more inspired by Brenda Romero. I’m. I’m. Looking to
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Mathew Staunton: get people to see the the system, to see the mechanics in real life, of of how
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Mathew Staunton: abuse
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Mathew Staunton: erez Agmoni takes place, but also how nothing is done about it which has always been my the enormous problem I’ve had with the historical approach to to maltreatment and abuse is that 150?
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Mathew Staunton: It’s happening pretty much in the open. We know that neighbors are beating their kids. We know the kids are going to school with with bruises and whatever.
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Mathew Staunton: But if nothing is being done, and I wanted to as a historian at an as a designer of this particular game, to try to understand one
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Mathew Staunton: why
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Mathew Staunton: the child is not being protected, and
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Mathew Staunton: to make the mechanic
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Mathew Staunton: of the game force the player to to understand.
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Mathew Staunton: And
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Mathew Staunton: what I’ve sort of come up with is the notion that we have is the problem with
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Mathew Staunton: and and America the United States. All of the
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Mathew Staunton: the the the British colonies share this this problem.
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Mathew Staunton: The the common law.
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Mathew Staunton: is not really
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Mathew Staunton: an ethical framework when it comes to to children and and and and the household it’s it’s a defense.
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Mathew Staunton: when you get to court
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Mathew Staunton: for beating your children
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Mathew Staunton: erez Agmoni, the common law of defence is that it was for the it was educational. I was. I was disciplining my child. It’s not an ethical framework. It’s the last. It’s what happens after you’ve gone too far, and you’re trying to explain yourself. There is no real ethical framework for how we 2,
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Mathew Staunton: not a a one that’s based in law, in how we treat our children in the house we have, because
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Mathew Staunton: I think it
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni, a lot of people would argue that you can’t really force people to love each other with laws and rules, and to look after each other. This is expected as human beings, one.
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Mathew Staunton: Our family connections are supposed to.
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A Ashcraft: they’re supposed to be loving. They’re supposed to be protective. They’re supposed to be, you know. yeah.
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni. So we’re not. We’re not supposed to be beating our children, but when we do there’s an enormous amount of flexibility in in the law the lines are very blurry, and we can go to court if we ever get to court and say, Well, I was trying to discipline my child but 1, 2
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Mathew Staunton: ere
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Mathew Staunton: repetitive use of legitimate force, which was a defense used.
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Mathew Staunton: It’s a defense used by the military that if we’re allowed to beat this guy once if we beat him too much, and he dies. Then it’s surely it’s it’s just we’ve gone too far with something that was legitimate in the first place, and we have, and that’s a that’s a common law defense.
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Mathew Staunton: And so there’s very, a very, very
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Mathew Staunton: vague and flexible
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Mathew Staunton: ethical framework.
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Mathew Staunton: And inside that it’s really only the moral individual moral
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Mathew Staunton: codes of individual people that stops children from getting beaten regularly. How I feel about my children
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Mathew Staunton: when i’m at home. No, nobody’s looking in the window and telling me not to beat my children. I it’s it’s how I feel about this stuff.
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Mathew Staunton: and up until very, very recently.
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Mathew Staunton: it was very difficult for anybody from outside the household to do something to protect children.
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Mathew Staunton: Most
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Mathew Staunton: of the the common law jurisdictions, like the United States, like Ireland, like the United Kingdom.
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Mathew Staunton: We, the Government, leaves us to do
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Mathew Staunton: as we please in our house, and unless it spills out into the street, and it’s very spectacular unless children die unless you
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Mathew Staunton: There are 200 witnesses. Nothing happened, so I wanted with the game
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Mathew Staunton: to show how difficult it was for
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Mathew Staunton: a child who is being beaten at home
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Mathew Staunton: for this fact to become known, and for something to be done about it. So.
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Mathew Staunton: and in the game
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Mathew Staunton: the the beating is, is
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Mathew Staunton: It’s
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Mathew Staunton: relentless in the sense that it’s going to happen.
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Mathew Staunton: It’s not something that might happen.
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Mathew Staunton: Children are being beaten
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Mathew Staunton: on
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Mathew Staunton: that. That the objective of the game is to
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Mathew Staunton: keep this from becoming a problem
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Mathew Staunton: with the courts, with the law, with the police, so the that the player plays as
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Mathew Staunton: the parents.
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Mathew Staunton: and they have to do everything in their power to make sure that it doesn’t go as far as the courts.
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Mathew Staunton: there’s no details about how the beatings take place. It’s it’s it’s a very simple mechanic.
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Mathew Staunton: but the idea is that the the first of all you have to have to be witnesses.
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Mathew Staunton: you go to the doctor or you go to the hospital. There are files
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Mathew Staunton: erez Agmoni historically. in the Uk. In Ireland we had serious problems, with the lack of communication between hospitals, between doctors and hospitals, between all of the different actors. Some some children who eventually died had been seen by 100 different people, but none of them were in contact 150.
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Mathew Staunton: And and I think this is a. This is a problem in the United States. If you go from State to State, they don’t necessarily communicate certain files between Ireland and the Uk: so that’s right. 150.
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Mathew Staunton: I wanted to show that
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Mathew Staunton: erez Agmoni, and it’s very difficult for the child. There is, in fact, there’s no real child protection historically in the system. What we have is is a limit which is easy to go over, and 250.
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Mathew Staunton: The currency in the game is reputation as power.
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Mathew Staunton: It’s a mix of power, reputation social status money. So I have a a cube for that. there’s a value for that, and that’s the other currency is injuries to the child, and you can
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Mathew Staunton: use your power and your reputation
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Mathew Staunton: to diminish the the visibility of the of the the bruises of the injuries. So when you get to the end. You have a stack of
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Mathew Staunton: of cubes, of of tokens that represent your
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Mathew Staunton: power, and you have a stack of tokens that represent
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Mathew Staunton: the injuries to the child, and if you have more power than there are injuries, then
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Mathew Staunton: you, you win that case. So the case is dismissed, and you go back. But you you! You’re losing
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Mathew Staunton: reputation as you go along.
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Mathew Staunton: The files stay in the hospital, so what I want people to do is to to look at how
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Mathew Staunton: erez Agmoni power works, and how the injuries of a child can be explained away. If you’re powerful enough, if you have a reputation one
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Mathew Staunton: which means that there’s a class
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Mathew Staunton: elements to it to somebody who’s got
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Mathew Staunton: who’s got power
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Mathew Staunton: is I don’t know if you’ve seen the new Irish film the Banshees of finish Erin.
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A Ashcraft: It’s it’s a lot of my friends have seen it, but I haven’t seen it yet. it’s getting a lot of really great reviews here.
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Mathew Staunton: I will, I will spoil it for you. But there is. There is a policeman
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Mathew Staunton: who represents, if you like, the the is the most powerful person on the island, because he has. He had, and he’s not. he’s not a particularly good person, so I won’t spoil it for you. But it does explore that idea that somebody with power can get away with
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Mathew Staunton: a lot, especially if that person is in is is the the supposedly the person who’s supposed to check. If you’re if you’re doing something bad or not. So that’s I I I I don’t want to. I I I think I’ve been. I’ve been talking a lot. And
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Mathew Staunton: have
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Mathew Staunton: have I been clear?
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A Ashcraft: Yeah. So yeah, it’s it’s, it seems. I mean, we haven’t seen the game so right right. Eventually, hopefully, you know you’ll You’ll I’ve I’ve offered by the way, readers to to the reason we we we connected is because he he came to me through my friend, and asked if I would play test this game when it was ready to be play tested, and of course I will.
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A Ashcraft: but yeah, it sounds it sounds fasting. So the the
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A Ashcraft: the game is basically a kind of a single-player game
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A Ashcraft: a parent who is beating their child against this the system.
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Mathew Staunton: Hmm, right?
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A Ashcraft: And so you’re not
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A Ashcraft: the game doesn’t. Have you actually beat the child? The the child beating is just going to continue relentlessly.
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Shlomo Sher: Right so so. And you’re You’re essentially trying to manipulate the system to get away with, to get away with it.
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Shlomo Sher: And
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Shlomo Sher: right and you, you know.
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Shlomo Sher: before we we we talk more about yeah, the actual game a lot of
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Shlomo Sher: what would really interest me here. So in my classes. we spend time, I spent time with my students. i’m doing kind of things like this where take take a social issue like, you know, the violence against kids and make a game out of it
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Shlomo Sher: right? And and and I walk through this process of of of doing that with my students, and I’m really kind of interested in how you and how people think about doing this. And I I wanted to ask you a few things about this, right? So
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Shlomo Sher: you know, here you are, you you set out to design a game that helps people understand domestic violence against children. One specific form of child abuse, which is also interesting because right, you’re choosing that versus child abuse in some sort of large
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Shlomo Sher: larger way, or because
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Shlomo Sher: even if you’re mainly focused on violence, there’s also other related dynamics right? That can that can be explored. So it’s interesting. It’s like you’re making your You’re making a creative decision there. as you’re trying to figure out what’s going to be the scope here. I i’m assuming that,
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Shlomo Sher: in designing a game like this, you face some special design and some special moral challenges and
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Shlomo Sher: and i’m really curious that what were the some of the challenges that you recognize or encountered in the early stages. When you were thinking about making a game like this, You know it’s a very creative, original thing to make a game like this. So I I right. What were you thinking in the beginning of? How do I do this?
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Mathew Staunton: I think the the very first
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Mathew Staunton: challenge I had was to avoid
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Mathew Staunton: making it look like the child had done something to justify
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Mathew Staunton: or invite being beaten
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Mathew Staunton: that that that it would be.
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Mathew Staunton: or to to make it look like the the parent was
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Mathew Staunton: justified, and and
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Mathew Staunton: should be having their case dismissed to to find a way to, to not blame
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Mathew Staunton: the the victim.
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Mathew Staunton: and
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Mathew Staunton: the the I think the idea that I came up with to to to get around that that problem, because it’s very easy to in court cases that the main defense was that this child was cheeky, or this child was was was difficult, and his brother’s fine. His brother didn’t get beaten, and it it it
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Mathew Staunton: it! The the character of the child is very often, even today, is, is destroyed in court to justify what the parent has done.
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Mathew Staunton: And so I there was some research done in the nineties. where they for the very first time they asked children in the Uk
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Mathew Staunton: about being being hit about being beaten at home.
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Mathew Staunton: and it was revolutionary, because these were very young children, and it’s very difficult to get access to young children and ask them
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Mathew Staunton: questions like that. The parents are never going to say Well, far, far away. Ask my children about how they get beaten
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Mathew Staunton: erez Agmoni, and they managed to get a a a small group of children, and they asked them, and they at 1 point they made a mistake in in in their questions, and they asked the children where 101
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Mathew Staunton: do you get beaten, and it was a pretty ambiguous question. They wanted to know where on the body.
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Mathew Staunton: but the children all understood it as where in the house, and they got incredible information about where these things were happening, and they were always in the same sorts of places in
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Mathew Staunton: in in a, at the supermarket till at the in the bathroom, when what the child was having a bath
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Mathew Staunton: at that time, when the child was going to be at the dinner table, at places where that that there was already a a certain amount of tension and stress and time constraints which were the
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Mathew Staunton: Erez agmoni, the triggers, and I think it’s. It’s safe to talk about triggers in relation to violence against children because it doesn’t it doesn’t blame the child. There are moments contexts where adults are more stressed. One
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Mathew Staunton: and somebody who has a propensity
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Mathew Staunton: for violence at these. And and so what I did was I connected up
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Mathew Staunton: for each day of the week. There’s a there’s a place.
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Mathew Staunton: our context. There’s a there’s a parent who has a certain
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Mathew Staunton: level of of stress, or and there’s a child who
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Mathew Staunton: a parents up the wrong way, or doesn’t, or or is likely to create a a
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Mathew Staunton: a problem in a particular location.
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Mathew Staunton: and the idea is that it’s impossible to get through a week
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Mathew Staunton: without something happening. If the parent is already
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni has this propensity for violence, and is overstressed. So this was the challenge was how not to make it look like the child was at fault 2,
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Mathew Staunton: and to find a mechanic to, and but also thematically to connect up to something in the real world.
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Mathew Staunton: the idea of of of locations that that are stressful, or that
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Mathew Staunton: places where things happen, and also the the indoors and outdoors aspect, because people weren’t
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Mathew Staunton: people do beat their children outdoors, but not so much because they don’t want to be seen, and they’re capable of controlling it
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Mathew Staunton: up to a certain point, so there are people who are a little bit more
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Mathew Staunton: sneaky about it. So to have this this
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Mathew Staunton: mechanic where some people can lose it outdoors, and their witnesses, and some people there they do it more indoors, so to show that
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Mathew Staunton: somebody who’s being sneaky to that extent. That’s nothing to do with the child and their their.
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Mathew Staunton: how provocative they are, whatever and and to to
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Mathew Staunton: but also I mean.
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Mathew Staunton: maybe an even a bigger challenge was to to make it not
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Mathew Staunton: boring
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Mathew Staunton: where, if it’s relentless.
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Mathew Staunton: how, how, what can you do To Where is the game elements that the child is accumulating bruises.
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Mathew Staunton: that the parent is perhaps losing reputation. But eventually
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Mathew Staunton: we get to a point where there’s a core case, and that the parent. So what? Where’s the game elements?
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Mathew Staunton: That’s where I I in the the exchange.
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Mathew Staunton: the the currency of of power versus
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Mathew Staunton: and with some sort of events that happen where
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Mathew Staunton: there are things that can
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Mathew Staunton: eliminate the risk or things that can exaggerate the risk. So there are some
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Mathew Staunton: surprises, or I so
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Mathew Staunton: to make it. Yeah, not boring. We’ve we’ve played through it a few times with My, I have a a a, a good friend, Michelle, who we’ve worked on a lot of things together, including musical projects. and he’s he’s got a more mathematical mind than me, and he’s very useful for for
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Mathew Staunton: not just for Max, he’s not just useful for that. So he’s, he’s, he’s he’s he’s, he’s, he’s he’s he’s he’s he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s he’s he’s he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s.
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Mathew Staunton: more, interesting, as a game, so that you need strategy, it’s not something you can win.
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Mathew Staunton: But like
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Mathew Staunton: this war of of mine, the objectives not to win for me. The objective is to
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Mathew Staunton: to feel
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Mathew Staunton: something.
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Shlomo Sher: you know. I I want to go back to how important it is, you know, for you to make this game, you know, interesting and enjoyable in some sense, and i’m using the word enjoyable in the sense that, the wider since Andy was talking about a better word might be engaging
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Shlomo Sher: all right, because I mean the whole point of this is, you want to take this issue, and you want people to think about this issue. You want people to be aware of this issue, and they’re not going to do that if the game is not going to be compelling.
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A Ashcraft: And so there, there, there’s your, you know. I curious. Can I? Can, I ask? I i’m I’m interested in diving into a little bit about the kinds of agency that you’re giving your players. So what are the kind of choices that they make.
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Mathew Staunton: Well.
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Mathew Staunton: They have a certain amount of.
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Mathew Staunton: I talked about the the the context locations, so I I I imagine that they would have. It would be a week that they would have 7 specific
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Mathew Staunton: moments in the week where they could. They could. They could lose their their cool and beat the child. And at the beginning you you get more than 7, and you have. You can eliminate one or 2 to reduce it to 7, so perhaps flash moments that would be particularly provocative can be thrown out, or moments where you would be seen. So
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Mathew Staunton: when we played it with Michelle what we tended to get rid of, where the the the public
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Mathew Staunton: contexts, so as to reduce the risk of of being seen, and and then.
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Mathew Staunton: and
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Mathew Staunton: you can reorganize the the week and place, maybe some events which are less
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Mathew Staunton: provocative after the more provocative one. So you can have a
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Mathew Staunton: highs and lowest. You could perhaps regain some of your composure because one of the mechanics is, is is around the idea of of the breaking point where you lose.
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Mathew Staunton: you lose your cool, and you can gain it back if you, if you go to places which are for this particular character more relaxing, or you can go to bed and get regain one or 2. So there are a moment that that the agency is in
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it.
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Mathew Staunton: not trying to avoid hitting your child, but trying to avoid getting caught. So to avoid the more
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Mathew Staunton: spectacular
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Mathew Staunton: scenarios.
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A Ashcraft: it sounds like you’re kind of managing your own temper to a degree
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Mathew Staunton: to a degree. Yeah, avoiding the more difficult situations.
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Mathew Staunton: And I think
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Mathew Staunton: I would like to develop that a little bit further, and maybe
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Mathew Staunton: when you get to the end, perhaps go back and and try to play it
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Mathew Staunton: with a an extra card, or to be able to create a new
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Mathew Staunton: and a new mechanic
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Mathew Staunton: to see, and I think
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Mathew Staunton: the the one of the
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Mathew Staunton: the
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Mathew Staunton: though the main reason I want to make this game is to discover something
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Mathew Staunton: that I wouldn’t discover by just reading archives of of events
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Mathew Staunton: like this. And I think one of the things that
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Mathew Staunton: that I have discovered is that
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Mathew Staunton: even though we’re not blaming the child, it’s clear that
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Mathew Staunton: the parents need help.
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Mathew Staunton: Medical help. Psychological therapy.
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Mathew Staunton: That may be psychiatric help that there’s
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Mathew Staunton: It’s it’s something that
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Mathew Staunton: if we had to go back in time
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Mathew Staunton: you could send an army of of therapists in there and maybe avoid a lot of a lot of right, do you? Do you think that your your game might might be useful as a tool of therapy, a therapy tool to to let people who are abusive see how they’re being triggered.
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A Ashcraft: and see how they’re
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A Ashcraft: and and and be able to see the systems that are working in them and themselves.
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Mathew Staunton: It’s a good question. I think
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Mathew Staunton: I have seen some of the moments where I lose my cool
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Mathew Staunton: while playing the game. I’ve recognized something about myself. My wife has seen some of those moments as well. I think. Yes, it’s it is.
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Mathew Staunton: even if it’s just tiny glimpse of something. I think it’s. It’s helpful. It’s useful. there are. There is a game I think, produced in Sheffield University in the Uk. And it’s for social workers to it’s about domestic violence, but it’s more. It’s like a race game where at certain points you
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Mathew Staunton: you face a there’s a scenario where you have to
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Mathew Staunton: to apply
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Mathew Staunton: the standard
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Mathew Staunton: the protocols of of of social work to that
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Mathew Staunton: It’s not you, Don’t, learn anything about the actual.
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Mathew Staunton: the the the perpetrator of the of the violence the and it’s not a game for potential perpetrators. It’s a game for social workers, and I think
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Mathew Staunton: it’s difficult to admit, but I think I can see
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Mathew Staunton: I’ve the potential for for me losing my cool in some of these scenarios.
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Mathew Staunton: If
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Mathew Staunton: because I have 2 2 ways that you can lose your cool. There’s the stress, and there’s sort of a
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Mathew Staunton: anger that that that has nothing to do with the actual. What the the time of the day, or the what’s going on in work. But you have these 2
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Mathew Staunton: Erez agmoni, these 2 elements that that can push you over a line, and I’ve been pushed over lines by stress, not to the extent that I’ve I’ve hit my children or hit anybody, but
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Mathew Staunton: I can imagine that there are people I can see. I have. I have colleagues who have been pushed over lines into all sorts of
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Mathew Staunton: then
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Mathew Staunton: horrible behavior. It it happens, and I think it’s a it’s a it’s an opportunity to have a discussion.
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Mathew Staunton: and that’s what one of the things that one of the main things that I want to happen with a game like this is that we a discussion like this, that
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that
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Mathew Staunton: you might have somebody say, Well, that reminds me of that thing I did, or that reminds me of me that that reminds me of my dad. But I, without sort of pointing fingers and and and and getting on the on the phone to the police, or but to begin to see that maybe I do have a problem with
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Mathew Staunton: anger or stress. If if that is something that could emerge from a game like this. Then I think it’s a it’s a massive positive
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Shlomo Sher: but I think it’s really great to think of a lot of these games, as you know. starting off essentially just jumping off jumping points for for starting conversations. I mean that’s really kind of the the the idea with with
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Shlomo Sher: with these types of games for me as an ethicist.
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Shlomo Sher: the the thing i’m always thinking about is so you know.
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Shlomo Sher: So where are you going to get people to think about it? How are people going to think about it? But and and I want to talk about about that with you, but before we do I’d first of all, let me say I, I think it’s
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Shlomo Sher: Well, I guess. Let me start with this.
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Shlomo Sher: you know. the game Detroit becomes human. you know. It had some scene with domestic violence against a girl by an angry dad who was strongly objected to by some child welfare advocates right? They essentially saw the scene. And in the scene you’re the You’re the robot because it, Detroit becomes you, and you are you you? You’re a robot.
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Shlomo Sher: and you are kind of You’re the domestic robot who’s supposed to be there with the child, and you’re watching the abuse, though you could also be an ally and save the child.
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Shlomo Sher: a child Welfare advocates. Ask Sony to remove the scenes or to pull the whole gate
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Shlomo Sher: because because of this they were concerned that that the the scene would be enjoyed by people who engage in domestic violence against children.
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Shlomo Sher: I know, Andy, that the skeptical look at your face I had that skeptical look, too. I was like, really. you know, I mean they they make the guy I mean in in that game.
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Shlomo Sher: The abuse of father is clearly the bad guy.
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Shlomo Sher: but but they were still worried that some people would like enjoy being the bad guy, and they were worried that this that this would promote norms that say that vials against kids is okay, right? So normalize. They’re worried about normalizing violence against children, which is something that I wonder about. Matthew, if you
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A Ashcraft: because
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A Ashcraft: certainly
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A Ashcraft: as a
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A Ashcraft: is it, it’s a generational thing. There’s an there’s a generational element of this right. There’s a generational element where our grandparents spent more time.
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A Ashcraft: you know, hitting their children
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A Ashcraft: than we do now.
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Shlomo Sher: And and a culture element right different, different different cultures different, you know, different sub cultures. In fact, I just just a couple of days ago had a conversation with a friend of mine who banks his kid. And
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Shlomo Sher: you know he was telling me about a podcast he heard about, where he said, the research against you know, get spanking is very spotty and very questionable, and you know I’m, I’m not an expert on these things. But notice you know there are different.
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Shlomo Sher: you know. there are different cultures here, and generations to talk about that would interpret these contexts very, very differently, right though the Detroit becomes human. case, they were really worried about people being tantalized
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Shlomo Sher: like.
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Shlomo Sher: and you know, to to me this one really too far. At the same time, though
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Shlomo Sher: your game, as far as I understand it, I mean you’re
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Shlomo Sher: you’re trying to help the parent get away with child abuse by giving the system.
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Shlomo Sher: does that seem to be potentially supportive of? You know, child, abuse itself in terms of the norms. Now I know that’s not what you’re trying to do. but you you see how those there’s an argument that you might be training people on how to get away with child abuse.
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Shlomo Sher: Exactly.
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Mathew Staunton: It’s yeah, I it’s it’s
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Mathew Staunton: it. It’s a it’s a difficult question I I I would have to.
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Mathew Staunton: I haven’t I haven’t talked to anybody yet who would be
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Mathew Staunton: who would be in a an association
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Mathew Staunton: to?
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Mathew Staunton: There’s sort of an activist in terms of child protection to to see how they feel about this. But I mean, I would hope, and I would be ready to defend that, that that that
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Mathew Staunton: the depend depending on how I called the game, and how I described the game, that it would be clear, and I would make it clear that it was about child protection.
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Mathew Staunton: And one of the problems with child protection is that the the
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Mathew Staunton: there isn’t enough child protection in the system built into the system.
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Mathew Staunton: What’s built into the system is is
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni, a willingness to listen to the excuses and listen to the legal defenses, and as a willingness on the part of of lawyers, no offence to any lawyers who are listening but 150;
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that
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Mathew Staunton: the the the a defence lawyer, in a case where as someone is accused of of of child abuse, is there to find all of the loopholes and all of the excuses and all that. The legal one
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Mathew Staunton: defenses that are possible. And I think that’s something that needs to be looked at. The the
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Mathew Staunton: and my game is about that. How do we?
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Mathew Staunton: Where are the loopholes, and how do we?
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Mathew Staunton: How do we address them?
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Shlomo Sher: You You you’re a Matthew. It reminds me of a game. I I forgot what it’s called right now, but it’s a Cambridge made it about fake news
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Shlomo Sher: I think it was about fake news.
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Shlomo Sher: and the i, and in that gain you are essentially tasked with the Your purpose is to try to use fake news, to essentially increase. Your followers increase your influence, and they teach you that the ways that’s done
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Shlomo Sher: in order for you to be aware of the ways that’s done right. So it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s similar in that way. But
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Shlomo Sher: it also seems. Suppose that kind of challenge, because my students would say when I had them play this game, hey, Aren’t, You teaching us to manipulate social media
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Shlomo Sher: right? Isn’t isn’t it, and it’s interesting as as the game designer. how it is that’s that someone walks this line. I mean your goal seems a really valuable one. It’s it’s kind of a it’s kind of a literacy aspect, right? It’s like. Once we become aware of how things are done.
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A Ashcraft: then we can not only see now we know we know how to do it, but we also see it when it other people are doing it.
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, right. I have another question for you. You You brought up the base of the the legal system, and I wonder if you’ve if you’ve roped in a a defense lawyer in part of your game design process.
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Mathew Staunton: there is a there is a there is a lawyer, and if you have enough
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Mathew Staunton: power left by the time you end up in course you can.
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Mathew Staunton: I, the lawyer
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Mathew Staunton: in real life, yeah. As part of your process for designing the game
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Mathew Staunton: Lawyers who were defending
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Mathew Staunton: the they were the defending the police. In a case of a there was a Peter following.
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Mathew Staunton: and they, the police, were also being. They were sort of on trial for a failure to act in in a in a particular case, and they were talking to me about the head.
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Mathew Staunton: and their defense was, and they were openly thought that these these children were no angels.
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Mathew Staunton: that this was their their line in court was that these children we have to take a look at what these children were like, that the the police couldn’t do anything If the children were seeking out and getting themselves into situations, and and I I mean I was pretty pretty shocked at that.
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Mathew Staunton: this this line, but this is what there
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Mathew Staunton: paid to do, and I I I mean
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Mathew Staunton: for me
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Mathew Staunton: we’re looking at a situation where there’s a there’s a sort of a moral
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Mathew Staunton: void
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Mathew Staunton: inside the house
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00:42:18.480 –> 00:42:29.169
Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni, and in society in general, that the void is. It’s a less of a void. But there’s still a void there, and there’s a lot of flexibility in how we we argue, and obviously somebody who’s trained 150,
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Mathew Staunton: and paid to make these arguments like a defense lawyer.
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Mathew Staunton: in a situation like that it’s gonna have all the arguments at the disposal that’s going to be very difficult with the child isn’t. Listen to the child’s voice, and in this game the child has no voice.
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Mathew Staunton: I think
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Mathew Staunton: nobody asked the child.
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Mathew Staunton: Well, what happened? What we have is that the parent.
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Mathew Staunton: Well, now, yes, we’re beginning to it’s just been written it to the Irish Constitution that the the the children have a voice, which is, I mean. In the last 5, 6, 7 years we’ve begun to see children being asked what they think of situations which impact
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Mathew Staunton: on the Health Sound there, there, there
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Mathew Staunton: their their lives in general. But that’s a very, very new thing, and it’s a new thing in general in the world where we ask children what they think.
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Mathew Staunton: How how do you feel about this thing that impacts him? Usually we ask the parents or one of the one of the other actors who have a a an impact on their lives, like doctors or or psychologists or teachers
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Mathew Staunton: erez Agmoni, or any of these adults. But we very rarely, historically ask the child, and I think, the defence lawyer is a person looking at actual cases going back a century in Ireland, for throughout the twentieth century 150.
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Mathew Staunton: You have on one side the defense lawyer with the parent
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Mathew Staunton: with or with the teacher, because we have a
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Mathew Staunton: one of the problems with
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Mathew Staunton: the the common law is that all of the powers
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Mathew Staunton: and the authority of parents is transferred over to teachers.
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Mathew Staunton: They have exactly the same power to to to hit children, and
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Mathew Staunton: there were often cases where you had teachers plus or parents, plus a defense lawyer, and on the other side you would have the the doctor
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Mathew Staunton: and the and the child at all.
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Mathew Staunton: And the doctor would talk about the the bruises, would talk about what he was. Usually he at the time. i’d see the George was always the the most of the people in the court were on both sides. Were going to be
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Mathew Staunton: that
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Mathew Staunton: men and
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Mathew Staunton: The child’s voice was never heard. It was
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Mathew Staunton: the the defense lawyer was finding reasons for why the child was hit, including the child, was difficult to manage the the the doctor single. I found bruises here. I I can’t say where they came from, but maybe it was a bicycle accident, or maybe it was the and and
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Mathew Staunton: and there was a discourse being created around these these these events by all of the adults. And I think that’s what I want to draw attention to in the game as well is that the the one.
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Mathew Staunton: the the the files being transferred as information being transferred, the defense lawyer is, is going to try to to create a a narrative that that’s that’s helpful and and in the end but it amounts to is, if you have enough power or money, or reputation.
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Mathew Staunton: and you have a lawyer that you can pay.
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Mathew Staunton: You’re generally
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Mathew Staunton: going to win at least once in a cold case the second time the George is going to say, Hold on! I saw you before.
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Mathew Staunton: you have a history. and this and and you’ve got
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Mathew Staunton: the situation. Unfortunate situation which you also have in the United States overworked
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Mathew Staunton: professionals in all of these areas, in the hospitals, in the police force, in in the criminal justice system
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Mathew Staunton: who they may have seen it. They’ll see it go go
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Mathew Staunton: before the rise at some stage, but not necessarily going to remember that it’s the same guy or the not this so much stuff going on, but it’s very difficult to keep an eye on that, and if people move around if they go to different hospitals, I mean, there’s a very famous case in in England, but they use in
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Mathew Staunton: in training
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Mathew Staunton: and social workers and training people in child protection. I had to do that training because I was doing. I was teaching art to some children, and I had to do a very basic one
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Mathew Staunton: level of child protection training, and there was a child who was, I think, killed in the in the end. But this child had seen 100 different professionals in in social work, in in hospitals and but none of them were communicating with each other.
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Mathew Staunton: so they didn’t know that this child was in danger, and the one person who had seen the child more than once, and who eventually reported them was a taxi driver.
439
00:46:39.110 –> 00:46:43.470
Mathew Staunton: because the parents had used the same taxi driver several times.
440
00:46:44.170 –> 00:46:48.470
Mathew Staunton: and he he had his own moral, personal, moral codes.
441
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Mathew Staunton: It meant that he had to go and tell somebody about it, whereas the doctors were too busy.
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Mathew Staunton: I’m not saying that they don’t have any moral cool, but they just they’re swapped, and and the doctors and nurses are doing 3 days nonstop, and I mean if i’m sure if you have doctors in your family, you they they’ll tell you that story about the the lack of sleep and
443
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Mathew Staunton: and
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Mathew Staunton: the the the that’s
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Mathew Staunton: one of the things i’m trying to do with this game as well is to draw attention to the weaknesses in the system.
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Shlomo Sher: And and you know, Matthew, I think this is part of what’s what’s really interesting, what the parts that I didn’t expect not knowing about your game right? I I assumed a lot of it would be essentially
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Shlomo Sher: focusing on the evils of the parents who are doing this. But, I like that. It’s not making you know this about the the bad parent, which is not to say that you’re not a bad parent. If you’re doing, you know, if you’re if you’re a committed violence to get your children.
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Shlomo Sher: but that the parents themselves are embedded in a system, you know, and that there are. There’s also cultural backgrounds to this. You know, my friend, that that that I talked about. you know
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Shlomo Sher: you know his Dad, of course, you know, would would span him, and potentially you know more more than that. And you get that as the idea of what’s appropriate, and what? Sometimes you’re even responsible. Right? You’re not a responsible parent unless you take your child that is out of hand and make sure that, you know
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Shlomo Sher: they are, they get the belt or whatever to make sure that they are held accountable, and how this is part of a whole social structure, and the system that could essentially protect. The kid itself is a system full of full of laws. I think that’s really great.
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Shlomo Sher: I want to move. I want to move from that to kind of what, Whenever you’re looking at a serious games like this, right the first and obvious thing that we think about are you know you don’t want to miseducate
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Shlomo Sher: anybody on on your subject right and i’m wondering if this is kind of
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Shlomo Sher: if the black and white picture was one of those things you don’t want to miseducate about what were the particular things that you were maybe concerned about. I want to make sure that
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Shlomo Sher: I get this right. You know that that I,
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Shlomo Sher: essentially people play this game, will believe this, which is true as opposed to that which is not true
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Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni. That’s a that’s an extremely good question. I think it’s a key question. I think. I mentioned it earlier. The idea that the the child is at fault in some way, and 101
457
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Mathew Staunton: is something that I I I
458
00:49:34.990 –> 00:49:36.089
Mathew Staunton: I I I
459
00:49:36.600 –> 00:49:38.550
Mathew Staunton: When I played through the first time.
460
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Mathew Staunton: even as somebody who had made the game, and somebody who has children and somebody who study I come. Wow! What i’m making it look like this. This child is triggering something, and it’s the child. That’s the problem. It’s not the the the system. So I have to. I had to. I had to fix that, and
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Mathew Staunton: I I
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Mathew Staunton: I think that there there are children who will rub people up the wrong way, who are of a particular personality. You can. I mean, I know, children, you put me in a room with these children. I’m going to get stressed. I’m not going to hit them, but they’re gonna My stress levels will go up.
463
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Mathew Staunton: I think
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Mathew Staunton: that’s not what i’m trying to say that that this is this is what leads to to to violence, and I think violence is something that is one
465
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Mathew Staunton: misunderstood. In general. I think we have a very black and white vision about violence is because of the
466
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Mathew Staunton: cinema because of literature, because of the way we talk about it. And
467
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Mathew Staunton: I think
468
00:50:34.470 –> 00:50:35.540
Mathew Staunton: that’s something
469
00:50:35.610 –> 00:50:39.700
Mathew Staunton: I I wanted to to I had to be careful with the idea that
470
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Mathew Staunton: I have cubes that go on the the card for the child.
471
00:50:43.990 –> 00:50:49.400
Mathew Staunton: that they don’t just disappear, that that bruises go away, and that that everything is okay again.
472
00:50:49.850 –> 00:51:05.049
Mathew Staunton: But there is a there’s a deeper psychological damage that’s that’s building at the same time that that I mean if you you You know about the the camp and the and the the battery child syndrome that that was that was
473
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Mathew Staunton: discovered and inverted commas in the in in the sixtys, and because of X-rays
474
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Mathew Staunton: we knew that children were being being hurt in the past. But we hadn’t got data because we weren’t able to check until they were unfortunately dead, and we could look in postmortem. And so
475
00:51:22.930 –> 00:51:26.290
Mathew Staunton: the ability to see children
476
00:51:26.770 –> 00:51:28.740
Mathew Staunton: is
477
00:51:28.900 –> 00:51:32.120
Mathew Staunton: and or or the inability to see them is what causes a lot of
478
00:51:32.180 –> 00:51:33.739
Mathew Staunton: the violence against children.
479
00:51:33.820 –> 00:51:40.119
Mathew Staunton: They’re not going to be beaten in public as much as they are at home or in in private spaces. So I wanted to to.
480
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Mathew Staunton: I wanted to to make it clear that
481
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Mathew Staunton: the violence isn’t
482
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Mathew Staunton: something that’s completely irrational and uncontrollable, because a lot of people are able to control it in public spaces, and they have a reputation for being a good dad or a good mom or a good parent in general. And
483
00:52:00.500 –> 00:52:05.509
Mathew Staunton: But when they’re at home they’re they’re they’re horrible to their children, so I wanted to to try to
484
00:52:05.890 –> 00:52:12.970
Mathew Staunton: to to find some, some nuance in the in the in, in in the relationships, and and avoid the black and white.
485
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Mathew Staunton: even though it’s a very simple. There’s not a lot of mechanics in the game. It’s quite black and white, but
486
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Mathew Staunton: I think what’s what’s not said, and hopefully, this is
487
00:52:22.080 –> 00:52:26.210
Mathew Staunton: that that that what you take away from the game is is something that
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Mathew Staunton: stays in your mind afterwards, and that you think about.
489
00:52:29.150 –> 00:52:48.660
Mathew Staunton: But it’s not something that when the game is like a game of monopoly. When you finish you go about your business, and you don’t really think about, even though I mean the original version of monopoly was supposed to make us think, at the very, very beginning about capitalism, and there was a version there. There were 2 sets of rules where you would go back and played as a Socialist and share the money. And and I think that’s
490
00:52:48.950 –> 00:52:52.929
Mathew Staunton: that aspect has been lost. The pedagogical aspect, and and
491
00:52:52.950 –> 00:52:55.079
Mathew Staunton: the I like a game where
492
00:52:55.560 –> 00:52:58.589
Mathew Staunton: i’m thinking about it for days or weeks afterwards.
493
00:52:58.660 –> 00:53:03.419
Mathew Staunton: And that’s the thing I look for in a game rather than fun is the is the
494
00:53:03.590 –> 00:53:06.299
Mathew Staunton: it? It? It never ends. It’s still going on
495
00:53:06.330 –> 00:53:07.380
Mathew Staunton: in my head
496
00:53:07.460 –> 00:53:10.470
Mathew Staunton: afterwards, and i’m thinking about what I should have done.
497
00:53:10.600 –> 00:53:13.519
Mathew Staunton: How could I have fixed that how could I have survived
498
00:53:13.860 –> 00:53:18.659
Mathew Staunton: Shouldn’t should have done something else? or that’s a terrible thing. I hate that.
499
00:53:18.950 –> 00:53:25.629
Mathew Staunton: The fact that this this is happening in this game. and some of my best gaming experiences are moments where
500
00:53:25.840 –> 00:53:33.890
Mathew Staunton: I I can remember games from 30 years ago where something happened that really upset me, and the games that were just fun
501
00:53:33.960 –> 00:53:37.620
Mathew Staunton: entertaining I completely forgotten about. So
502
00:53:37.700 –> 00:53:40.960
Mathew Staunton: the the thing I want to avoid is is oversimplifying
503
00:53:41.230 –> 00:53:59.330
Mathew Staunton: the the the the relationship, even though I have to keep it to a minimum to make it playable as a game. I want to have something that sits on a table that has 250 elements, because I mean it takes 2 h to set up if you could do a game like that. But I want something that has a minimum of of of of of the elements. but still
504
00:53:59.340 –> 00:54:02.010
Mathew Staunton: shows you that there’s more to it than you thought
505
00:54:02.380 –> 00:54:03.370
Mathew Staunton: when you went in
506
00:54:03.620 –> 00:54:06.259
Mathew Staunton: that there’s something extra that you didn’t think about, and I think.
507
00:54:06.870 –> 00:54:07.790
Mathew Staunton: and
508
00:54:09.900 –> 00:54:15.719
Mathew Staunton: I think it’s it’s it’s fairly clear. Well, hopefully when it’s, it’s been clear to me you want to play that that
509
00:54:16.000 –> 00:54:17.979
Mathew Staunton: some people just aren’t
510
00:54:18.020 –> 00:54:22.040
Mathew Staunton: fit in at that moment in their lives to look after children.
511
00:54:22.120 –> 00:54:24.659
Mathew Staunton: and it’s a difficult thing to say in our
512
00:54:25.180 –> 00:54:32.389
Mathew Staunton: or Anglo Saxon culture, where the best place for children has always been seen as the home with the parents
513
00:54:32.500 –> 00:54:37.430
Mathew Staunton: that we’re not really supposed to imagine that there’s a better place unless something really horrible happens.
514
00:54:37.460 –> 00:54:42.219
Mathew Staunton: But in reality it’s a difficult thing to say. But there are children who would be better off
515
00:54:42.700 –> 00:54:44.790
Mathew Staunton: with foster parents or outside the home.
516
00:54:44.860 –> 00:54:49.039
Mathew Staunton: and in some way, and obviously we have enormous
517
00:54:49.100 –> 00:55:04.569
Mathew Staunton: that the list of examples of people who were worse off when they went into foster care, or they went into a home where they were to done, and they ended up in a system that was 10 times worse. I think it’s a foster care. Kids in the United States end up in jail.
518
00:55:04.630 –> 00:55:24.400
Mathew Staunton: Yeah, No, but it’s something like that. I mean it’s yes, it’s that bad. Yeah, it’s it’s I mean it’s i’m not trying to suggest that that’s the it’s there. There is no easy solution. That’s that’s I think, the take away, but we it’s. It’s a discussion that that hasn’t finished. It has barely started this this discussion. I think
519
00:55:24.410 –> 00:55:25.620
Mathew Staunton: about child protection.
520
00:55:25.730 –> 00:55:27.980
Mathew Staunton: because if you ask a child what they want.
521
00:55:28.140 –> 00:55:35.019
Mathew Staunton: it’s very rarely going to match up with what the parents want for the child, is it’s gonna be a 1 million miles away?
522
00:55:35.120 –> 00:55:41.269
Mathew Staunton: What they need from from an experience in a in a home is always going to be very different to what the parents need.
523
00:55:41.530 –> 00:55:50.020
A Ashcraft: right, and that’s that’s sort of what one of the what are the issues with giving children? The voice in this right is that first off they don’t know what normal is.
524
00:55:50.040 –> 00:55:58.150
A Ashcraft: Yeah, like. Their Their version of normal is very different. And whatever they experienced, whatever they have experience, and they have an experience very much.
525
00:55:58.360 –> 00:56:02.310
A Ashcraft: And and another aspect is, of course, what they want
526
00:56:02.350 –> 00:56:06.229
A Ashcraft: is very different. That may not have much to do with what they need.
527
00:56:06.460 –> 00:56:07.100
Mathew Staunton: Yeah.
528
00:56:09.190 –> 00:56:14.860
Shlomo Sher: I I want to go back. There’s Matthew there’s there’s 2 directions. I kind of want to go
529
00:56:15.200 –> 00:56:21.039
Shlomo Sher: let me go back a little bit and and ask you, ask you this.
530
00:56:22.360 –> 00:56:35.740
Shlomo Sher: We we talked about the the Mis Education aspect, the the other big thing with these things is as a designer. You have responsibilities to your stakeholders and your big stakeholders. Here are
531
00:56:36.030 –> 00:56:39.380
Shlomo Sher: kids and their parents all right, or
532
00:56:39.710 –> 00:56:46.099
Shlomo Sher: setting out to do this. did you see yourself as having any obligations to parents or the children while making this game.
533
00:56:47.030 –> 00:56:47.890
Mathew Staunton: and
534
00:56:48.760 –> 00:56:54.000
Mathew Staunton: that’s that’s another extremely good question. You’re good at these good questions. I think
535
00:56:54.060 –> 00:56:54.810
Mathew Staunton: that it
536
00:56:55.230 –> 00:57:12.610
Mathew Staunton: for sure that I I mentioned earlier that I had the experience of of of giving a a talk to a room full of people who are in associations of maltreatment, survivors and Talking to a group like that. You have an obligation not to
537
00:57:13.240 –> 00:57:15.929
Mathew Staunton: trigger them not to start showing
538
00:57:15.950 –> 00:57:18.570
Mathew Staunton: pictures of dead children. And and
539
00:57:18.610 –> 00:57:24.369
Mathew Staunton: unfortunately, at one of the the talks that there. There was somebody else who was a he was actually a
540
00:57:25.450 –> 00:57:27.910
Mathew Staunton: a coroner, and he he!
541
00:57:28.360 –> 00:57:35.770
Mathew Staunton: He was used to giving talks to his peers, and he showed photographs of their children to a room full of people who were in associations
542
00:57:35.840 –> 00:57:45.150
Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni fighting against a child abuse, and it didn’t it was a. There was a horrific noise from the crowd, all at the same time as sort of a grown, so I think 150.
543
00:57:45.310 –> 00:57:55.000
Mathew Staunton: A a big concern would be not to trigger people who have suffered violence, that this shouldn’t be something where they go. Oh, my God, this is exactly what happened to me
544
00:57:56.530 –> 00:57:59.929
Mathew Staunton: And that i’m not sure for the moment that I have
545
00:58:00.390 –> 00:58:03.809
Mathew Staunton: successfully addressed. I think that’s something that I have to.
546
00:58:04.000 –> 00:58:04.979
Mathew Staunton: as I
547
00:58:05.140 –> 00:58:07.609
Mathew Staunton: that you can imagine how, in the
548
00:58:07.960 –> 00:58:23.990
Mathew Staunton: 20 years ago we weren’t, considering the the the the idea of triggering people wasn’t a concern in academia, and now it it certainly is, and we do try to to avoid it. But I think this is the subject which is especially triggering. If, if if you talk about something 150
549
00:58:25.260 –> 00:58:28.980
Mathew Staunton: something happening in a bedroom, something happening in a bathroom, something hot
550
00:58:29.040 –> 00:58:31.100
Mathew Staunton: as happening in a car, I mean
551
00:58:31.280 –> 00:58:33.159
Mathew Staunton: I I I I
552
00:58:33.290 –> 00:58:35.669
Mathew Staunton: think about all the films you’ve seen, where
553
00:58:35.990 –> 00:58:39.710
Mathew Staunton: things are happening in in bedrooms or bathrooms, or or cars, or
554
00:58:39.750 –> 00:58:42.859
Mathew Staunton: on public transport and train stations.
555
00:58:43.790 –> 00:58:45.730
Mathew Staunton: But at the same time, I think
556
00:58:46.270 –> 00:58:48.870
Mathew Staunton: I mean I can. I can be careful and warn people.
557
00:58:49.300 –> 00:58:52.080
Mathew Staunton: This is what the game is about the same way
558
00:58:52.220 –> 00:58:52.799
that
559
00:58:53.370 –> 00:58:57.019
Mathew Staunton: with with with sort of modern cinema modern horror films
560
00:58:57.330 –> 00:59:09.509
Mathew Staunton: I mean so many power films. Now I like I like our films. I think it’s probably my favorite shown, but i’m I think I have to admit defeat nowadays with some of the some of the the themes that are coming up in films. It’s
561
00:59:09.710 –> 00:59:12.229
Mathew Staunton: it’s it’s difficult to not trigger
562
00:59:12.610 –> 00:59:21.290
Mathew Staunton: and people, apparently, with some of these phones, and I think that’s that’s something I I I want to avoid by not going into detail about what’s happening.
563
00:59:22.030 –> 00:59:24.509
Mathew Staunton: But at the same time, if I say bedroom.
564
00:59:24.810 –> 00:59:25.689
Mathew Staunton: child
565
00:59:26.030 –> 00:59:27.380
Mathew Staunton: angry parents.
566
00:59:27.670 –> 00:59:31.140
Mathew Staunton: there’s enough information there to trigger anybody who’s been
567
00:59:31.370 –> 00:59:35.389
Mathew Staunton: who’s been? Who’s been peeking in a bedroom? By the
568
00:59:35.690 –> 00:59:41.839
Mathew Staunton: I can’t take any more information out. I can’t reduce it down anymore. But I think that’s something I’m.
569
00:59:42.620 –> 00:59:47.810
A Ashcraft: I think you’re I think you’re wise to focus it on the parent.
570
00:59:47.950 –> 00:59:53.289
Mathew Staunton: Yeah, and not on the experience of the child As to what you’re talking about is the experience of the parent.
571
00:59:53.360 –> 00:59:57.910
A Ashcraft: Yeah. And so I think that helps you in that regard.
572
00:59:58.810 –> 01:00:05.410
Shlomo Sher: I think it’s just a fascinating challenge, because you know, it’s interesting, you know, Any night ending I had a
573
01:00:05.490 –> 01:00:08.369
Shlomo Sher: you know we had an episode where we talked about trigger warnings.
574
01:00:08.500 –> 01:00:22.789
Shlomo Sher: all right, and you know, put the potential for trigger warnings. One trigger warnings were needed for for things like suicide in the game, or or anything like that. but here you have a gain that’s really different from the ones we were thinking about, where
575
01:00:22.800 –> 01:00:32.500
Shlomo Sher: I mean your very subject matter is serious, and your your cons. This is, by the way, where I think potentially.
576
01:00:32.780 –> 01:00:52.289
Shlomo Sher: you know, getting input from a child welfare advocate on this might be, you know, because obviously you’re trying to do something good and something very, very helpful, and something that will have an impact on people while trying to walk the sign, I think it’s a yeah, it’s it’s a very tricky kind of situation
577
01:00:52.600 –> 01:00:55.170
Shlomo Sher: to to to do some like this.
578
01:00:57.120 –> 01:01:05.960
Shlomo Sher: I I I want to move you now back to this to to the second thing you talked about. By the way, when you need we’re talking about these games that made you think
579
01:01:05.990 –> 01:01:10.810
Shlomo Sher: it it really remember, reminded me of when I played this war of mine.
580
01:01:10.950 –> 01:01:14.819
Shlomo Sher: I I played it in the morning, and I remember
581
01:01:14.910 –> 01:01:32.630
Shlomo Sher: the I spent the entire day thinking about a single decision I made in the game, and I felt guilty about it. I I thought, what does this say about me as a person, you know. and I I loved it. I thought it was one of the most interesting moments I’ve ever had in in a game
582
01:01:32.640 –> 01:01:38.980
Shlomo Sher: and part of the what I think is interesting about anybody who sets out to make a game like this
583
01:01:39.150 –> 01:01:42.239
Shlomo Sher: is, how do you create those things right.
584
01:01:42.450 –> 01:01:46.429
Shlomo Sher: How do you create these sort of situations? That?
585
01:01:46.880 –> 01:01:51.129
Shlomo Sher: Well, that that gets you to to think about it right? Because it’s
586
01:01:51.170 –> 01:02:03.839
Shlomo Sher: you know you. You can’t just tell the players that you know something like child abuse is wrong, right? I mean, that’s preaching it. Doesn’t develop any understanding on their part. They like. Of course it’s wrong, but you know that’s not really the point right?
587
01:02:03.850 –> 01:02:11.570
Shlomo Sher: On the other hand, you don’t want it to be a pathetic about the issue right? I mean you wanted to play the issue and walk away thinking and really caring about it.
588
01:02:11.620 –> 01:02:30.099
Shlomo Sher: so. And you want them to think of you wanted to explore right different facets of this issue. So what kind of techniques do did you use in this game to kind of get the player to think, because your goal is for the player to walk away. Really thinking about this, and it’s interesting that one possible way to do this is
589
01:02:30.110 –> 01:02:33.629
Shlomo Sher: to play this game in the context. That’s followed by a conversation.
590
01:02:33.760 –> 01:02:39.529
Shlomo Sher: Yeah, right? Notice that’s and for some games that are, You know that that’s a way to go.
591
01:02:39.940 –> 01:02:44.190
Shlomo Sher: What did you have in mind in terms of what you you thought would get the player to think about it?
592
01:02:44.610 –> 01:02:45.529
Mathew Staunton: I
593
01:02:45.610 –> 01:02:47.859
Mathew Staunton: i’m very interested in narrative.
594
01:02:48.100 –> 01:02:54.659
Mathew Staunton: in games. And My my dream is to have a game that has just one card or one tile
595
01:02:54.740 –> 01:02:55.680
Mathew Staunton: and
596
01:02:55.830 –> 01:03:06.280
Mathew Staunton: weeks of narrative, or where you construct something around anything at all. And and I think, I don’t know if you’ve come across a game designer called Everest Pipkin.
597
01:03:06.680 –> 01:03:08.370
Mathew Staunton: who makes narrative games.
598
01:03:08.600 –> 01:03:14.049
Mathew Staunton: and they have a game, a book that’s just come out called. I think it’s called the End of the World Game.
599
01:03:14.120 –> 01:03:18.279
Mathew Staunton: and it’s a series of epilogues for any game that you play.
600
01:03:18.620 –> 01:03:32.129
Mathew Staunton: So there’s there’s one, for example, where you have to go back in and fix everything that you did during the game you’ve just played. You have to put everything back in place. If you’ve done a heist you have to put all the money back. If you blown up the building. You have to read it, so it sends you back in
601
01:03:32.140 –> 01:03:39.900
Mathew Staunton: with all the knowledge that you you have from having played the game, but with a completely different objective to fix the things or to write the history
602
01:03:39.940 –> 01:03:45.880
Mathew Staunton: of what you’ve just done. And I think i’m interested in the idea of an epilogue, something where
603
01:03:46.090 –> 01:03:47.939
Mathew Staunton: you have to do, some
604
01:03:48.410 –> 01:03:57.120
Mathew Staunton: some writing, or some thinking, or some discussion, or some there’s a there’s a thing that you have to do, maybe go back in and add a card that changes something
605
01:03:57.310 –> 01:04:06.780
Mathew Staunton: to create a new rule, or to create a new mechanic or to move something, so that you have to see. It means that you have to to to, to to be aware of
606
01:04:06.940 –> 01:04:12.249
Mathew Staunton: of how the game is is working, and the mechanic of how the that the parent is protected
607
01:04:12.290 –> 01:04:16.519
Mathew Staunton: by by by the legal system. And then how? What would you fix? How would you change it?
608
01:04:16.540 –> 01:04:21.070
Mathew Staunton: And I, that that’s what I may make for is an is an epilogue where you you have to go back and
609
01:04:21.100 –> 01:04:24.109
Mathew Staunton: and and and manipulate something, or a for example.
610
01:04:24.410 –> 01:04:26.580
Shlomo Sher: that’s really interesting.
611
01:04:27.450 –> 01:04:46.289
A Ashcraft: And Andy, do you know games that do that of of an epilogue type? It’s it’s interesting. This idea of an epilogue type thing. I’ve never heard of it. No, but I do know that. Our industry has recently, and I say recently, like 10 years, 15 years now, have to become aware of of just how important it is to have a Daniel Mont.
612
01:04:46.370 –> 01:04:53.509
A Ashcraft: Yeah, that that a game has like. Frequently, you know, prior to 15 years ago every single game ended
613
01:04:53.720 –> 01:04:59.369
A Ashcraft: at the moment. You like the climax happens you the big. The big battle is one and over
614
01:04:59.560 –> 01:05:02.680
Shlomo Sher: right right right. But that’s actually not very satisfying
615
01:05:03.050 –> 01:05:07.980
A Ashcraft: that there, there’s actually a lot more satisfaction to be had. If you give players this
616
01:05:08.050 –> 01:05:15.629
A Ashcraft: this this time to sort of breathe and and understand what has happened in the game
617
01:05:16.010 –> 01:05:26.509
A Ashcraft: that there’s this emotional importance to to having this this, Dan. You want time where things become easy and things, and you have this sort of time to
618
01:05:27.360 –> 01:05:28.700
A Ashcraft: absorb
619
01:05:28.910 –> 01:05:30.980
A Ashcraft: what the game has been trying to tell you.
620
01:05:31.730 –> 01:05:46.690
A Ashcraft: and so an epilogue is sort of, I think falls into that category of like your players. Time to like. Think about what happened in this game, and and having a some sort of specific action where you’re where you’re forced to think about what’s happened in the game. It’s just a great idea.
621
01:05:47.590 –> 01:05:58.500
Shlomo Sher: Yeah, that’s really cool. Yeah, it it makes me think of all the ways you could potentially potentially do something like this. And and and how much it’s interesting, and how much of it is
622
01:05:58.740 –> 01:06:00.889
Shlomo Sher: training of some kind
623
01:06:02.140 –> 01:06:12.680
Shlomo Sher: in in in your context, you know, because you can. But but it’s interesting. This idea of you know the examples you gave. We’re all kind of fixing what you’ve done in some way.
624
01:06:12.780 –> 01:06:18.359
Shlomo Sher: Yeah. And in your game. Right you are the parent that’s getting away with it. So
625
01:06:18.460 –> 01:06:20.069
Shlomo Sher: yeah, I mean I don’t know you have it.
626
01:06:20.220 –> 01:06:28.239
Shlomo Sher: You have a change of heart. You realize you’re folly and you set out to fix the system, and you’re asking, what would you fix in the system.
627
01:06:28.570 –> 01:06:34.280
A Ashcraft: even if you’re just given a moment to see what the system looks like now that you’ve made your changes.
628
01:06:34.400 –> 01:06:35.040
Mathew Staunton: Yeah.
629
01:06:37.050 –> 01:06:41.669
Shlomo Sher: Matthew, let me. So this is, we never said explicitly. But this is a board game, right?
630
01:06:41.780 –> 01:06:42.410
Mathew Staunton: Yeah.
631
01:06:42.530 –> 01:06:50.420
Mathew Staunton: yeah, for for now I mean it has it? Has it’s got fairly simple elements. It could be a it could be a game for for telephone or
632
01:06:50.450 –> 01:06:51.819
Mathew Staunton: could be
633
01:06:52.040 –> 01:06:53.250
Mathew Staunton: pretty easily
634
01:06:53.310 –> 01:06:55.869
Mathew Staunton: converted into a into a video game.
635
01:06:56.440 –> 01:07:02.059
Shlomo Sher: I i’m, I’m just kind of curious, and I don’t know if you’ve thought about this or not. Obviously, there’s different
636
01:07:02.540 –> 01:07:09.839
Shlomo Sher: techniques, different capacities, different things you could do with a board game and a video game. and i’m curious if
637
01:07:10.000 –> 01:07:13.100
Shlomo Sher: you’ve thought of any ways that
638
01:07:14.880 –> 01:07:15.520
a
639
01:07:15.730 –> 01:07:29.080
Shlomo Sher: any advantages in terms of getting people to think, or any techniques about about getting people to think about this, that, might apply if you were turning this into a video game.
640
01:07:29.220 –> 01:07:29.779
Mathew Staunton: Oh.
641
01:07:30.010 –> 01:07:31.269
Mathew Staunton: but I mean, I think
642
01:07:31.920 –> 01:07:44.930
Mathew Staunton: erez agmoni for the moment I don’t have any flavour text on any of the cards, or there’s no booklet with with introductions. I think that’s that’s going to be extremely important to frame the game in a particular culture. One
643
01:07:45.120 –> 01:07:50.359
Mathew Staunton: so not in the present, because in the present we have a fairly well-developed social
644
01:07:50.500 –> 01:08:00.050
Mathew Staunton: Erez Agmoni services sector in in most Anglo-saxon countries, but in for example, 1,900 fiftys Ireland. There was no, there were no social social workers, 150
645
01:08:00.060 –> 01:08:10.839
Mathew Staunton: that the the the Church managed the hospitals and managed foster care, and and they they were quite happy with the level of of of of domestic violence that was going on.
646
01:08:10.930 –> 01:08:20.769
Mathew Staunton: but so that the Flavour text would be important, and that’s something I would transfer very easily over to a video game. I don’t know if you know the game and never alone. It’s about an Inuit
647
01:08:20.790 –> 01:08:22.689
Mathew Staunton: a child on a fox.
648
01:08:22.870 –> 01:08:27.500
Mathew Staunton: and in that came they they they’ve included it was made with
649
01:08:29.609 –> 01:08:30.219
Mathew Staunton: at
650
01:08:30.810 –> 01:08:45.860
Mathew Staunton: e Inuit spokes, people and associations, and they contributed a lot of cultural elements. There’s there’s texts that explain all of the cultural artefacts in the game, and that the mythology behind them, and the Inuit language is is heavily included in the game. 101,
651
01:08:45.870 –> 01:08:59.349
Mathew Staunton: and I that’s something that would work with this sort of game is the the the voice of the child could be included in a that could be voice acting for for explaining certain elements. And
652
01:08:59.370 –> 01:09:07.839
Mathew Staunton: again, that would you have to be extremely careful? Not it would be difficult not to make that triggering, I mean. But you could. I think you would need to have a certain amount of
653
01:09:08.220 –> 01:09:12.419
Mathew Staunton: I mean i’m I’m. I’m working in an art and design school, so i’m already
654
01:09:12.689 –> 01:09:15.610
Mathew Staunton: thinking about the the visual aspect.
655
01:09:15.720 –> 01:09:19.050
Mathew Staunton: and I’ve sort of got some very angry looking
656
01:09:19.229 –> 01:09:21.120
Mathew Staunton: adults and some very
657
01:09:21.470 –> 01:09:25.620
Mathew Staunton: fragile looking children already. so I think
658
01:09:26.220 –> 01:09:36.939
Mathew Staunton: that’s something that could be developed in the video game is the is the visual aspect, the the this, and and something that I haven’t talked about it very much. I I I’ve I’ve hinted at it as this the spatial aspect
659
01:09:37.689 –> 01:09:38.529
Mathew Staunton: I’m. I’m
660
01:09:38.680 –> 01:09:48.860
Mathew Staunton: playing with cards, but i’m creating a a space zone inside the outside a lot of the the the that I’ve done into
661
01:09:48.990 –> 01:09:57.979
Mathew Staunton: maltreatment is is is related to space. What happens in places where there’s no window where the doors closed well indoors, outdoors, underground.
662
01:09:58.250 –> 01:10:02.980
Mathew Staunton: So all of the things that you can imagine in a in a horror film apply to the situation as well.
663
01:10:04.030 –> 01:10:12.579
Mathew Staunton: so I mean, that would be very triggering again if you did a like a horror game. You did it. But the the the the the the spatial aspect, is extremely important.
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01:10:12.600 –> 01:10:20.909
Mathew Staunton: and that’s something that you can simulate very in a very minimalist way, with with cards on a table. But you could do it.
665
01:10:21.470 –> 01:10:22.459
Mathew Staunton: and much more
666
01:10:22.620 –> 01:10:25.270
Mathew Staunton: powerful and provocative way with the video game
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01:10:25.590 –> 01:10:26.950
that show space.
668
01:10:27.110 –> 01:10:27.849
Mathew Staunton: you know.
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01:10:28.660 –> 01:10:36.250
Mathew Staunton: So i’m, i’m not i’m not a programmer, and i’m not. but I do have. I mean people around me who would be able to
670
01:10:36.550 –> 01:10:37.800
Mathew Staunton: So to make.
671
01:10:38.590 –> 01:10:40.400
Mathew Staunton: That’s pretty simple game.
672
01:10:40.730 –> 01:10:47.000
Mathew Staunton: this video game out of this. But I I mean, I want to get it right as a ball game for us.
673
01:10:47.020 –> 01:10:49.979
Mathew Staunton: I’ve made a few other simple.
674
01:10:50.360 –> 01:10:52.030
Mathew Staunton: both games which have
675
01:10:52.170 –> 01:10:54.650
Mathew Staunton: really helped me to understand the subject.
676
01:10:55.810 –> 01:11:00.839
Mathew Staunton: The ones that I’ve I’ve played with with people, and the
677
01:11:01.180 –> 01:11:06.240
Mathew Staunton: the the result was I had. I I learned something from making the game, and then.
678
01:11:06.260 –> 01:11:09.169
Mathew Staunton: But this is the main reason I’ve made this game so I can learn something.
679
01:11:09.600 –> 01:11:20.320
Mathew Staunton: The fact that it’s gonna be playable with other people, and then i’ll see their reactions and hopefully learn something from them as well. The games I’ve already made. I I I I had one where it’s just like it’s like snap or war, where you just
680
01:11:20.430 –> 01:11:29.190
Mathew Staunton: putting cards down, and you have doors, windows, keys, and your opening and closing doors, opening, closing windows, and if you can line up
681
01:11:29.530 –> 01:11:35.519
Mathew Staunton: the the the the open door with a passer by, and then you play a an eyewitness card.
682
01:11:36.080 –> 01:11:38.099
Mathew Staunton: The the maltreatment has been seen.
683
01:11:38.130 –> 01:11:44.380
Mathew Staunton: and it’s very difficult to do that, because there’s only one eyewitness car, and I played it with. The the idea was that there would be one
684
01:11:45.960 –> 01:11:50.920
Mathew Staunton: only one door and one window that could open a close, and I played it with a like a hardcore gamer.
685
01:11:50.980 –> 01:11:53.459
Mathew Staunton: and he started putting windows and doors and all the
686
01:11:53.490 –> 01:11:58.359
Mathew Staunton: he was putting. So eventually we had 5, 6 doors, 5, 6 windows, and he he won.
687
01:11:58.510 –> 01:12:00.290
Mathew Staunton: And that is the solution
688
01:12:00.320 –> 01:12:17.659
Mathew Staunton: to the problem of children not being seen in rooms to have more windows. And that’s what in in in Irish schools. Now that that the ultimate solution that they found that actually worked was to put a a glass viewing panel in all of the doors in every room in a school
689
01:12:17.670 –> 01:12:28.610
Mathew Staunton: so that people could see. And that’s that’s something that we consider normal now is to have a lot of glass in a school once we have children, but it wasn’t good architects until the 1970 S. Didn’t. Ever imagine
690
01:12:29.330 –> 01:12:31.949
Mathew Staunton: that this was an issue, and you had
691
01:12:32.060 –> 01:12:42.760
Mathew Staunton: a very famous and architect urban planner in America called them. Oscar Newman, I don’t you might not have heard of them. You came up with the idea of defensible space, where.
692
01:12:42.840 –> 01:12:47.730
Mathew Staunton: if we if we we see if there’s a space over there or somebody is being attacked. If we don’t consider that that’s
693
01:12:47.820 –> 01:12:52.639
Mathew Staunton: space where we should, we’re not responsible for that space. We that we don’t go and help the person.
694
01:12:52.880 –> 01:13:02.269
Mathew Staunton: And this was something, I think, which happened. He developed this idea after an incident in New York, where a person was attacked in an alleyway, and 50 people saw one.
695
01:13:02.450 –> 01:13:04.540
Mathew Staunton: The incident but nobody did anything.
696
01:13:04.630 –> 01:13:06.690
Mathew Staunton: and he said, okay, Well, the problem is
697
01:13:07.260 –> 01:13:10.050
Mathew Staunton: is not just that people are reluctant to
698
01:13:10.090 –> 01:13:13.030
Mathew Staunton: to call the police it stuff. There’s a problem with this alleyway.
699
01:13:13.540 –> 01:13:28.869
Mathew Staunton: and he looked at it from the point of view of an architect. What’s the problem? The problem is that we don’t consider that it’s our business. It’s not none of our business. So how do we make make it our business. I think that’s something you can explore with a video game as well. The the the notion of line of size.
700
01:13:28.910 –> 01:13:31.219
Mathew Staunton: which is not so easy to do on a board game
701
01:13:31.290 –> 01:13:42.299
Mathew Staunton: where you lining things up. It’s a lot easier to do in a in a video game where seeing things, makes it your problem, or makes you, or being seen, makes you a problem for somebody else.
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01:13:43.300 –> 01:14:02.850
Shlomo Sher: wow! That’s that’s really interesting. I think we could do a whole hour on that. by the way, we have. We have done an hour so it might be it doesn’t seem like it. This has been fascinating, but I I I I I I think we’re probably at the point of of of of of wrapping it up, Andy, and let’s see, unless you guys have more questions.
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01:14:02.960 –> 01:14:20.219
A Ashcraft: because I think we’re we’re pretty good like. I said we could dive into this idea of like spatial responsibility. And but I think that, like literally, we’d be adding another 15 to 20 min to the show. Right? Right it is. It is interesting, by the way, to. I think this was Kitty Jervous, or something like that, I think, was the woman’s name.
704
01:14:20.230 –> 01:14:34.459
Shlomo Sher: but it is interesting, by the way, that you’ve got this line of sight thing with her, like everybody, you know, everybody’s seeing here in the Sally, but the line of site issue is not the issue. It’s thinking about the space as a space that needs to be protected.
705
01:14:34.520 –> 01:14:49.180
Shlomo Sher: okay, so Matthew. So let me essentially the the way I usually wrap it up is we asked our our guest to kinda what do you want to leave us with?
706
01:14:49.470 –> 01:15:02.820
Shlomo Sher: And I didn’t ask you to do this ahead of time. But, you know, if you could think of 4 men like, what do you want to leave our our listeners with? and and you know I want you to talk for less than a minute.
707
01:15:02.990 –> 01:15:14.229
Shlomo Sher: and hopefully right because he he he’s got he’ll cut this and and make it a promo piece.
708
01:15:14.400 –> 01:15:22.199
Shlomo Sher: Okay, right. But I i’ll give you. I give you a I’ll give you a little a little bit to think about it. So it’s not, you know. I know I’m just bringing this on you
709
01:15:22.680 –> 01:15:30.370
Shlomo Sher: and Andy. By the way, remind me to not bring this on our guess. Okay, it’s a. It’s a challenge.
710
01:15:34.450 –> 01:15:35.280
Mathew Staunton: Okay.
711
01:15:37.310 –> 01:15:42.830
Shlomo Sher: Okay. So if what? Whenever you’re you’re ready, i’ll ask you the question and and you’ll answer it. And then we’ll end.
712
01:15:44.000 –> 01:15:48.320
Mathew Staunton: Okay, I I think i’m gonna have to improvise. but i’ll I’ll give it a go.
713
01:15:48.530 –> 01:15:50.170
Mathew Staunton: All right. I’m ready.
714
01:15:50.970 –> 01:15:57.099
Shlomo Sher: all right. Matthew. this this was just a fascinating what do you want to live our listeners with?
715
01:15:57.900 –> 01:15:59.589
Mathew Staunton: I think
716
01:16:00.650 –> 01:16:01.510
Mathew Staunton: I’ve I’ve
717
01:16:01.610 –> 01:16:02.940
Mathew Staunton: What if I’ve I’ve
718
01:16:03.010 –> 01:16:13.900
Mathew Staunton: experienced in this conversation is that this is a subject that is inclusive and universal, using games to experience.
719
01:16:14.080 –> 01:16:20.599
Mathew Staunton: some of the the more difficult aspects of of our lives. I think this is something that I would invite to
720
01:16:20.970 –> 01:16:23.769
Mathew Staunton: the your listeners and advice anybody
721
01:16:23.930 –> 01:16:24.809
Mathew Staunton: to
722
01:16:24.900 –> 01:16:29.249
Mathew Staunton: try to to do themselves, to to imagine a game. Imagine.
723
01:16:29.270 –> 01:16:31.630
Mathew Staunton: a shared experience where they can
724
01:16:32.660 –> 01:16:39.169
Mathew Staunton: push the the the limits of their their knowledge and understanding of difficult situations. A little bit further.
725
01:16:40.490 –> 01:16:47.650
Shlomo Sher: All right. Well, well said, All right, Matthew. He’s time to say thank you so much for coming on our Thank you.
726
01:16:48.580 –> 01:16:50.500
Shlomo Sher: All right. Now play nice, everybody!
