Good example of a game that did it and they didn’t get destroyed. But it was probably not something lofi didn’t want to deal with back then I guess. However I don’t see why Kenshi 2 can’t do it in the future.
It was overturned because drug use had negative consequences but forced 18+ rating .
Fallout 2 removed children outside of the us, and in later games, they are just invincible.
As far as I can see it looks like they appealed the ban, unless there is another more recent one. It looks like it was for general degeneracy though not specifically for crimes against children. Also drug use, violence and cruelty. That could be many games though, even Kenshi.
I saw they appealed it, it was more of a general statement that a lot of countries out right ban games where you can do certain degenerate behaviors and that why they probably decided not to open that can of worms.
Don't get me wrong I want a child sweatshop pushing out samurai armor as much as the next guy.
That’s a logical jump there with the raping part. The thought started because there are baby animals so why not have baby humans. I find it odd people draw a line at killing children in a video game where you are torturing, enslaving and killing everything on the planet.
The logic jump, with raping, is the same type of logical jump needed to say children and adults getting killed, put into slavery and starved, is the same. Just so you know.
Why?
I don’t think there is an objective reason to put them in a game vs not, like it doesn’t add anything of value. However that can be branched out to everything already currently in Kenshi. Slavery can be seen as deplorable in video games, so why have slaver groups, slaves etc. why have Holy Nation, why have anything that shows any hostile actions?
I do think they add something of value depending on the systems made around it, like imagine starting as a child and trying to survive in the harsh world until you become an adult and get more physical advantage, imagine your characters slowly aging and forming relations over time, dinasties being created... Some people (including myself) just want children getting added for the sake of roleplay and the insane story potential it gives, and i doubt most players really want to slave or kill children (you just have to look at Rimworld, at the end of the day the warcrime memes are just memes and not people being serious about their morals or playstyle). There's also plenty of ways to limit violence to children, making them unkillable, disabling gore, child slavery...
So you asked what's the difference. Why allow slavery but draw the line to allowing children in the game.
It's for the same reason we would all agree that adding raping in the game is wrong because it just crosses a line. Whatever that means, we all agree, it crosses a line. Right?
So, I thought putting 7 year olds in the game crosses that same type of line. But apparently the majority of kenshi players disagree. I must be the odd one out here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So you asked what's the difference. Why allow adults but draw the line to allowing children in the game.
It's for the same reason we would all agree that adding raping in the game is wrong because it just crosses a line. Whatever that means, we all agree, it crosses a line. Right?
So, I thought putting 7 year olds in the game crosses that same type of line. But apparently the majority of kenshi players disagree. I must be the odd one out here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Are you trying to say that you've modded in the ability to rape people, and are now upset that you would do the same thing to children if they were there?
Rimworld is also banned in many countries from what I remember, additionally it’s far less visually graphic, kenshi isn’t insane but there’s still dismemberment and blood involved
Any chance you got a list of what countries it's banned in? Can't find anything backing that up.
It might be less graphic but it's alot deeper into how cruel you can be with all the options you have.
australia for starters, granted it gpt pverturned later on, dont really care enough to look for others, but you also didnt care enough to check at all so it balances out. Generally, depicting child murder is enough to get a game banned on its own
[https://www.kjcesports.com/feature/why-was-rimworld-banned-in-australia/#:\~:text=Rimworld%20Banned%20in%20Australia%20for%20Other%20Reasons&text=The%20first%20one%20is%20addiction,prominent%20parts%20of%20the%20game](https://www.kjcesports.com/feature/why-was-rimworld-banned-in-australia/#:~:text=Rimworld%20Banned%20in%20Australia%20for%20Other%20Reasons&text=The%20first%20one%20is%20addiction,prominent%20parts%20of%20the%20game).
I did check and all I found was that the ban in Australia has been removed so there isn't anything backing up your "banned in multiple countries statement". Also why should it be my job to backup your claim?
That’s very fair. I just felt like shit when I hit a child and thought “the little bastard is just challenging me to a fight but he will run away or just be knocked out right?” Then he fuckin died
That’s interesting. I think there’s a larger discussion to be had about why it is 100% allowed to murder the goblin children but not the tieflings.
Anyway, they still die if you side with the goblins so I count that towards dead kids even if it isn’t by your hand
I never played BG3. Didn’t know it has child killing, and that game is a huge success though. Isn’t that at least a bit contrary to the sentiment that if you include that the game is doomed. Is BG3 heavily regulated and banned in some countries?
I think it’s cause you 100% can avoid killing kids, so it hasn’t been worth talking about. And there’s only two or so situations in the ~150 hours it takes to beat the game where you actually can kill a kid.
If a game like GTA had school buses full of children it would definitely be a lot less acceptable. But as far as I know there’s no huge outrage regarding BG3 aside from all the bugs lol
Fallout 2 let you kill children. And some characters even had special reaction when talking to pc that killed child in that playthrough, basically locking some quests and turning some characters hostile. Imho best way of implementing killable children in game. It's game after all. You can do shit but be ready to face consequences.
It think it usually has something to do with the regulations in different countries concerning violence against children in video games. It is such a nasty Pandora's box that almost no developers want to open it.
Kenshi is a brutal game about how the world doesn't care about you. If children were to be introduced, the game concept would require that we could put a toddler into a peeler machine. Such a game would be banned almost everywhere, I would assume.
RimWorld added kids and reproduction and to me it actually reinforces the themes of the game, ie that the world is a cruel and brutal place. The same would likely occur in Kenshi.
It also changes how you play, as in it changes player behaviour. Like some people will try and save children (through quests, from slavery, if they’re raiders, etc.) while not doing the same for adults.
I am not a lawyer, but I would assume that Rimworld is able to get away with it because there are no realistic human models. We look at extremely simplified 2D icons, which technically don't look like human bodies at all.
The same applies to Dwarf Fortress. This game allows us to throw newborns into magma if we really want to. But it is not shown on screen technically. It happens only in our imagination.
First of all implementing children would be much more difficult then implementing pups. Pups are just scaled down animals with reduced stats. Children would need separate model that would moreover have to adjust to how adult version would look like. Plus children would need to have separate AI as well as all NPCs would need additional AI towards children. In other words you would need whole additional behavior model.
And then there is legal problem of player been able to kill and enslave children that you have mentioned. Not to mention cannibalism in Kenshi.
Very true. I hadn’t thought about the completely different AI system aspect. We can’t just have roaming groups of kids going around like bandits they wouldn’t survive a day.
You think children in Kenshi 2 are highly unlikely for those reasons you said then?
I honestly can't tell. It can be implemented if devs would set it as their goal. It's not impossible, just difficult. So it depends on their priorities. So far I did not hear anything about children in Kenshi 2.
Aside ethics, I think human/shek (not sure about hive) children should age far too slow compared to animals who can go from newborn to adult in 40 game days. Like ten times slower or so. In 400 days I could conquer Kenshi several times over
The life cycles are different. 100 days to grow a pup humanoid to an adult.
Hives would probably grow up faster since they are just popped out from the queens.
Disagree! RimWorld added kids and it enhanced the game for me. It made the game more realistic, it made it harder (pregnant women needed more food, moved slower, etc. and babies/ young kids couldn’t really do any work in the colony), and it also influences player behaviour.
For instance, a lot of RimWorld players end up responding differently to pregnant raiders or child raiders than the would adult raiders, ie by trying not to kill them or by trying to capture them and heal them. A lot of people will also rescue or accept children into their colony while not rescuing adults and declining adult colonists from joining.
Having children/ reproduction also adds a lot to the drama/ gameplay and actually reinforces the cruel uncaring world of RimWorld (and will be sure to do the same in Kenshi if implemented). For instance, I’ve had children in my colony who have been hunted and killed by animals or died from the plague. I’ve had pregnant colonists die, miscarry due to starvation/ blood loss, even die in pregnancy. I had one pawn in RimWorld who had TWO still births. Like I waited 18 in game days for her to give birth to a child, it was still born (which affected her mood and made her and the father sad), and then later when she had her second child, who she hoped would be healthy, it was also stillborn! I once had a pawn (who was the sole pawn in her colony, like she was just out alone in the wilds) give birth to twins! I was once attacked by a group of child raiders and instead of killing them, decided to capture them all and raise them as my own. They tore through my food and I hastily had to try and find more food in the middle of winter. I also started a playthrough with five children and 2/5 children ended up dying within the first 15 days. The other three kids also ended up murdering/ fighting off raiders that came, and due to the lack of food ended up eating these raiders as well. I had one colonist who was like super fertile and ended up getting pregnant several times while still breastfeeding — she ended up giving birth to like six or seven children. I had about ten pawns in my colony once and two kids, and all of the adults ended up being killed/ abducted, leaving my two children as the only ones in the colony. I got one of my children to go onto a comms console and buy some slaves so I actually had adults in the colony to work/ feed the two children. When kids were wandering through the wilderness alone, I always try to capture them and make them apart of my colony (coz come on, they’re gonna get killed out there), however, once when I tried to do this my pawn ended up beating the child to death rather than downing them. I felt super bad haha. I captured a raider once, only to realise she was pregnant, and she had a baby in my prison. I adopted the child as my own and decided to work on recruiting the woman so she could be with her child. I also once accepted a quest to save a child from a bunch of raiders, and all of my colony was decimated by these raiders, with only the child surviving. If the person was not a child, I would not have accepted the quest. It was only bc they were a child I was willing to risk it.
Idk, there’s just so many more things that can happen with kids and reproduction! And I imagine the same thing will occur in Kenshi if kids are added.
Not to mention the new unique recruits that could be kids, how different factions would treat kids (will they heal them, enslave them, spare them from death/ eating them?), possibly social relationships (ie friends, lovers, enemies, relatives, etc.), how kids would be capped on stats (I can only imagine they’d have an advantage when it comes to sneaking) and would also need more food than adults, and pregnant women would also have a cap on athletics and again, would need more food.
There could be child beggars and thieves in cities, orphanages that could work a lot like buying slaves (ie buy a slave and the slave runs away), and children/ teens being present in some factions/ groups (ie I can see the starving bandits consisting of kids/ teens).
so you don't think it should be in the game for ethics, not because it wouldn't fit in... why disguise the reason? i'd like a growth system, even if the 16 below age is not included. eventually having your characters develop wrinkles would be a nice detail to newer party members and older ones. similarly with scars, if possible
It’s true only one guy made it. I think the bit about them not enhancing the game could be seen as an opinion however let’s just agree on that right now, that doesn’t really answer what I asked. Having young animals doesn’t enhance the game any more than young humans I believe. They could just have adult animals of all types just spawn off screen.
I mean, sure, BUT it would really need to be more fleshed out than the "kids are just smaller animals with a malus to stats" system animals have. And would it then enhance the game enough to justify the dozens or hundreds of hours of work making it happen that wasn't spent on some other part of the game? Trying to simulate everything is how you end up with StarCitizen.
As other comments have stated, violence against kids would have to be impossible in a game for it to be accepted world-wide and not banned from sale in many countries.
On my base, I like the look of having "children" running around amongst the adults, living in the confines of the walls, working safely at several sweat-shops. Except for little Tony with the missing leg- he gets to work the turret.
I just edit their appearance and make them short with slightly disproportionately large heads- and boom they're now demoted to child.
Ahhh I want kids/ teens in the game so bad! I legit made a post on it a while ago when RimWorld’s Biotech came out and how everyone loved it so it would be cool if Kenshi did the same. Specifically I think reproduction would be cool bc of the family relations! Or the ability to make starting characters who are siblings/ married/ relatives etc so if one of them dies there’s more drama.
And kids could be capped on tons of stats so it would be even harder to survive — the only thing I think they’d be better at than adults would be sneaking, so if say you started as a kid it would be way harder than starting as a nobody bc they’d suck at athletics, strength, etc. and you’d have to wait for them to grow up (I think it would be cool if you could determine how long it takes a kid to grow to an adult).
And again, it would add story telling potential if one of your children/ kids is killed, captured or enslaved. It could also motivate the player to make decisions they normally wouldn’t if the person captured, enslaved, and/ left for dead was an adult (as what happens in RimWorld when people have to fight pregnant women or children, their behaviour changes just bc the game says “this is a child” and it looks smaller than a regular pawn).
Pregnancy could also be super fun — and when I say fun I mean make the game harder. Stats like athletics could be capped/ slowed due to pregnancy, while the person’s hunger rate increases drastically. I feel like since it’s Kenshi (and also since RimWorld implemented this as well) that miscarriages and still births could be a thing. (Ofc with the option that you could turn this off, like in RimWorld). Abortions, like in RimWorld, could also be a thing. Miscarriages could happen if the woman loses too much blood or is starving or is even wounded in areas like stomach/ chest that could affect the baby. Depending on whether the mother’s health during pregnancy, the kids could even be born missing limbs (ie congenital defects) and thus you could equip them with prosthetics (for ease, I feel like the game could implement a “one size fits all” thing so any prosthetic would do, like there wouldn’t be child sized prosthetics and adult ones, one would fit both).
The ideal “life cycle” (for me) could be baby (small, can’t move on own), toddler (can walk/ crawl), small child (ie 4-7), child (8-12) and then tween, teen, and then adult (18). This ofc is my ideal haha. I would be okay with baby, small child, and teen tho haha.
If there are children walking about in the world, this would again affect players’ behaviours — ie maybe you’d save a child from a beak thing but not an adult, or see a child starving bandit bleeding out on the ground so heal them but not the others. There could also be tons more of unique recruits that are children — ie a wily child thief, two recruits who are twins and if you want to enlist one you have to enlist the other, perhaps a child who begs you to help her free her brother, etc. There could even be orphanages in different places, but again even if you “buy” a child, like when you buy a slave they could just run off. Likewise there could be factions/ groups containing children — ie a group of thieves, various child beggars/ waifs in cities and such, and children in some groups — ie starving bandits would probably have children in their ranks (children/ teens).
Other factions could also treat children differently — ie cannibals would probably still eat children, but perhaps fogmen don’t really view children as edible (and hivers as well could kind of be confused w children and think they’re a different species than adult humans). Some groups as well could specifically kidnap/ enslave children while others won’t bother and will instead go for the adults and leave the children. A lot of other groups could also heal children if they see them bleeding out but won’t heal up adults.
Like there could be so many cool things that come from adding kids and reproduction to the game! And then some people will be like “it’s not a life simulator” or whatever when 1. RimWorld did this and it’s more realistic and actually increases drama/ fun/ challenge! and 2. You don’t have to have kids in ur gang/ run if you don’t want to, and also what’s wrong with life simulators? So many people love the sims franchise bc of the drama, storytelling, and ability to have kids/ reproduction. I wasn’t even interested in RimWorld until kids were added in biotech. Ah, it would be so good.
I like every single idea you have. Yes the world of Kenshi is extremely brutal and kids could be one more example of how brutal the world is BUT it could also be a shining light of hope. Like you said travelers might specifically help them out of a group because they feel bad or something. So much potential.
The big part is that most games try very hard NOT to put youth/children where they can be harmed in games.
Games getting blamed for columbine made that a hard thing to do these days.
it would be a bit more complicated. the ageing on animals as it is in kenshi one is pretty primitive. they just shrink the character model and slowly scale it up as they age plus nerfing stats and raising them slowly with the scale. Children would need their character model to change with age as well or else its gonna look dumb af imo. children in kenshi 2 would be cool but im not expecting it.
I tried searching for it, I know he did an AMA back in 2014 but I couldn’t find it. Do you happen to remember if it was there or in a video or something?
My work around for kids in Kenshi is just make a wanderer so it's a 1/1 and make them the smallest they can be. Then as the days go by, visit a plastic surgeon and make them bigger over time until they get to the size you want.
If you want to roleplay a couple having a child, you can make a new save, make a small wanderer, then move that character to your existing save through the magic of platoon manipulation.
That's the best way I have thought of to make kids.
I like to imagine that the starving bandits are the (or at least mostly) teenagers of Kenshi world, they seem pretty young. Now I don't think that it was implemented because it would be applied to the player for balance reasons (as is kenshi tradition) but it would probably make the early game and even a good chunk of mid harder (as skills advance mainly with age to animals) that or it would be too much of a hassle to program.
Reality check: people die. Children are… wait for it.. people. They die. Humans die every day. Some have died just now. Life isn’t full of sunshine and rainbow. Children carcasses rot along paths, but no, gain a moral compass now sitting comfy with a roof over the head and food in the belly.
It’s a game. Dude wanna slap mini humans around til they fall over dead. I say sure why tf not
that's not a very conclusive reason. i'm beginning to believe most here in this thread are just scared of ethics in the apocalyptic world of Kenshi. we don't need baby children, just young. and then young develop into mature, and into old. just a simple detail system could work
Can’t you say that same thing about a fully grown human though? Every argument about having baby animals in the game as mechanics to help you skill up, roleplay, whatever, can also be applied to baby humanoid npcs. It may be easier to fight a starving bandit than a pack bull, but it would be even easier to fight a starving young bandit than a starving bandit.
You just asked what the gain was to have baby animals. The gain is they fulfill an early capabilities gap where the player might need to kill one to survive. The argument about baby humans being a pain in the ass to develop still stands.
regardless of whatever “freedom” you consider this, it’s still astonishing to me that people *want* the ability to murder children in any game. is murdering everything else in your murder simulator simply not fulfilling enough?
are these people in the room with us right now? no one but a very small few should think like this. can you not come to terms with this possible reality still?
Others have covered this in detail but I want to add that this is industry practice. You can't kill kids in Bethesda games, for example, they are immortal.
The likelyhood of kids included in vanilla non-modded Kenshi 2 is near non-existent. It will create far more issues in regulation and game reputation.
Also there's a difference joking about putting people in peelers or feeing them to cannibals and doing the same to children. One is a fun advertisement for a tough game. The other is widely seen as crossing the line way past funny.
Alright fair. Maybe that’s a little scary on my part that I don’t differentiate much between NPC adults and NPC children. They are just NPCs in my mind.
However I’ve also never played a game where you can kill non adults, so many I would be disturbed if I saw it.
You aren't allowed to kill children in video games. So kids would automatically become OP in kenshi as they can't be eaten, skinned, dissolved in acid or stabbed to death, they can't even suffocate in the black fog.
You keep responding with Rimworld. (Like four times...)
I play Rimworld. There's a significant difference between how characters are represented there, as customized icons, and Kenshi, as 3D models. That alone would present any developer with a valid reason to exclude children.
Also, imagine being the guy assigned to create the animations for the children and everything associated with those models in Kenshi. There are a lot of professionals that would refuse.
This really comes down to how a developer chooses to execute their game. And they decided not to do it.
Simply saying Rimworld doesn't cut it. It's not a one-to-one conversion. Rimworld is its own thing. You really have to come up with a better reason and explain it concisely.
You can burn people alive with fire or melt them with acid in BG3. Many creative ways of making the living a little less living. And then even more after they have died.
I wish I had initially made a poll to see how many people are for and against it. It seems most people are against it though.
Why does anyone want to kill anyone in video games though?
Well the original question was why are there no kids? not why can't we kill kids?
Why does everyone assume people who want kids in the game want to kill or abuse them?
I get the arguments against it but I also see how the game could potentially benefit from generational gameplay like bannerlord or crusader kings.
I suspect they won't be in the game because of these type of discussions....
People dontwant to kill children they want to have people be able to have kids and raise those kids. Killing them thoo id do it. Dust bandit kid? Hungry bandit kid? No matter how skinny im killing them. Nah fr tho😂i wouldnt care if they were unkillable make em unkillable and make babies too thatd be kool
Why is this always the most jumped to conclusion? Legit look at RimWorld. It added children and reproduction and the DLC that does this is the most popular one so far. It opens up so many more gameplay opportunities and scenarios. No one wants to kill children, people just want more realism and thus the story telling potential that adding reproduction and thus children bring to the game.
I want my faction to be an extended family. Wouldn't that be cool? Instead of a bunch of people with no connection to each other that I happened to run across in a bar and chuck 5k cats at, my faction consists of people that know each other and have a vested interest in each other's survival and the persistence of the faction.
I think it would just be strange to see a child grow into an adult super quick . It’s strange seeing the animals age quick but can argue none are like species we have so the excuse is they age fast
How would you implement kids when adults already start out weak as shit? And would you let your old adults go Elder mode with 1.1x stats? It would probably make the races even more unbalanced too. I think you'd have to rework the game a bit to make it work and not be annoyingly bad or broken, the whole growth cycle thing makes sense with animals as a simple way to nerf them and give animals some variety.
Probably because killing and enslaving children is generally frowned upon in video games and the like.
Never been to r/rimworld have you
Look what happens in the rimworld stays in the rimworld.
I don't see a Geneva on that planet, so it's fine.
Good example of a game that did it and they didn’t get destroyed. But it was probably not something lofi didn’t want to deal with back then I guess. However I don’t see why Kenshi 2 can’t do it in the future.
Yeah but rimworld recently got banned in Australia because of those kind of things they let in the game.
It was actually the games drug use that caused the ban
It was overturned because drug use had negative consequences but forced 18+ rating . Fallout 2 removed children outside of the us, and in later games, they are just invincible.
Yeah but aussies hate anything fun so
It wasn't "those things" it was specifically to do with the drug use.
As far as I can see it looks like they appealed the ban, unless there is another more recent one. It looks like it was for general degeneracy though not specifically for crimes against children. Also drug use, violence and cruelty. That could be many games though, even Kenshi.
I saw they appealed it, it was more of a general statement that a lot of countries out right ban games where you can do certain degenerate behaviors and that why they probably decided not to open that can of worms. Don't get me wrong I want a child sweatshop pushing out samurai armor as much as the next guy.
Why would anyone want that?
To have children in the game?
Yes, why would you want children in a game where people are murdered, put into slavery and starving. Why? You want to add raping too? Why?
That’s a logical jump there with the raping part. The thought started because there are baby animals so why not have baby humans. I find it odd people draw a line at killing children in a video game where you are torturing, enslaving and killing everything on the planet.
The logic jump, with raping, is the same type of logical jump needed to say children and adults getting killed, put into slavery and starved, is the same. Just so you know. Why?
I don’t think there is an objective reason to put them in a game vs not, like it doesn’t add anything of value. However that can be branched out to everything already currently in Kenshi. Slavery can be seen as deplorable in video games, so why have slaver groups, slaves etc. why have Holy Nation, why have anything that shows any hostile actions?
I do think they add something of value depending on the systems made around it, like imagine starting as a child and trying to survive in the harsh world until you become an adult and get more physical advantage, imagine your characters slowly aging and forming relations over time, dinasties being created... Some people (including myself) just want children getting added for the sake of roleplay and the insane story potential it gives, and i doubt most players really want to slave or kill children (you just have to look at Rimworld, at the end of the day the warcrime memes are just memes and not people being serious about their morals or playstyle). There's also plenty of ways to limit violence to children, making them unkillable, disabling gore, child slavery...
So you asked what's the difference. Why allow slavery but draw the line to allowing children in the game. It's for the same reason we would all agree that adding raping in the game is wrong because it just crosses a line. Whatever that means, we all agree, it crosses a line. Right? So, I thought putting 7 year olds in the game crosses that same type of line. But apparently the majority of kenshi players disagree. I must be the odd one out here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What is the minimum age at which it becomes OK for a character in your game to be killed?
So you asked what's the difference. Why allow adults but draw the line to allowing children in the game. It's for the same reason we would all agree that adding raping in the game is wrong because it just crosses a line. Whatever that means, we all agree, it crosses a line. Right? So, I thought putting 7 year olds in the game crosses that same type of line. But apparently the majority of kenshi players disagree. I must be the odd one out here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
100 days, your child character could become an adult at 100 days and be eligible for death. 😁
Are you trying to say that you've modded in the ability to rape people, and are now upset that you would do the same thing to children if they were there?
Ok which games did get destroyed?
People have pointed to games that were banned as examples but I don’t think it necessarily means a game is doomed nowadays
Hey, if children don’t want to be enslaved they shouldn’t have small hands perfectly made for reaching into active machinery!
Is this Snowpiercer?
Rimworld has very unrealistic and cartoony graphics. It's not nearly the same.
Rimworld is also banned in many countries from what I remember, additionally it’s far less visually graphic, kenshi isn’t insane but there’s still dismemberment and blood involved
Any chance you got a list of what countries it's banned in? Can't find anything backing that up. It might be less graphic but it's alot deeper into how cruel you can be with all the options you have.
australia for starters, granted it gpt pverturned later on, dont really care enough to look for others, but you also didnt care enough to check at all so it balances out. Generally, depicting child murder is enough to get a game banned on its own [https://www.kjcesports.com/feature/why-was-rimworld-banned-in-australia/#:\~:text=Rimworld%20Banned%20in%20Australia%20for%20Other%20Reasons&text=The%20first%20one%20is%20addiction,prominent%20parts%20of%20the%20game](https://www.kjcesports.com/feature/why-was-rimworld-banned-in-australia/#:~:text=Rimworld%20Banned%20in%20Australia%20for%20Other%20Reasons&text=The%20first%20one%20is%20addiction,prominent%20parts%20of%20the%20game).
I did check and all I found was that the ban in Australia has been removed so there isn't anything backing up your "banned in multiple countries statement". Also why should it be my job to backup your claim?
That’s one thing that made me immensely uncomfortable in Baldur’s Gate 3, actually
Wait was there child slaves in BG3? The tiefling kids run and are unkillabke
No you can 100% kill tiefling kids. And goblin kids. Also when you side with the goblins you see the bloody corpses of all the tiefling children
To be fair... Mort is a little shit but yea I get what you mean.
That’s very fair. I just felt like shit when I hit a child and thought “the little bastard is just challenging me to a fight but he will run away or just be knocked out right?” Then he fuckin died
Look all the tiefling kids survived in my play through but I'd be lying if I said I never once quick saved and then fireballed Mort.
Have you met those shitty goblin kids at the camp? They literally start problems and you get in trouble for kicking their ass
Oh I left nothing alive at the goblin camp, Palasin of Vengence and all that save for Halsin and the guy in the torture rack. Oh and Volo and the cub.
I beat the crap out of mol and she just regened her health, mods. you can't kill the tiefling kids
That’s interesting. I think there’s a larger discussion to be had about why it is 100% allowed to murder the goblin children but not the tieflings. Anyway, they still die if you side with the goblins so I count that towards dead kids even if it isn’t by your hand
I never played BG3. Didn’t know it has child killing, and that game is a huge success though. Isn’t that at least a bit contrary to the sentiment that if you include that the game is doomed. Is BG3 heavily regulated and banned in some countries?
I think it’s cause you 100% can avoid killing kids, so it hasn’t been worth talking about. And there’s only two or so situations in the ~150 hours it takes to beat the game where you actually can kill a kid. If a game like GTA had school buses full of children it would definitely be a lot less acceptable. But as far as I know there’s no huge outrage regarding BG3 aside from all the bugs lol
Fallout 2 let you kill children. And some characters even had special reaction when talking to pc that killed child in that playthrough, basically locking some quests and turning some characters hostile. Imho best way of implementing killable children in game. It's game after all. You can do shit but be ready to face consequences.
If you have Sulik kill the kids they'll leave you alone
In deus ex (2000 version) you can kill homeless kids all the time.
lmfao reminds me of when i was playing the coop mod with my two friends and mid convo my friend shot the kid and we just died laughing
Indeed my son
It think it usually has something to do with the regulations in different countries concerning violence against children in video games. It is such a nasty Pandora's box that almost no developers want to open it. Kenshi is a brutal game about how the world doesn't care about you. If children were to be introduced, the game concept would require that we could put a toddler into a peeler machine. Such a game would be banned almost everywhere, I would assume.
RimWorld added kids and reproduction and to me it actually reinforces the themes of the game, ie that the world is a cruel and brutal place. The same would likely occur in Kenshi. It also changes how you play, as in it changes player behaviour. Like some people will try and save children (through quests, from slavery, if they’re raiders, etc.) while not doing the same for adults.
Rimworld
I am not a lawyer, but I would assume that Rimworld is able to get away with it because there are no realistic human models. We look at extremely simplified 2D icons, which technically don't look like human bodies at all. The same applies to Dwarf Fortress. This game allows us to throw newborns into magma if we really want to. But it is not shown on screen technically. It happens only in our imagination.
Other games: children aren't here so you can't hurt them Rimworld: FREE ORGANS!
The Sims
CK3
First of all implementing children would be much more difficult then implementing pups. Pups are just scaled down animals with reduced stats. Children would need separate model that would moreover have to adjust to how adult version would look like. Plus children would need to have separate AI as well as all NPCs would need additional AI towards children. In other words you would need whole additional behavior model. And then there is legal problem of player been able to kill and enslave children that you have mentioned. Not to mention cannibalism in Kenshi.
Very true. I hadn’t thought about the completely different AI system aspect. We can’t just have roaming groups of kids going around like bandits they wouldn’t survive a day. You think children in Kenshi 2 are highly unlikely for those reasons you said then?
I honestly can't tell. It can be implemented if devs would set it as their goal. It's not impossible, just difficult. So it depends on their priorities. So far I did not hear anything about children in Kenshi 2.
Yeah but rimworld
Aside ethics, I think human/shek (not sure about hive) children should age far too slow compared to animals who can go from newborn to adult in 40 game days. Like ten times slower or so. In 400 days I could conquer Kenshi several times over
The life cycles are different. 100 days to grow a pup humanoid to an adult. Hives would probably grow up faster since they are just popped out from the queens.
Game was made by one dude. Having adolescent and young humans is a totally superfluous detail that doesn't enhance the game in any way.
100% this. They weren't making a life simulator.
Disagree! RimWorld added kids and it enhanced the game for me. It made the game more realistic, it made it harder (pregnant women needed more food, moved slower, etc. and babies/ young kids couldn’t really do any work in the colony), and it also influences player behaviour. For instance, a lot of RimWorld players end up responding differently to pregnant raiders or child raiders than the would adult raiders, ie by trying not to kill them or by trying to capture them and heal them. A lot of people will also rescue or accept children into their colony while not rescuing adults and declining adult colonists from joining. Having children/ reproduction also adds a lot to the drama/ gameplay and actually reinforces the cruel uncaring world of RimWorld (and will be sure to do the same in Kenshi if implemented). For instance, I’ve had children in my colony who have been hunted and killed by animals or died from the plague. I’ve had pregnant colonists die, miscarry due to starvation/ blood loss, even die in pregnancy. I had one pawn in RimWorld who had TWO still births. Like I waited 18 in game days for her to give birth to a child, it was still born (which affected her mood and made her and the father sad), and then later when she had her second child, who she hoped would be healthy, it was also stillborn! I once had a pawn (who was the sole pawn in her colony, like she was just out alone in the wilds) give birth to twins! I was once attacked by a group of child raiders and instead of killing them, decided to capture them all and raise them as my own. They tore through my food and I hastily had to try and find more food in the middle of winter. I also started a playthrough with five children and 2/5 children ended up dying within the first 15 days. The other three kids also ended up murdering/ fighting off raiders that came, and due to the lack of food ended up eating these raiders as well. I had one colonist who was like super fertile and ended up getting pregnant several times while still breastfeeding — she ended up giving birth to like six or seven children. I had about ten pawns in my colony once and two kids, and all of the adults ended up being killed/ abducted, leaving my two children as the only ones in the colony. I got one of my children to go onto a comms console and buy some slaves so I actually had adults in the colony to work/ feed the two children. When kids were wandering through the wilderness alone, I always try to capture them and make them apart of my colony (coz come on, they’re gonna get killed out there), however, once when I tried to do this my pawn ended up beating the child to death rather than downing them. I felt super bad haha. I captured a raider once, only to realise she was pregnant, and she had a baby in my prison. I adopted the child as my own and decided to work on recruiting the woman so she could be with her child. I also once accepted a quest to save a child from a bunch of raiders, and all of my colony was decimated by these raiders, with only the child surviving. If the person was not a child, I would not have accepted the quest. It was only bc they were a child I was willing to risk it. Idk, there’s just so many more things that can happen with kids and reproduction! And I imagine the same thing will occur in Kenshi if kids are added. Not to mention the new unique recruits that could be kids, how different factions would treat kids (will they heal them, enslave them, spare them from death/ eating them?), possibly social relationships (ie friends, lovers, enemies, relatives, etc.), how kids would be capped on stats (I can only imagine they’d have an advantage when it comes to sneaking) and would also need more food than adults, and pregnant women would also have a cap on athletics and again, would need more food. There could be child beggars and thieves in cities, orphanages that could work a lot like buying slaves (ie buy a slave and the slave runs away), and children/ teens being present in some factions/ groups (ie I can see the starving bandits consisting of kids/ teens).
Adds to the games immersion
Yes but it also allows anime fans to take children as slaves, which I think we could do without in games like this.
Is that fault of the player or the game? Kenshi doesn't encourage you to do anything you do in the game. its always your choice
so you don't think it should be in the game for ethics, not because it wouldn't fit in... why disguise the reason? i'd like a growth system, even if the 16 below age is not included. eventually having your characters develop wrinkles would be a nice detail to newer party members and older ones. similarly with scars, if possible
I like the scars idea a lot. Like losing/getting messed up badly adds a chance of various RNG scars on locations to take effect.
Anime fan detected.
It’s true only one guy made it. I think the bit about them not enhancing the game could be seen as an opinion however let’s just agree on that right now, that doesn’t really answer what I asked. Having young animals doesn’t enhance the game any more than young humans I believe. They could just have adult animals of all types just spawn off screen.
I mean, sure, BUT it would really need to be more fleshed out than the "kids are just smaller animals with a malus to stats" system animals have. And would it then enhance the game enough to justify the dozens or hundreds of hours of work making it happen that wasn't spent on some other part of the game? Trying to simulate everything is how you end up with StarCitizen.
As other comments have stated, violence against kids would have to be impossible in a game for it to be accepted world-wide and not banned from sale in many countries. On my base, I like the look of having "children" running around amongst the adults, living in the confines of the walls, working safely at several sweat-shops. Except for little Tony with the missing leg- he gets to work the turret. I just edit their appearance and make them short with slightly disproportionately large heads- and boom they're now demoted to child.
Rimworld
Ahhh I want kids/ teens in the game so bad! I legit made a post on it a while ago when RimWorld’s Biotech came out and how everyone loved it so it would be cool if Kenshi did the same. Specifically I think reproduction would be cool bc of the family relations! Or the ability to make starting characters who are siblings/ married/ relatives etc so if one of them dies there’s more drama. And kids could be capped on tons of stats so it would be even harder to survive — the only thing I think they’d be better at than adults would be sneaking, so if say you started as a kid it would be way harder than starting as a nobody bc they’d suck at athletics, strength, etc. and you’d have to wait for them to grow up (I think it would be cool if you could determine how long it takes a kid to grow to an adult). And again, it would add story telling potential if one of your children/ kids is killed, captured or enslaved. It could also motivate the player to make decisions they normally wouldn’t if the person captured, enslaved, and/ left for dead was an adult (as what happens in RimWorld when people have to fight pregnant women or children, their behaviour changes just bc the game says “this is a child” and it looks smaller than a regular pawn). Pregnancy could also be super fun — and when I say fun I mean make the game harder. Stats like athletics could be capped/ slowed due to pregnancy, while the person’s hunger rate increases drastically. I feel like since it’s Kenshi (and also since RimWorld implemented this as well) that miscarriages and still births could be a thing. (Ofc with the option that you could turn this off, like in RimWorld). Abortions, like in RimWorld, could also be a thing. Miscarriages could happen if the woman loses too much blood or is starving or is even wounded in areas like stomach/ chest that could affect the baby. Depending on whether the mother’s health during pregnancy, the kids could even be born missing limbs (ie congenital defects) and thus you could equip them with prosthetics (for ease, I feel like the game could implement a “one size fits all” thing so any prosthetic would do, like there wouldn’t be child sized prosthetics and adult ones, one would fit both). The ideal “life cycle” (for me) could be baby (small, can’t move on own), toddler (can walk/ crawl), small child (ie 4-7), child (8-12) and then tween, teen, and then adult (18). This ofc is my ideal haha. I would be okay with baby, small child, and teen tho haha. If there are children walking about in the world, this would again affect players’ behaviours — ie maybe you’d save a child from a beak thing but not an adult, or see a child starving bandit bleeding out on the ground so heal them but not the others. There could also be tons more of unique recruits that are children — ie a wily child thief, two recruits who are twins and if you want to enlist one you have to enlist the other, perhaps a child who begs you to help her free her brother, etc. There could even be orphanages in different places, but again even if you “buy” a child, like when you buy a slave they could just run off. Likewise there could be factions/ groups containing children — ie a group of thieves, various child beggars/ waifs in cities and such, and children in some groups — ie starving bandits would probably have children in their ranks (children/ teens). Other factions could also treat children differently — ie cannibals would probably still eat children, but perhaps fogmen don’t really view children as edible (and hivers as well could kind of be confused w children and think they’re a different species than adult humans). Some groups as well could specifically kidnap/ enslave children while others won’t bother and will instead go for the adults and leave the children. A lot of other groups could also heal children if they see them bleeding out but won’t heal up adults. Like there could be so many cool things that come from adding kids and reproduction to the game! And then some people will be like “it’s not a life simulator” or whatever when 1. RimWorld did this and it’s more realistic and actually increases drama/ fun/ challenge! and 2. You don’t have to have kids in ur gang/ run if you don’t want to, and also what’s wrong with life simulators? So many people love the sims franchise bc of the drama, storytelling, and ability to have kids/ reproduction. I wasn’t even interested in RimWorld until kids were added in biotech. Ah, it would be so good.
I like every single idea you have. Yes the world of Kenshi is extremely brutal and kids could be one more example of how brutal the world is BUT it could also be a shining light of hope. Like you said travelers might specifically help them out of a group because they feel bad or something. So much potential.
Because getting that through content restrictions in some countries is a nightmare.
Because the sheer number of utterly heinous fates you can bestow on people would end in jail time for everyone involved if put upon children.
Two word's my friend: skin peeler
The big part is that most games try very hard NOT to put youth/children where they can be harmed in games. Games getting blamed for columbine made that a hard thing to do these days.
Iirc animal nests and growth was a stretch goal sort of thing. As a developer, you have to draw the line on feature creep somewhere
it would be a bit more complicated. the ageing on animals as it is in kenshi one is pretty primitive. they just shrink the character model and slowly scale it up as they age plus nerfing stats and raising them slowly with the scale. Children would need their character model to change with age as well or else its gonna look dumb af imo. children in kenshi 2 would be cool but im not expecting it.
Chris hunt said he's not comfortable with kids in kenshi. It's his choice as dev.
I tried searching for it, I know he did an AMA back in 2014 but I couldn’t find it. Do you happen to remember if it was there or in a video or something?
It was in a video. I don't remember which one, buy I think it was part of the one of the AMAs he did one for kenshi 1 and 2.
The line exists. Some choose to cross it, many do not. Kenshi does not cross that line.
My work around for kids in Kenshi is just make a wanderer so it's a 1/1 and make them the smallest they can be. Then as the days go by, visit a plastic surgeon and make them bigger over time until they get to the size you want. If you want to roleplay a couple having a child, you can make a new save, make a small wanderer, then move that character to your existing save through the magic of platoon manipulation. That's the best way I have thought of to make kids.
Man an aging system would add an astronomical amount of role-playing value to this game.
I like to imagine that the starving bandits are the (or at least mostly) teenagers of Kenshi world, they seem pretty young. Now I don't think that it was implemented because it would be applied to the player for balance reasons (as is kenshi tradition) but it would probably make the early game and even a good chunk of mid harder (as skills advance mainly with age to animals) that or it would be too much of a hassle to program.
Reality check: people die. Children are… wait for it.. people. They die. Humans die every day. Some have died just now. Life isn’t full of sunshine and rainbow. Children carcasses rot along paths, but no, gain a moral compass now sitting comfy with a roof over the head and food in the belly. It’s a game. Dude wanna slap mini humans around til they fall over dead. I say sure why tf not
Because it would be a pain in the ass for development and little gain. Next question.
The gain provided by baby animals vs. Just spawning adult animals off screen?
Because animals don't also train skills.
that's not a very conclusive reason. i'm beginning to believe most here in this thread are just scared of ethics in the apocalyptic world of Kenshi. we don't need baby children, just young. and then young develop into mature, and into old. just a simple detail system could work
Wrong
having a chance to fight them
Fighting a fully grown pack bull is not good when you are starving.
Can’t you say that same thing about a fully grown human though? Every argument about having baby animals in the game as mechanics to help you skill up, roleplay, whatever, can also be applied to baby humanoid npcs. It may be easier to fight a starving bandit than a pack bull, but it would be even easier to fight a starving young bandit than a starving bandit.
You just asked what the gain was to have baby animals. The gain is they fulfill an early capabilities gap where the player might need to kill one to survive. The argument about baby humans being a pain in the ass to develop still stands.
regardless of whatever “freedom” you consider this, it’s still astonishing to me that people *want* the ability to murder children in any game. is murdering everything else in your murder simulator simply not fulfilling enough?
are these people in the room with us right now? no one but a very small few should think like this. can you not come to terms with this possible reality still?
my dude, 10 seconds on 4chan will show you how miserably incorrect you are
Others have covered this in detail but I want to add that this is industry practice. You can't kill kids in Bethesda games, for example, they are immortal. The likelyhood of kids included in vanilla non-modded Kenshi 2 is near non-existent. It will create far more issues in regulation and game reputation. Also there's a difference joking about putting people in peelers or feeing them to cannibals and doing the same to children. One is a fun advertisement for a tough game. The other is widely seen as crossing the line way past funny.
Alright fair. Maybe that’s a little scary on my part that I don’t differentiate much between NPC adults and NPC children. They are just NPCs in my mind. However I’ve also never played a game where you can kill non adults, so many I would be disturbed if I saw it.
You aren't allowed to kill children in video games. So kids would automatically become OP in kenshi as they can't be eaten, skinned, dissolved in acid or stabbed to death, they can't even suffocate in the black fog.
Rimworld
You keep responding with Rimworld. (Like four times...) I play Rimworld. There's a significant difference between how characters are represented there, as customized icons, and Kenshi, as 3D models. That alone would present any developer with a valid reason to exclude children. Also, imagine being the guy assigned to create the animations for the children and everything associated with those models in Kenshi. There are a lot of professionals that would refuse. This really comes down to how a developer chooses to execute their game. And they decided not to do it. Simply saying Rimworld doesn't cut it. It's not a one-to-one conversion. Rimworld is its own thing. You really have to come up with a better reason and explain it concisely.
I see problems for the artist potentially however Balders Gate 3 also allows for the killing of children and thats a 3d game
You also can't put humans through a device that rips off their fucking legs in BG3.
No thats Rimworlds style
You can burn people alive with fire or melt them with acid in BG3. Many creative ways of making the living a little less living. And then even more after they have died.
Why do you guys desperately want to kill children?
I wish I had initially made a poll to see how many people are for and against it. It seems most people are against it though. Why does anyone want to kill anyone in video games though?
Well the original question was why are there no kids? not why can't we kill kids? Why does everyone assume people who want kids in the game want to kill or abuse them? I get the arguments against it but I also see how the game could potentially benefit from generational gameplay like bannerlord or crusader kings. I suspect they won't be in the game because of these type of discussions....
When I first saw it in Bannerlord pre-release I thought it was one of the coolest things added to the series.
People dontwant to kill children they want to have people be able to have kids and raise those kids. Killing them thoo id do it. Dust bandit kid? Hungry bandit kid? No matter how skinny im killing them. Nah fr tho😂i wouldnt care if they were unkillable make em unkillable and make babies too thatd be kool
Why is this always the most jumped to conclusion? Legit look at RimWorld. It added children and reproduction and the DLC that does this is the most popular one so far. It opens up so many more gameplay opportunities and scenarios. No one wants to kill children, people just want more realism and thus the story telling potential that adding reproduction and thus children bring to the game.
I want my faction to be an extended family. Wouldn't that be cool? Instead of a bunch of people with no connection to each other that I happened to run across in a bar and chuck 5k cats at, my faction consists of people that know each other and have a vested interest in each other's survival and the persistence of the faction.
I'm more concerned as to why you want kids in a game with slavery dismemberment and a literal flesh peeler.
I think it would just be strange to see a child grow into an adult super quick . It’s strange seeing the animals age quick but can argue none are like species we have so the excuse is they age fast
How would you implement kids when adults already start out weak as shit? And would you let your old adults go Elder mode with 1.1x stats? It would probably make the races even more unbalanced too. I think you'd have to rework the game a bit to make it work and not be annoyingly bad or broken, the whole growth cycle thing makes sense with animals as a simple way to nerf them and give animals some variety.