How many of us also play games that aren't based around killing and beating stuff up?

[Windcaler]

I play all kinds of games. From 3rd person space ninja shooters like warframe to small town building simulations like Banished. This year my 2nd choice for the game of the year is probably going to be the last federation because its not about killing people or an entire race (unless you want it to be) its about forming a vast cooperative federation of planets with very different races. Getting them to work together is most of the challenge and your tools for manipulating them are vast. It creates a very compelling and immersive experience that isnt about being a murder-thon (again unless you want it to be).

On a similar note. Another absolutely fantastic game that came out this year with no violence was Banished. A game about building a lasting civilization from a bunch of exiles and what they brought in a cart.

All that said, alternatives are out there. I think the issue is theyre just mostly on PC. You dont tend to find games like the last federation or banished on consoles because of the vast cost of making games for those platforms. If you want them they are out there though

 

[Medica]

Well, I'm first and foremost a puzzle and sim games fan, never really got the appeal of heads going boom. Although it's true that nowadays violence can work its way even into games where it's totally not the point. For example, this one (http://academmedia.com/en/apps/battleship_war_3d) is a harmless board game I enjoy but yeah, the added explosions kinda make it feel like a shooter at times and I can't say I mind! So the OP's question is a tricky one, if you think about it.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Super Meat Boy. You play as a blob of meat and try not to get horribly eviscerated by the many platforming stages.

 

[Evonisia]

Not usually given how widespread it is (especially in Triple A games), and as has been discussed violence is just a very easy way of getting across catharsis or even world building in the likes of BioShock and Remember Me.

Just a question here: does shoving count as beating up stuff? I'm replaying Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and the closest thing you do to inflicting damage is when you shove the monsters jumping onto your back, and they neither die nor get injured from it.

 

[Prince of Ales]

I've been playing a lot of Hearthstone recently. That's a game without any kind of real plot other than, jovially, it's made out to be a pub game that people on Azeroth play. So it's sort of non-violent from it's nature. It definitely has an aspect of combat between cards though. I don't think there's any shame in this. You look at big games through history like Chess and Backgammon, and they're very clearly based on scenarios of conflict.

I've heard Notch make a point a few times. Conflict and violence are intuitive, and that's why we use them. If you put a player in a scenario where him and some enemies have a gun, then the player already understands the basic aspects of shoot the enemy and don't get shot at.

There's obviously sports simulation games, but these tend to be based on real-life sports which people already have some familiarity with. Can you imagine inventing a brand new sport and trying to release a video game simulation without masses and masses of tutorials?

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

I'm all over the Ace Attorney games and none of the games in that series revolve around the lead killing bad guys or blowing stuff up.

 

[happyninja42]

I like to take the non-lethal approach in Skyrim when I can. For convenience's sake, that involves not only a lot of sneaking but the use of illusion spells to calm hostile creatures. I was inspired by this feller right here:



I like to take a game that's not necessarily designed with a certain goal in mind and see how far I can bend its rules; a good game should bend but not break.

Yeah I did a run of Skyrim as Garrett from the Thief series. All I did was steal from people, I never attacked them. It was very fun, especially when you threw in a little Illusion magic for distractions.

I also played a pacifist monk of, well I forget the name of the god, the god of Life and Death, who has the clerics who are non violent. I made him being an ex-greybeard that came down from the mountains. He had a companion that protected him (part of the actual canon of their clergy), and all he did was Alteration, Restoration and Illusion spells to buff his allies against their foes. It was a very fun playthrough, especially when I orchestrated an entire village to take down a dragon by the death of a thousand cuts. It was quite awesome to watch them beat his ass because I bolstered their confidence so they didn't run. xD

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

the sims games?
well you can kill people in the game for fun if you want. It gets old pretty fast so never played that for that reason for a very long time.

although making an annoying mascots life hell is something I did since he started by being an ass to my sim. for example I used a cheat or something like that to make him fat a old man and also to anything to make it's life miserable. I would say it is not violence, I am just being a total asshole to annoying sims. if ever play the college thing in sims 2 again I will make try that sim really hungry, pee his pants and devoid of fun, if tries to solve that problem by eating something I will make him starving again.

for the rest of the time I just played a not assholeish playstyle

 

[Zakarath]

Welp, I play a good amount of strategy/4x games and frequently go for nonmilitary victories
I go chart the galaxy in Eliteangerous when I feel like just relaxing/chilling for a while
Most of the other games are pretty action-y, though.

 

[JohnFei]

Like pointed out, not many games are actually based around killing/beating up stuff, usually that's just part of gameplay but not everything. On the flip side, even hipster indie games like Braid and Broken Age have violence, and one could argue some of their levels ARE based around killing/beating up stuff.

In terms of games that don't even have violence as part of gameplay, I enjoyed stuff like VVVVVV, Thomas was alone, Stanley Parable. Papers Please technically counts because iirc you don't ever HAVE to use the weapons. Super Meat boy I believe also doesn't really have the player doing anything violent, we don't even have an attack function.

Oh and there are also a lot of dating sims and erotic games with no violence, if that's your thing.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Guitar Hero. (The first two, anyway; you might consider the Battle Mode too violent.)

Jet Set Willy. (Collect-em-up. Yeah, it came out in 1984 but it fits.)

Most driving games, although all too often it's handy to ram people off the road.

I was going to suggest Rollercoaster Tycoon but I had too much fun seeing how fast I could crash a ride.

 

[Xariat]

Just looking at my Steam library:

Audiosurf
Euro Truck Simulator 2
FEZ
Kerbal Space Program
Scribblenauts (though, you sometimes kill critters)
Super hexagon
Antichamber
Banished
Grid 2
Hacker Evolution
Limbo(?)
Little inferno
Papers, Please
Portal (companion cubes and weird cores)
The Swapper
The Stanley parable

So yeah, there are a few non-violent games out there, but the vast majority of my library had violence as part of the core gameplay or mechanics.

 

[laggyteabag]

The problem is that violence as a mechanic is a really easy way to force a failure state and add challenge to the game. Even games like Portal have turrets in them to add a little variety to the test chambers. Love it or hate it, but it is just a really easy way to show conflict or resolve situations, and as a result, games that have little to no violence are often very hard to come by, especially in the AAA industry.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I really do appreciate a game that doesn't rely on violence now and then. Sims, Style Savvy, scribblenauts, occasional sports games. Puzzle games.

 

[M0rp43vs]

You know, I skimmed through the entire thread and am surprised I haven't seen any a single mention of the Harvest moon series, what used to be THE answer to this question.

Shame. Well, back to tending to my farm and romancing Popuri.

 

[Jorias]

Although i do play a bunch of violent games, or games in which conflict is either physical, or in some way corporeal. One of the best games i have played in my 30 years of playing video games has to be A - Train (the Japanese Sim City basically). Although games that have violence are not inherently either bad or good, from my own personal experience i have noticed that i have replayed more "non-violent" games than "violent" ones, and this is coming from a guy who was a Marine for 10 years lol.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

A lot of people have already mentioned a lot of the games and pacifist runs of other types of games so I wont bother repeating them.

Up until my soft cap set in this month I was enjoying a completely (well, almost) non-violent game on Kongregate called Novalode.
It's a "free2play" game about mining rocks and ores, converting them to items in fabrication bays to gain money and also collecting curio's and gems.
It's rather new and still undergoing patches and balancing but it's actually highly enjoyable.
The almost non-violent part is that among the rocks and ores are explosive rocks that you don't want to accidentally hit (purposely hit though is a whole other ballpark).
Oh, and to get out in time or the seismic shifts are wont to crush you.


<spoiler=link directly to the game>http://www.kongregate.com/games/LitmusGames/novalode
<spoiler=my referral link>http://www.kongregate.com/games/LitmusGames/novalode?sfa=permalink&referrer=Bouitaz

 

[MrFalconfly]

Really?

We forget about racing-games?

Gran Turismo?

Forza Motorsport?

Project CARS?

iRacing?

No-one get's clobbered, and no-one get's killed.

 

[pearcinator]

Well, I definitely LOVE games that don't involve killing stuff (I also LOVE games that do too haha). Here's some examples of games I loved that don't really involve much violence; well the player doesn't actually kill anyone.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Bought this on Steam last week, loved it. You solve murders so there's some violence and grisly scenes but you don't actually kill anyone in the game. There's no combat, just puzzle solving.

Myst

An oldie but definitely a fantastic game! It's been remade and remastered so many times but the latest edition of the first Myst is RealMyst Masterpiece Edition. Fantastic story, excellent settings and environments to explore and it really does not hold your hand. You basically have to use your brain and trial and error to solve the puzzles.

Dear Esther

Short game but beautiful and immersive. All you do is walk but it's a nice walk at that

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Perfect survival horror. Your character has no weapons, probably the most violent and disturbing game on the list but I found it really interesting (particularly the Nave area. I was too intrigued by the medieval execution methods to be scared).

The Monkey Island Series

I love these games, the humour, the puzzles. Pure fun. Even the much-loathed 4th entry (Escape from Monkey Island) had some excellent puzzles...but Monkey Kombat was seriously annoying and super complicated.

There's actually a lot of games like this but here are some games to look forward to in 2015 that look promising and probably won't involve any combat whatsoever.

SOMA
New horror game from the makers of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Looks more sci-fi (which I love more than any other genre)

Obduction
From the makers of Myst. They say it will be a spiritual successor to Myst so I am definitely looking forward to it!

The Witness
From the creator of Braid. This game has been in the making for a long, long time. Will it live up to it's expectations? Probably not, but we shall see!

Grim Fandango Remastered
I never got around to playing the original Grim Fandango. I was super excited when they announced this game was going to be remastered.

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
From the creators of Dear Esther (and the second Amnesia game). I have no idea what it's about but I am interested.

If anything, these kind of games are becoming more popular. Which I think is a good thing; of course I don't think they will ever become mainstream but there must definitely be an audience out there for them otherwise they wouldn't make them!