Hello everyone! We are a two brother team who live Sofia, Bulgaria. Yes, the literal City 17 from Half-Life 2. We are making a game inspired by the book Obedience to Authority as well as media such as Papers, Please and the show Severance.
Here in Eastern Europe we have experience and past with harsh authority and authoritarianism. I mean look at our oppressive leftover architecture and forgotten symbols of authority. I guess the subject has always interested me… “Why do good people follow evil orders?”
What ever prejudice some media might have against people in Eastern Europe, I assure you we are some of the hardest working and welcoming people you will ever meet! And our game explores if you obey orders and how does your moral compass work (if at all). I invite you to wishlist it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2719670/The_Milgram_Experiment/
The Milgram angle fits games really well, because the player already comes in trained to do whatever the interface tells them. Papers, Please worked because the rulebook itself was the authority, and you only noticed what you’d been doing when it was too late. Curious how you handle players who refuse from the very first order: does the game let that be a real ending?
That’s a psychological horror of a different color
I read an article once that argued that the Milgram experiment is universally misunderstood.
(in Psych101 they’ll tell you that the experiment proves that people will harm each other by being obedient to authority. A person in a lab coat is the authority in this case. people obeyed the lab-coat guy like 95% of the time)
In the years between the experiment becoming famous and it being banned by ethical boards, many variations on the experiment were tried. Most interesting was a variation where the lab-coat guy was replaced by a police or army guy. In these experiments, the willingness of the participants flipped. With 90+% of the participants refusing to obey. This strongly suggests that what was compelling about the lab-coat guy was not authority after all.
The article argued that the difference was people thought of the lab-coat guy as science and their participation wasn’t obedience to authority, but rather a sense of duty to the greater good. (culture regarded scientists and science very differently in the 50s & 60s).
The Milgram experiment was a whole genre of psychological study I’ll call “why Nazi”. I think the idea that people will obey authority even when it’s evil is much less scary than the idea that your every-day Nazi thought he was helping; thought that a few wicked deeds now would lead to the best future for the most people.
How can I uninstall this?
Steam -> Library -> Milgram Demo -> cog icon above “Notes” -> Manage -> Uninstall
or you can use the uninstall method of your OS (IIRC, for Windows it’s Programs -> Uninstall, for Linux you might need to look it up… but if you’re using Linux, you probably don’t need advice for this :P)
No. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I hate playing “IRL” How can I safely uninstall
I played the demo and it’s a lot of fun. I still fully believe that painless execution of the driver is the correct choice for Test 2.
Good luck with this! I’m always excited to play games that try something different. I wish listed this.
Oh thank you so much! Yeah, I hope it doesn’t get AI cloned since it’s mostly about the story, narrative and player choices!
Looks right up my alley. I’ll definitely be checking it out.
Yes, I play Rimworld, the unnessecary amputation simulator where it’s ok to turn defiant slaves into fuel in a bioreactor as long as nobody sees you doing it, and nobody needs to ask how I have a dog leather couch.
I don’t know if you remember but I tested the demo a while back. I’m looking forward to seeing the final game. Congratulations for all you’ve accomplished.
Yes, I miss games that don’t treat you like a child with a short attention span.
I play games to escape, not to highlight reality, so no, I would not play a game like that. I stopped playing Witcher 3 because of the moral ambiguity in many quests.
I still think about Papers Please after almost ten years. I won’t play it again but it left a mark. I will play your game too. Looks dope! Congratulations!
No. I bought Gods Will Be Watching, got halfway through and just couldn’t handle it anymore. Twice.
But good luck with your game. Sounds interesting!
I think Frostpunk is a bit like this
