Children? Could it happen?

Game Talk The Drawing Board
21

To glance at realism, if the Blob is playing havoc on everyone’s genetics then it seems like there are two options.

If it isn’t messing with sex cells and it’s acting like a carcinogen where it mutates somatic cells then children should be normal, excepting some small outlier scenarios, and the mutations shouldn’t affect them at all.

If it is affecting sex cells in it’s editing of the victim’s genetics then it’s EXTREMELY unlikely that a fetus would develop and live- assuming the Blob isn’t also playing a role in that as well. The way development works is that for the majority of genetic flubs it will produce an unviable fetus and if it doesn’t die in the womb will likely be naturally aborted or stillborn. This can occur during a large portion of a pregnancy. Genetic birth defects exist on a very thin margin compared to the large amount of fundamental DNA required to survive and DNA that is functionally vestigial and not read.

A large portion of birth defects occur as a result of exposure to certain agents during a specific growth period for the fetus. Examples of this are Thalidomide exposure and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Unless the Blob is actively doing this it’s likely the baby would be healthy and normal… That said the survivor is prone to doing meth, drinking sewage, injecting artisanal mutagens, walking into radioactive craters, exposing themselves to portal storms, hobby bomb making, and probably gets a fair amount of exposure to lead and asbestos with as much basement diving and construction as they perform. So mileage may vary as far as a healthy baby after all that.

Source: Work in medicine and study neuroscience.

As an aside, this could be a questline- A refugee in the center finding out that- despite being pregnant- the baby is born either healthy or stillborn. Discussing this with the Doctor NPC could yield more info on this after quests like the blood sample or possibly bringing them information from a lab. Hell, maybe the Blob sterilizes humans as it simply doesn’t recognize sexual reproduction as a form of reproduction and just a resource waste. I mean the labs probably have info on this somewhere. I fully doubt injecting a pregnant woman with mutagen was too morally low considering some of the wild shit you see in labs.

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22

It’s less of actual genetic mutations and more of a kludge of grafts, man-in-the-middle attacks on protein synthesis, some genetic shenanigans, and some plain alien stuff. It’s not genetic in nature such that it produces viable offspring, but one can’t assume that the sex cells are not going to be damaged or paved over by some of the blob renovations.

23

Right, yeah it’s difficult. I can’t see why it would have any good reason to mess with the sex cells- it seems like blob mutations are prompted by stimulus- but I also can’t see any reason why it would preserve them.

Maybe it’s just case by case.

24

Random idea about death of children I discussed with a friend today:

A skyrim-like approach. They can temporarily be knocked unconscious if the body or head limb breaks. A health value decreases when this happens. If the child is knocked unconscious too many times within a specific timeframe (the health value recovers over time) and the health value reaches its minimum (the lower the value, the sicker the child), the child is so sick it can not even move on its own anymore, needing to be carried around and nursed back to health.

This would solve the “little billy runs away” when any zombie appears. This would also solve gory deaths because it is now essentially invincible.
We already have corpses of children ingame (corpse_child_calm, corpse_child_gunned), so they can die if at minimum health and not being cared for.

Or, if someone decides to remove these items I just mentioned, there could not be any corpse at all.

"death_function": { "corpse_type": "NO_CORPSE", "message": "%s turns into an angel." }
25

Out of curiosity, what is the issue with children dying in videogames? Not violence- just dying. Is it an ESRB thing in most countries?

I understand inflicting violence on a child is obviously tasteless, but in this game I think, if they’re simply represented by a small set of NPCs, then they would feel the hardships of the new world like every other survivor.

I mean maybe a hard stance by Kevin to note that there can’t be any mods built specifically for the depiction of violence against children, any specific IRL minority groups, the handicapped, etc…

Like a setting where “the world is harsh. No exceptions” is fine, I think.

I cannot imagine a scenario where it would be advantageous to kill a kid. I can imagine many where I see a Mi-go chopping one up though.

Perhaps violence couldn’t be done NPC/PC to child? Like you try but- “you wouldn’t hurt a kid”.

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26

The world is harsh, no exceptions approach is the way to go. Violence is bound to happen, intentional or not. Car accidents, crossfire, or stepping into the middle of a horde. The morality of the situation is defined by whether or not the character feels guilty afterwards for being directly responsible for a follower’s demise, intensified guilt should that follower happen to be a child.

Children shouldn’t be given invulnerability, instead they’d try to slip away from the immediate danger and hide within furniture, throwing off pursuers. The scent trail would be biggest threat at that point, but would become the lowest priority for the zombie if another visible character is nearby making noise while defending the area. On the other hand, one might be checking furniture for loot and find a zombie child waiting to jump out.

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27

Essentially invincible is far worse than them managing to run away fast.

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28

putting aside the issue of killing children, the question of whether players will breed with mutants or not, whether they will turn their offspring into bionic monsters or engage in selling their bodies for meat, another question arises:

and why do we need this… for real?
kids are weak as rabbits, what will they do to zombies? nothing. even with firearms.
they won’t be able to produce things for you, move at our speed, or pair up with you. even if we create “super fast growing kids”, will it make them much more useful?

children will be able to diversify the game, give the player opportunities, and there will be an opportunity to write many interesting scenarios.
something like a mutant girl who escaped from the laboratory, we help her arrive in a small settlement, and after the next arrival we find that her offspring turned out to be a little more dangerous than zombies.
but all this is a lot of work. very.

Thats interesying idea, i like it, but…

even if we discard such things as working out children, things for children, age for NPCs and changing them in real time, not being “Gwen Schweit, child” all the time, but “Gwen Schweit, child of the apocalypse”, if we forget about the morality of the real world, we will also need to work out the sexual component of the game. I don’t think that ““hold hands” with James?” it will be a good solution to the problem, especially in a game that tends to be peculiar, but realistic. this will also require a complete reworking of the monster breeding system (in the future), the addition of, albeit primitive, genetics (unless, of course, we do not want the appearance of a black skin color in a light-skinned couple). such a simple innovation as children will require the addition of a sexual component to the game, I think we are not ready for this yet.

29

Uh. No? Pretty certain you could have child NPCs without any changes or additions of a sex mechanic to the game.

And why would you want child NPCs? Because it’s not about what the player may want. There’s also asthmatic beggar NPCs that would be an awful liability to add to your crew- but they sure do add life to the world. Which is more the point in my mind than kitting a 12 year old out in CBMs and kevlar or asking them to cook you meals.

Also I’m pretty certain that almost every concern in this thread is a non-issue. So long as violent or other themes aren’t focused on any one group I’m pretty sure the majority of folks will not care.

30

I don’t object because someone might complain, I object because I don’t want to see it in my game.

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31

Make cages around camp > put there childrens > surround it with lava > feed them by throwing raw mutant meet from second floor ramps > profit
Oh yeah, i don’t mind if you put childrens in game :3

32

That sounds like how you grow imps. The survivors will certainly be interesting people.

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33

Look, a perfect example of the sort of obnoxious edginess we’re going to ensure we avoid.

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34

I think CDDA Earth would feel a bit brighter with living children around. It gets really depressing seeing them portrayed only as flesh-hungry corpses, or ya know, bits and pieces. I think they should function as a sort of pet at first? Just because the domesticated monster types, specifically the smaller ones, already have some mechanics in place that can help a player shield them from the grim world they find themselves in. Ya know, like leading them (I hope it can be modified so a leash is not required, for obvious reasons), telling them to stay put in a safer place, and the fact that you can interact with them so you could boost your morale.

The only thing I scratch my head for is how the hell they would age, and I can only imagine how tedious it would be to take care of them for a year at the very least.

35

You would probably only want children if you have a faction of your own to take care of them. Althernatively you could start witn children that are already a bit older as they don´t take as long to grow up and don´t require as much care. If you do want to take care of a very young child alone than that is a dedicated roleplay experiense that you are doing solely for roleplay and challenge.

36

Well lore wise to explain the sudden absence of children. You could pin this to rapid aging thanks to the blob (Slimes Now?). Since their whole deal is adaption to current environments; So that could be a subtle nod to that.

As for new children? I dunno how functional that would be game wise. It wont be like the Sims were they’ll be adults in 5 days. An even if you can endure a couple of ingame years, you still got the issue of raising them up to be normal humans. They may as well be feral Humans.

Actually, that would be an interesting and frightening implication for the absence of new children. That any new child borne just becomes feral, and that having them is just too dangerous. Making this the final generation, the lost Generation.

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37

“The Blob” and the Slimes aren’t the same entity - that’s why they were renamed from “Blobs” to “slimes”, although for whatever reason they were friendly to zombies for a long time (not sure if they still are, haven’t played in a few months, haven’t kept up with any changes).

After reading the remainder of this particular topic, I assume Children NPCs aren’t a thing yet. And I still don’t think children NPCs would add anything to the game, not even immersion. If things are unchanged in this regard, the best thing to do is to assume they either didn’t “survive” the mutating powers(?) of “The Blob” and died of “natural causes”, or they were all killed by crazed adults (still hate the term “Feral”) because lore. That would be in line with things we see in game such as schools full of dead children, parks, etc. The only explanation we will still need is as to why that one particular child enemy in that specific POI with several levels to it (no spoilers) is not zombified or dead like the others, but that is probably me missing something about the lore.

Newborn becoming “feral” is just a no go imo. Being “feral” implies you have essentially no humanity or no “manners” or whatever term you want to use. And for the first year or so of our lives, we literally have none of that: all we do is cry, eat, poop and sleep. Furthermore, it would be a really weird stretch to imply that a “normal” human woman would just spawn a zombie the moment it was given birth to - implying that it only becomes dangerous when its outside and not after being “almost fully formed” inside the womb (ie “eating its way out” of the carrier, which would effectively kill the host).

The best we could suggest in regards to explaining why children do not exist is that the current “humans” are all sterile due to several factors (Radiation, their DNA changes due to “The Blob’s” presence in water and food, experimental medication or haphazardly mixing medications to cure certain ailments, without medical supervision). It would at least be somewhat justifiable within the confines of the lore, and also easier to retcon in the future should some changes require doing so.

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38

Problem is that you would have to explain why every other normal or mutated species can reproduce but humans somehow can´t. From what has been established lore wise it doesn´t seem like humans are treated differently by the blob compared to any other mammal species.

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39

Wait, sorry. Just to update to the current lore. I thought the term ‘feral’ humans referred to the non-zombie humans that just went berserk. The same human species I recall from the github that would evolve into a near tribalistic mindset or etcetera.
Sorry for any misunderstandings here.

Also aren’t humans under the same influence as the animals/ mutant animals. Which Spicyshadows points out can still reproduce?

I mean, the idea here isn’t that we’re reproducing undead humans, but just a new generation of humans that are functionally incapable of higher learning heightened aggression. A trait which seams common to everything that’s affected by the blob.

40

But aren’t all animals more aggressive now?

The idea here to be specific is that humans can still reproduce. It’s just that due to the influence of the blob, the new generation of humans are borne incapable of higher brain functions, and show signs of heightened aggression. A common trait shown in affected wildlife and some groups of humans.