Computer game designer Ernest Adams writes articles on game design and runs workshops where he challenges teams of budding designers to flesh out a promising theme. In The Best of the Game Design Workshops, he describes some great ideas that they’ve come up with, including this Viking concept:
I gave this challenge to a group of Swedes: be a Viking! Naturally, they knew quite a lot about the subject. But the game they designed surprised me extremely, and was one of the most fascinating I’ve ever heard about.The object of the game was to develop and maintain a strong Norse community, and in that respect, it resembled a construction and management simulation — Sim Viking, in effect. You build a village, raise grain and pigs, and go on raiding expeditions to other countries for loot and slaves. (I never realized Vikings had slaves, but apparently they did.) You also have an avatar, a Viking chieftain who leads the raiding expeditions. Your avatar must engage in fierce personal combat while on these raids — that increases your honor and strengthens the village. Honor is a critical resource. It pleases the gods in Valhalla, who bestow their favors on you.
The most interesting thing about the game is that it is multi-generational. One of the objects of the game is actually to die — to die in as bloody and violent a manner as possible, with your avatar surrounded by the bodies of the enemies he has slain. He’ll be buried in a wooden longship, and his soul will go to Valhalla, where his honor creates more strength and support for the Viking people.
When your avatar dies, you take on a new avatar, one of his children. It is imperative, therefore, that you find a mate and have children before you die. If you don’t have a child, then you can’t go on to the next generation when your avatar dies. The game just ends. Similarly, if you play conservatively, and hang on to your avatar until he’s old and feeble, eventually he’ll be killed without much honor, and the village will suffer. So for maximum benefit, you should die in the prime of life, in true berserker fashion.
The game has one more twist. Christians keep coming to your village and trying to baptize people. If someone is baptized, they’re no longer a Viking, and are lost to the community. If the Christians baptize your own children, you can no longer carry on the game when your avatar dies. And finally, the Christians bring influenza, which kills your population and can even kill you — a most dishonorable death. So part of the challenge is to kill off the Christians whenever they appear. The problem is that, like an old arcade game, it’s unwinnable. More and more Christians keep coming into the village. In the end, the Viking way of life is doomed.
As indeed it was.