
What's the scariest thing in the world? Ask your teenage daughter - wglb
http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/15/5897811/ninja-pizza-girl-teenage-girls-family-dev
======
scoofy
So, my only concern with this idea is the inconsistency of the stories we tell
ourselves vs the way the world is, and how the two seem to be confused here.

High school, for me at least, was a fairly dark time in my life. If i knew
myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's going to suck
until you're halfway through college.

Bullies, at least the best ones, don't leave you alone. They don't leave you
alone if your confident, they don't leave you alone if you're hurt. They just
don't care. They have either yet to learn empathy, or are simply sociopaths
and you're simply a fixture in their lives, entertainment.

Now, assuming this is the case, which it was for me. You have a choice. Make a
game that is a bit dark, existential, cathartic, or simply make a game that
tells us to believe the nonsense that we are told to tell ourselves: be
confident, give your bully the "i'm not a chicken, you're a turkey" speech,
excel and you'll get respect.

I think if you want to make a truly interesting game, ignore the uplifting
nonsense and go for the catharsis. It gets better when you're able to choose
your friends, your you're able to make friends on your own terms, not just
pick from those around you.

If i were going to make a game like this i would have aspects like:

* Having a good cry shouldn't be in game death, it should be a power up.

* Being vulnerable and hurt and carrying on regardless should be strength.

When i started making friends in upper level classes in college, i was able to
be friends with people that saw the world in interesting ways, and cared about
things that made sense. We had mutual respect, and that was that. The nasty
politics of social groups has rarely ever crept into my life since.

~~~
Joeboy
> If i knew myself, the only thing i would be able to tell myself is, it's
> going to suck until you're halfway through college.

If I may just highlight this. Children should be told that being a schoolkid
is a weird kind of environment, the like of which they probably won't
experience as an adult. Most workplaces don't involve customary physical
violence, or even frequent overt verbal abuse. Glibly telling them that their
life is horrible because they're not doing it right is a fucking awful thing
to do to them.

~~~
pjc50
You can't tell people things like that because they might ask "what are you
going to do about this awful situation?" or "why do I have to go to school if
it's so bad?". To which we have no answer.

~~~
sanderjd
Telling one truth just has to lead to telling other truths until the worldview
is consistent. We do have the answer. Most kids have to go to school because
the actual and opportunity cost of homeschooling is usually too expensive or
often neither parent is qualified to provide a better or even acceptable
education. When homeschooling is workable, going to school is often still a
better aspect exactly because having a huge amount of experience with both the
good and the bad of social settings is incredibly valuable as an adult (and
that most adults have such experience is one of the main reasons adult society
does tend to be less nasty IMO - people get fed up with it).

If you can be honest and tell kids "the real world isn't like school", why
can't you be honest and tell them the real reasons they are nonetheless made
to put up with it?

~~~
heironimus
Just curious, but what are the "real reasons they are nonetheless made to put
up with it"? If your child says "I'm being bullied at school and no one is
doing anything about it. My teacher ridicules me because I don't understand
Algebra. I'm not learning anything in literature class except how to fill out
worksheets. Can't we figure out something better?" what do you say?

~~~
gizmo
The truth is kids get bullied because adults don't care and look the other
way. If an adults hit another adult the police will get involved. When an
adult hits a kid or a kid hits a another kid they've got practically no
recourse. It's just grossly unfair, and there is no solution. So you tell them
that. And you repeat that if they don't go to school they won't be able to get
into higher education, which in turn won't allow them to get a good job. So
their current situation sucks but the alternatives they have are even worse.
It's a truthful description of a shitty situation.

Adults don't have to have a solution to everything. But kids should expect us
to talk to them in a forthright manner. Spare them one-liners like "you'll
understand when you get older" and other condescending nonsense.

~~~
nsajko
Isn't it wrong to say there's no solution? Wouldn't it be better to tell them
about the game, to learn about it (because that's what school is for) and try
to better their situation for themselves?

~~~
gizmo
When kids are stuck in school until their twenties or so with basically no
money or independence then most of them are going to be pretty unhappy. As a
kid you're trapped in a way most adults are not (except those trapped by poor
health or poverty). Changes can be made to improve the situation of an
individual kid, but the nature of the situation doesn't change: children have
fewer rights and freedoms than adults, in daily life and by law.

~~~
yarou
The irony in your post is that the vast majority of adults are also trapped
with basically no money or independence. You're given just enough as a wage
slave. Perhaps the problem isn't in schools, but how we structure society
today.

------
josefresco
The game aside ...as a father of two girls, 8 and 6 this scares this shit out
of me. My 8 year old is just moving out of the fantasy/play world and hearing
what is ahead for her is not comforting. I am still happy I read this, as it
gives me a primer on what to expect, and some ideas on how to handle it.

The most striking take-away from this is how the game provided a platform for
a Dad to learn more about his daughter. Simply knowing what is causing
stress/sadness in your child's life is important, and many times we as parents
are too involved with our lives and the practical running of the household to
stop and ask how are kids are "feeling" and what scares them or gives them
worry.

Didn't expect to get parenting advice from HN today (or ever considering how
many 20 something hackers hang here), but happy I did.

~~~
jobu
Looking at the game pictures of people pointing and laughing when the main
character falls sent a chill down my spine. Everyone has at least a few horrid
memories of school years, so this definitely seems scarier than zombies or
aliens trying to kill your character.

Hopefully it doesn't push the concept too far and become depressing to play.
Either way it looks interesting, so I'm in for one.

------
vanderZwan
I love it, although one thing bothers me a bit: this whole concept of "my
biggest enemies are other teenagers" doesn't just apply to girls, yet the
article kind of makes it sound like it does. This man must either have
forgotten large parts of his own childhood, or have had an unusually carefree
one. I mean, yes, the "flavour" of nasty, backstabbing social politics is
different accross gender roles and cultures, but it's everywhere.

Having said that, it's a worthy subject to build a game around and hope it
will tackle the subject in a proper way.

~~~
shanusmagnus
Thanks for saying that. These days I have kind of a thin skin for the
implication, which seems to be increasingly prevalent, that the interests and
struggles of boys/men are not only perfectly understood, but are too
simplistic and trivial to be concerned with; just give the fuckers enough Red
Bulls and handguns and watch them party their way to social media startups!
Just don't forget to throw a rasher of half-cooked bacon onto the cage floor
from time to time. And so on.

Apparently most of the males I've met in my life are incredibly, incredibly
dysfunctional.

~~~
Dewie
A stereotype of a father with only (or many) daughters is that he will grow
"soft" towards them and in turn emphasize with their problems, and in turn
perhaps also the problems more specific to women in general.

A stereotype of a father and a son is that they will both suffer through their
own problems, individually, in silence.

~~~
jobu
> A stereotype of a father and a son is that they will both suffer through
> their own problems, individually, in silence.

The trick for me has been to find things to do with my son. My daughter's will
randomly unleash a torrent of emotion to me, but my son only talks when I do
things like take him fishing or flying kites.

------
JasonFruit
That was a fascinating and well-written article, and for a parent of young
daughters, a depressing one that makes me doubt my strength to be a
sufficiently good father.

That aside, the game has a problem, in my view: it's too real. It sounds like
a game that provides you with more of the crushing disappointments that fill
real life, and it reinforces the idea that you ought to be so awesome that
bullies leave you alone — which will never happen.

~~~
ams6110
Historically, males compete and establish superiority by fighting and physical
strength. Females do it with mind games. That's why females are more
emotionally manipulative than males are, in general.

~~~
muglug
Wow, how incredibly simplistic and wrong-headed. You're discounting _politics_
, which has been an all-male or male-dominated arena for millennia and which
thrives on emotional manipulation.

The idea that women are mostly feelers and men are mostly doers writes off
both men and women as useless stereotypes.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Context: We're talking about teenagers. Yes, teenage boys have politics, and
emotional cruelty. Still, _on average,_ teenage boys are more physically
aggressive and less emotionally manipulative than teenage girls.

~~~
saraid216
Fun fact: the physical aggression comes _after_ the emotional manipulation.
The difference isn't that boys are more physical; it's that they don't hide
the results.

~~~
Crito
I don't think it is correct to speak in such absolutes. Sometimes a fight is
just a fight.

I got into my fair share of trouble when I was a kid; both starting fights
without any real provocation and being the recipient of aggression without any
real provocation. Much of the time it was caused by an unnecessary escalation
of previously fun 'play' violence (towel fights in the locker room was a
biggie).

I can only think of two fights that were prompted by some form of emotional
argument or dispute: In middle school I fought a bully at my bus-stop, and a
year or two later a kid I had been bullying in boy scouts nearly broke my
nose.

~~~
saraid216
> some form of emotional argument or dispute

I think you're unnecessarily narrowing the definition of "emotional
manipulation".

I also do not know what "real provocation" is and how it differs from "not-
real provocation".

~~~
Crito
I am disputing that _" the physical aggression comes after the emotional
manipulation"_ is always the case. Sometimes it is provoked by little more
than a snapped towel (good fun) accidentally hitting somebody's balls (not
good fun, and likely to start a fight). Fights that break out during or after
contact sports are another obvious example, unless you are defining _"
emotional manipulation"_ in such a way that you can say that hockey players
tend to do it non-verbally while on the ice... Consider also a snowball fight
that involves increasingly hard chunks of snow or ice which eventually
escalates to grappling in a snowbank.

"Real provocation" in my above comment would be the sort of _" emotional
manipulation"_ that you are talking about.

~~~
saraid216
Again, your field is too narrow. Widen the context. You're trying to pitch
fights as spontaneous events between people whose relationships are completely
unspecified.

Conveniently, this makes it impossible to map out any potential emotional
manipulation. It's like saying that World War I happened with no real
provocation; it was just these random nations snapping towels at each other
and somebody got hit in the balls, boo hoo.

Tell me who these hypothetical people are, who flip a switch and kick their
neighbor's ass for no reason. Tell me how many months older they are. What
competitions did they win recently? What's their relationship to the teachers?
How long have they known each other? Why are some of them friends, and others
merely classmates? What do they look like, to each other? What are their
parents' relationships? What clubs did they join? And so on and so on.

------
brinker
It's interesting that the author's first idea was a combat-based game. For
some reason, the world of game development has to a large degree becomes
fixated on the idea of combat and violence. So games that don't necessarily
need it have it anyway, even when it doesn't make sense (see Ludonarrative
Dissonance in Bioshock). Always picking violence as the go-to gameplay
mechanic is so limiting, and it's exciting to see games that avoid it and go
for something more appropriate to the concept.

~~~
nsxwolf
It's fun. I like to shoot things and blow shit up and hit people with swords.

Very rarely do I find the story in a game good enough to care about some
neologism like "ludonarrative dissonance".

I find these "important" games like Bioshock to be pretty embarrassing and
childish in the story department. Ken Levine is not the first person to take
on Ayn Rand. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. The pretentiousness of
that game is just over the top. But it's a lot of fun, because they nailed the
blowing shit up part.

~~~
brinker
I'm not suggesting that combat-based games aren't fun. I've spent countless
hours playing first-person shooters and the like, and they can be absolutely
wonderful. However, I am also interested in video games as an artistic (not
-commercial) medium, and I think that going to combat as the core mechanic
just by reflex can limit games in that respect.

As far as Bioshock is concerned, I think it does a decent job with the story,
but more importantly I think it represented just another step forward for
video games as an artistic medium. It showed that games with a concept or
philosophical point could have market appeal, and it paved the way for greater
interest in such games down the road. There are stories and ideas that video
games, through their interactivity, are uniquely suited to tell, and as a
relatively new medium people are still figuring out what its strengths are,
and how to make real art with it.

You may not care for video games as an art form. You may only be interested in
them as a source of entertainment. That's fine! That's wonderful! We can have
both! I am simply happy to see increased interest in video games as art, and I
think that something as simple as moving beyond the idea of combat as the core
mechanic is an important step toward realizing all that video games can be.

~~~
nsxwolf
I am interested in games as an art form. But a lot of these "artistic"
darlings strike me as pretentious drivel. To me, Portal was much more
successful than Bioshock as an art piece. It wasn't dancing around trying to
tell me how important it is.

I also happen to think the mechanics of a shooter can be art.

~~~
Vaskivo
I also think that. The problem is that most people focus on the "meaning",
"emotion", "philosofical" aspect when making these "art games". That mostly
involves the game's story and narrative, and that is only a subset of game
design/development.

I consider something artistic when it displays the creator's mastery of the
craft. So yeah, Portal is art. Dear Esther? Pretentious drivel, without a
doubt!

If you want a great art game, that was made to BE an art game and is not a
deep philosofical piece try The Marriage [1]. This game actually disturbed me,
as I considered Rod Humble to have achieved IT, to have created the first PURE
videogame. Give it a try.

[1]
[http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/marriage.html](http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/marriage.html)

------
murbard2
This isn't a feature of teenage-hood by the way. The same patterns (power
cliques, bullying, etc) are common in prisons.

This is a feature of a coercive, homogeneous environment. Modern schooling -
especially public schooling - looks like it was designed by someone who took
"Lord of the Flies" for an instruction manual.

~~~
learc83
You can't put hundreds of kids together with little adult supervision and
expect it to be anything but a prison.

Historically kids wouldn't have had an opportunity to be around that many
other kids, and they kids they were around were probably extended family.

~~~
sp332
Even the ones trying to do well are hamstrung by the lack of role models. Even
if there is a teacher in the room, she/he spends the whole time talking down
to kids. That's nearly the only example kids have for interacting with other
human beings, since they rarely get to see adults interacting with each other
during the school day.

------
edent
There's a playable demo at [http://www.indiedb.com/games/ninja-pizza-
girl/downloads/ninj...](http://www.indiedb.com/games/ninja-pizza-
girl/downloads/ninja-pizza-girl-kickstarter-demo-11)

Works perfectly on Ubuntu (via Wine). Quite a fun little game :-)

------
incision
It's interesting that the fear, pain, scarring and all around serious threat
(above and beyond physical violence even) of humiliation, insults and
generally making people 'feel like crap' can be acknowledged the way it is
here, but a physical response to such things is universally deemed
unacceptable and unjustified.

If a kid punches his peer in the face for engaging in the sort of sadistic
mind games and public ridicule which leaves wounds that heal far slower than a
bloody nose he (the puncher) will end up with the blame.

In my experience, most people won't even entertain this topic, it's an
immediate retreat to 'sticks and stones' and simplistic notions of bullying
straight out of 60 year old Archie Comics.

~~~
angersock
Growing up decades ago, my dad had this to say--schoolyard bullies and fights
happened, and worst case parents were brought in or kids sent home. Sometimes,
the gym coach would just drag the kids over and give them gloves and let them
go at it. This was at a public school.

Currently, zero-tolerance policies have removed a long-standing safety-valve
for this kind of torment. As a result, we see things like this, like
Columbine, like many other things--and feed the school to prison pipeline.

~~~
ohitsdom
I doubt more school-approved violence would have helped prevent sociopaths who
do terrible things like the Columbine shootings...

But I do agree schools have gone way overboard on the politically-correct
scale.

------
vxNsr
To talk about the kickstarter campaign for a second: It seems that they've
seriously undervalued or underestimated the amount of interest in the game:
the highest reward is $1000 and it's gone (there's only one) the next highest
reward is $300 (5) and they're all gone too. meanwhile they still need to make
over $25,000 in basically just game sales, which can erode future game sales
(when the game is officially released)

They are also asking for an insanely small amount of money for a game that
won't be out for another 9 months, while promising to develop for 4 of the 7
major platforms.

Best of luck, I hope it's good because this is the first AUS kickstarter I'm
supporting.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1107526107/ninja-
pizza-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1107526107/ninja-pizza-girl)

------
mhurron
So all the parents here forgot what it was like to been a teen. Seems about
right.

Here is what the article said - "Teens worry about their peers."

This is apparently eye opening to people who were once teens. What is it with
parents that completely forget high school?

~~~
danielweber
It is amazing. Adults worry about their peers. When you look at what
professionals want out of their careers, it's "respect of their peers."

Yet they seem to think that this doesn't matter to teenagers.

Now, as a teenager, it's true that 1) your peers are a bunch of idiots, and 2)
none or few of these people will be in your life in 5 years, let alone 10.

Those lessons can be hard to sink in, and the adult can be too quick to forget
that the teenager has no reason to have internalized them.

~~~
polymatter
1 and 2 also applies to many adults and their peers. I think the main
difference is as you stated that teenagers haven't internalized those lessons
yet.

------
dingdingdang
Good luck with the kickstarter campaign, for sure one of the more worthwhile
game projects I've seen in a while! :)
([https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1107526107/ninja-
pizza-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1107526107/ninja-pizza-girl))

------
joyeuse6701
Two things came to mind reading this: Ender's Game and Snow Crash. The former
because the identification of your peers as adversaries, bullies, the real
threat, not the aliens threatening humanity. Snow Crash because there's
something to be said about tough delivery girls.

------
ElComradio
The tone of the game, and in discussions of bullying in general, seem to be
that the player just cannot deal with social disapproval and the choices are:

1) learn to smile while others toss bombs at you 2) withdraw

How about a 3)? If your daughter is displeased with being at the bottom of the
social hierarchy, why not encourage her to be on top? Encourage strength and
stop squashing ambition. Ninja Pizza Girl can photograph them back with
scathing Instagram comments or whatever. She can get a makeover and work out,
which will not only increase her social standing but improve her mental acuity
and fight depression. The game should end with the other pizza girls fighting
each other to be her best friend.

~~~
Zmetta
I don't agree with your 3rd option, I think it encourages the incorrect notion
that social status == happiness.

~~~
ElComradio
Having a high social status may not bring happiness by itself but it certainly
won't hurt.

~~~
aetherson
When I was in early grade school, I was unpopular and a target for being
picked on. I was unhappy about that and launched an in retrospect quite
cynical campaign to increase my status. Basically, I targeted the highest-
status boy in my class and devotedly worked to become his friend. I invited
him to events and talked with him and laughed at his jokes. I didn't
particularly like him, but I was successful and took up a role of second-
highest status boy. Then I ruthlessly defended my position.

Second grade was kind of weird.

Anyhow, I have to say that as weird as I see it in retrospect, it worked
pretty well for me. I didn't super enjoy maintaining my relationship with the
other boy, but I liked it a lot more than being a low status person others
picked on.

I make no grand claims to universality.

------
pstuart
My daughter is a preteen and has discovered Animal Jam (and turned her younger
brothers on to it as well). No violence, just lots of exploring, collecting
and trading. The social aspect seems to be the major hook.

------
Zmetta
I think this is a refreshing approach to a game. As others have mentioned, a
lot of recent game development has a focus on smashing your enemies to bits
with increasingly powerful moves or weapons while this game is attempting to
depict the nuances of navigating a much more complex reality.

You can't just sneak up on your snarky condescending peers and squash them
with a giant squeaky hammer. You have to figure out ways to coexist with them,
and even sometimes cooperate, while avoiding their toxic natures.

Sometimes the solution involves finding the good peers among the bad, other
times it may involve finding common ground, and perhaps sometimes it involves
recognizing a lost cause and making your interactions with particularly toxic
people minimal.

There are a number of reasons I'm happy to support this game. It may not get
everything right, it may not become a top seller on release, but it does have
a target audience and message that I personally would like to see more of in
the game industry.

------
DanielBMarkham
Wonderful crossover piece. I could email this to members of my family or my
other nerd friends. It's intimate and shareable. Plus it works as a promo for
the game. The structure is nice, and it flows. Most excellent.

------
cowbell
This was a great article actually. Most game devs are men, so we don't
understand this point of view so well. I may be inspired to write a "girl"
game with such insights. Thank you for sharing it :)

~~~
xtrumanx
> Most game devs are men, so we don't understand this point of view so well.

I don't know about that. The stuff described in the article don't seem to be
things unique to the female gender. In fact, I'm sure many of us here
struggled with the same issue Kari went through when we were young boys.

~~~
drz
"Many" is a weasel word, and informationally useless. How many of us, and what
percentage of us, are the relevant questions.

~~~
Anderkent
And if we had that information, we could use it.

Without it, all we can claim is that a non-insignificant population has these
issues.

------
VLM
I see lots of "my anecdotal experience as a XYZ proves your anecdotal
experience fighting bullies as a ABC is totally wrong"

However, observationally over my long life, I've found it all boils down to
get inside their OODA loop, and they want nothing to do with you. Doesn't
matter if its a supervisor at age 35 or some jock in high school.

Observationally it doesn't seem to even matter if you're right, just if you're
faster. Spin the loop fast as possible and don't skip any steps. Do the best
you can without stopping but don't stop the loop. The faster you spin the
faster you can try all kinds of crazy ideas some of which might actually work.

Being reactive has a negative connotation. I'm not saying be reactive. A dumb
ball game analogy is make sure the ball is always in their court so they have
to think longer, harder than you, they're the ones anxiously guessing whats
about to happen next not you. They tend not to like that experience, not at
all.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)

Don't confuse it with being flaky or random.

Its not of any use when you're getting beaten, its highly effective at
avoiding a beating scenario.

------
wainstead
I am reminded of the "Voices From The Hellmouth" project from Slashdot long
ago:

[http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/99/04/25/1438249/voices-...](http://news-
beta.slashdot.org/story/99/04/25/1438249/voices-from-the-hellmouth)

------
ps4fanboy
This seems really hypocritical from a company that makes this game. Run Fatty
Run
[http://www.disparitygames.com/?page_id=148](http://www.disparitygames.com/?page_id=148)

What is the message here, dont bully unless its fat people?

------
anigbrowl
_Running fast makes Gemma feel good about herself and feeling good is the most
fragile resource in the game. We realize that we need to represent the
player’s emotional state somehow but nothing seems to fit._

Turn it around - completing levels or collecting tips or beating a clock
produces good vibes, but when she feels bad she can't run fast, which limits
her freedom of movement. After all, when you feel depressed you're not a
bundle of energy, requiring you to do more climbing/plodding to get through
the tasks you have to do.

------
greggman
Maybe it's just me but

> I realize that Gemma’s not trying to defeat her enemies. She doesn’t even
> view them as enemies. They’re other kids like her and she never stops trying
> to win their approval.

That seems like that could be part of the issue? My friends and I in high
school were not trying to win the approval of anyone. We hung out together,
gamed together, coded together, played D&D together. We could have cared less
what others thought and weren't trying to "win their approval".

~~~
ohitsdom
If this is true, seems like you and your friends were pretty confident and
secure in who you were as high schoolers. That's awesome. I had a similar
group of nerdery/outcast friends, and we enjoyed hanging out together but I
personally still desired the approval of the "cool kids".

------
jnoland
A great read into parenting and I really applaud this man for getting his
whole family working together on a project. This should be a worthwhile game
for not just teenagers to play but also parents and community leaders. I am
thoroughly looking forward to playing the game.

It is also interesting to note the perception of reality for these young
girls. They are not fooled by "rose-colored" glasses and yet the first
solution is to "join" the system and master it.

------
argonaut
I'd go a bit further and say that the scariest thing as a teenager is
yourself. It hasn't been that long since I was a teenager in high school, so I
can still remember the insecurities that ran the whole gamut - physical,
sexual, intellectual, social. I wasn't even bullied - I was mostly just
ignored. I think that at a good, affluent school any kid should be able to
avoid most physical or overt verbal abuse.

------
Hytosys
Does this sound like an insincere story to anyone else? At the risk of
appearing combative: "Ninja Pizza Girl" — the thematic concept by itself seems
like an exploit of the industry.

Also interesting: "Run Fatty Run"[1] is in clear contradiction of the
creator's message in his latest game.

[1]
[http://www.disparitygames.com/?page_id=148](http://www.disparitygames.com/?page_id=148)

------
axilmar
If only parents taught their children to behave in a civil way, bullying
wouldn't exist in schools.

In the modern society, parents do not pay enough attention to their children,
and so the children grow up without learning how to behave in a civil manner.

In fact, what children learn is to behave aggressively like their parents do
when the parents confront other people external to the family.

The problem of bullying starts in the family.

------
scrumper
It's a good example of gathering feedback and iterating on a design, and it's
much, much more than that. Fascinating and well written.

------
ivanca
Today: Hacker news shockingly discovers that social acceptance is the main
fear of teenage girls.

Follow up: One guy wants to make a game as depressing as their reality,
despite having many years as game Dev he forgot the very main reason why we
play video games in the first place: To escape from reality. To live
experiences we couldn't live otherwise .

------
graycat
That's all just because the father never read 'Girls 101 for Dummies -- Boys',
and that's partly because I have not written it yet. Material such as in the
OP would be some of the best in the book, along with much, much more about
girls that boys just have no clue about. They should have much more than a
clue, as boys, when meeting, dating girls, when picking a wife, and certainly
when they have one or more daughters.

The old norm that boys/men get to ignore such things about girls easily leads
to a lot of hurt and harm.

The lessons are not very complicated, but they are next to impossible for a
boy to discover when following through the usual paths in life. E.g., I've
been a student in five colleges and taught in two more, and I doubt that any
of those schools had a course that covered what is in the OP or what would be
in my book. Why? The norms are, just don't explain that stuff, especially to
boys/men. So, get hurt and harm. Bummer. Instead, get the info out there.

E.g., an approximation to the lesson in the OP is the Erich Fromm remark in
his 'The Art of Loving'. I paraphrase:

For humans, the fundamental problem in life is doing something effective about
feeling alone.

This statement is especially true for girls/women. A man who does not
appreciate this statement has some modules between his ears powered down.

Fromm went on to say that only four solutions have been found, and one of
those was "membership in a group". Presto: That's the solution the girls in
the OP were working for.

Then the father needs to know about two of Fromm's other solutions: One of
them is "love of spouse". So, such a girl can be very tempted to get a
boyfriend, maybe sooner and more 'intimate' than her father might wish.
Another is 'orgiastic' behavior, that is, get drunk on alcohol, high on drugs,
have an orgy, and, thus, suppress the pains for a few hours at, of course,
some costs in addiction, infection, social rejection, etc. Fathers need to
know this, too. From some news stories, apparently some college girls with
'the hookup culture' and 'bar scene' have discovered this solution.

This stuff, and more should be taught. If I write the book, then one thing to
do with it, maybe good, would be to have some good Hollywood people dramatize
parts of the book, that is, illustrate with facial expressions, tone of voice,
body language, scowls, tears, etc.

~~~
Dewie
> That's all just because the father never read 'Girls 101 for Dummies --
> Boys', and that's partly because I have not written it yet.

I think I'll do without your hateful book, thanks.

~~~
graycat
Sorry, nothing "hateful" intended. Saying "for Dummies" in a book title is now
famous. It's supposed to be to have sympathy for someone struggling to
understand and, thus, feeling like a "dummy"

For the subject of girls, quite broadly, boys just don't understand, e.g., on
points such as in the OP. Then, commonly boyfriends, husbands, and fathers
don't understand either.

Here is a little of why? There was some recent research that showed that in
the crib, girls pay attention to people, faces, eye contact, and tone of
voice, and boys pay attention to things, as a joke, maybe to hack the latch on
the crib or get to the toy firetruck on the floor.

For more, can read how the differences continue in D. Tannen, 'You Just Don't
Understand: Men and Women in Conversation'. Tannen became a famous professor
at Georgetown University. Tannen's book is not at all "hateful", and neither
is what I would write.

And paying attention to Erich Fromm is not at all "hateful".

Instead, as I wrote in my post just above, girls are being harmed and hurt
now, also in their relationships with boys, and I would hope to help the
situation.

~~~
Dewie
> Sorry, nothing "hateful" intended. Saying "for Dummies" in a book title is
> now famous. It's supposed to be to have sympathy for someone struggling to
> understand and, thus, feeling like a "dummy"

But emphasizing the audience - boys - is less common (but the audience would I
guess be implied, anyway. But I don't imagine literal boys would pick up a
for-dummies book on the opposite sex).

It's also become in vogue to regard boys as psychologically and emotionally
stunted, compared to girls. The title just seemed to hint toward that trend.

> Sorry, nothing "hateful" intended. Saying "for Dummies" in a book title is
> now famous. It's supposed to be to have sympathy for someone struggling to
> understand and, thus, feeling like a "dummy"

And yet, women and men seem equally mystified by each other. Women and their
higher social/emotional intelligence doesn't seem to fair better than their
knuckle-dragging partners. There are plenty of men who cling to unhealthy
relationship, plenty of women who do the same, and many of them seem equally
irrational in their insistence of clinging to it.

No, I'm not someone who is of the opinion that men and women are on average
equal, and that any perceived difference is all about "selection bias" or
whatever. But some universally "accepted" differences, I find questionable.
Like women being emotional and men being rational - though women may be more
emotional, men are just as much slaves to their emotions as women. And women's
higher social/emotional intelligence doesn't seem to help _them_ in their
relations towards men. I guess it's like the misunderstood geniuses - too
smart for their contemporaries (partners)?

~~~
graycat
> But I don't imagine literal boys would pick up a for-dummies book on the
> opposite sex).

I would have jumped at such a book when I was 15 and trying to understand my
girlfriend of 13.

First lessons: She has a LOT of deep concerns about her life and family; e.g.,
is she pretty enough; some of these concerns are strong enough to be
anxieties. From these concerns, she has low self-esteem. She is just painfully
lonely and desperate for friendship, approval, emotional security, not feeling
alone, and maybe romance. She has raging emotions, likely including about sex
and romantic relationships, and, thus, is terrified about her 'reputation',
getting hurt emotionally, and maybe about getting pregnant. You need to
understand her and respond to her, to give her what you can of what she needs.

So, need to think a lot about how she has been behaving, what she has been
saying or not saying, etc., guess what is going on, get into some non-
stressful conversations that can shed more light, understand her, and then
help her.

In simple terms, yes, not much of a surprise, she is 'needy'; it's easy to
suspect that Mother Nature finds that this has 'reproductive advantage' and
likes it.

But after school you want to take her for an ice cream cone, hold her hand, if
only by some subtle means let her know you think that she is really terrific,
and see her smile. For making her smile, with the right feelings for her, you
might like her smiles so much you suspect you could give up food and water and
live just on her smiles.

After the ice cream cone, hidden behind a tree, you might kiss her six times
on her forehead. That afternoon will be burned into your brain, and for the
rest of your life you will no more be able to forget it or her than you could
forget your own name.

Not many boys of 15 know these things, and they very much need to, these
things and many more, before picking a wife or having children, especially
daughters.

> It's also become in vogue to regard boys as psychologically and emotionally
> stunted, compared to girls. The title just seemed to hint toward that trend.

Sorry, but "in vogue" or not, once with an expert I told him that it seemed
that women were so darned emotional. Then right away the expert explained, "Of
COURSE women are MUCH more emotional than men. That is the cause of all the
problems.". He was both very much an expert and not joking at all. Also read
some of D. Tannen that I referenced. Or read some of E. Fromm where he says,
"Men and women deserve equal respect as persons but are not the same.". Look
up the recent study I mentioned that showed that in the crib girls are
interested in people and boys, in things. Be around some children and just
observe, even in a grocery store: The girls will make eye contact, and the
boys will play with things. YMMV, and I don't have more careful scientific
evidence for you, but it would be a radical claim that boys and girls are the
same 'socially' and 'psychologically'.

The norms are common in movies: E.g., watch 'Back to School' and look at the
girl: She is socially insightful, 'understanding' (in the sense of forgiving),
sympathetic, empathetic, emotionally supportive, a peacemaker, etc.

> And women's higher social/emotional intelligence doesn't seem to help them
> in their relations towards men.

No, that 'EI' is just crucial for both girls and women; other than physical
beauty (quickly fades?), physical love making, and motherhood, it's a lot of
all the rest they have "in their relations towards men" and, really, one of
the crucial ways they have to keep 'him' happy "'till death do we part".

But, yes, still women do have big problems. My proposed book, if not just a
joke to illustrate the need for such a book, would be intended to help.

An old but common joke is that girls, girlfriends, and wives don't come with
an instruction manual. I believe that boys and men need one.

------
platz
The stuff that [http://www.increpare.com/](http://www.increpare.com/) has been
putting out is well off the beaten path - sometimes hits on these more
emotional notes, sometimes more puzzling.

------
adamman
First thought I had when I saw the gameplay was 2D Mirror's Edge.

------
oldmanjay
I've noticed a sort of nascent movement amongst the tumblrati (and other
groups) agitating for what I can only think of as "the right to not be
offended."

Does this concept fit into that category? I have a hard time telling, perhaps
because I was raised a few generations ago when coddling kids was considered
to be leaving them ill-prepared for the real world - a sort of "behold, I send
you out as sheep amongst the wolves" theory of human interaction.

I feel like there's an aim to produce a society of sensitive sheep. Maybe I'm
misreading things, again, I'm a relic. I'm honestly curious what the goal is,
though.

~~~
DanBC
Children subject each other to behaviours that would see them sacked or even
arrested if it happen when they were adults in a workplace.

This is not about "stop saying things that offend me"; this is about things
that you would see as pyschogical torture if they happened to you.

Perhaps there's a niche in the market for "Torment as a service" \- you sign
up and confirm, and then you get a month of the kind of abuse suffered by
people. There are varying levels of abuse on offer.

The game does fail to acknowledge one thing: most harm suffered by children
happens in the home, usually from siblings. This is true even if we only
include activity that could be considered as "abuse" (physical, sexual, or
emotional) by child protection social workers.

The scariest thing to a child is likely to be a member of that child's family.

------
netcan
What a cool family

------
Shivetya
the happy colorful world and dark dreary world were well presented in the
Robin Williams movie, What Dreams May Come.

The idea has been used elsewhere, old fifties horror films would go dark.
Certain colors have been used in many movies to effect mood if not an unreal
location; green in Matrix movies was a great use of color to distinguish one
reality from another

------
PeterisP
Hell is other people.

------
iondream
finally, something new. Its about time...

------
jug5
The teenage daughter is already a zombie, why would other zombies scare her?

------
drz
Yeah, no. Ask a vet suffering from PTSD.

------
notastartup

        Daughter: "once...a man answered the door almost naked. 
        I wanted to hurl his pizza away and tell him to put some 
        pants on." 
    
        Father: "LOOOOL you'd make a great video game character. 
        Ninja Pizza Girl."
    

Aspergers.

------
lotsofcows
Female driven design? Is gaming growing up? Can't wait to find out the answer
to that one!

~~~
quantized
This comment is unconscionably insulting and sexist.

~~~
lotsofcows
The vast majority of action games seem to be aimed at teenage males. Just
because it's about a specific sex doesn't make it sexist.

~~~
quantized
You doubled down on your sexism with ageism.

~~~
lotsofcows
I don't think you know what those words mean.

------
gormo2
Title is linkbait. The article is neither about "the scariest thing in the
world" nor is it really about teenage daughter. It's a nice story but it
simply needs a better title.

~~~
Dewie
Linkbait? Is the title really going to lead someone to believe that your
average teenage girl might be an authority on experiences that are really,
really scary? I don't think the title is supposed to, or tries to, be taken
literally like that.

------
aylons
When I were in the US, I found that teenage driving was the scariest thing in
the world.

Man, you're crazy to let kids drive, might as well put loaded guns in their
hands... oh, wait!

~~~
jacquesm
When I lived in rural Canada I taught my 11 year old son to drive as a safety
precaution in case I or another adult with him would become incapacitated for
some reason. It's a very strange feeling to see your child in control of a ton
and a half of steel, to trust him with both your lives and _he 's doing a
great job of it_. After my initial worries that he'd do something crazy faded
I realized that I'm under-estimating my childs abilities consistently. He
drove us around the area where we lived for a while until he asked me if I was
satisfied with his driving skills. Amazed was more like it.

Letting kids drive in traffic is dangerous, no doubt about it and here in NL I
would have probably not done this. It's much denser populated here (where we
lived was extremely sparse) and help from other adults or ambulance service is
a (cell-) phone call away. But in the sticks that's not the case and such
skills can be life savers.

~~~
VLM
"After my initial worries that he'd do something crazy"

As I think back on my experiences of surviving crazy driving, it was never
"just drivin' around and suddenly doing something dumb" it was always bad
judgment usually under pressure. So there is freezing rain forecast but I
really want to play video games with my friend. My dad is going to kill me if
I get home late again. Its a completely empty and abandoned road in great
weather conditions... what could possibly go wrong? I've never driven in over
six inches of snow, but everyone else on the road does it all the time, so how
hard can it possibly be? I'm sleepy but the sooner I get home the sooner I'll
get to sleep, so go for it. I'm not really drunk I don't even feel a buzz and
haven't had a drop in two hours.

I most certainly did not get into accidents in every story above, mostly thru
dumb luck. They all do have a common thread of later on, looking back, even
dumb teen me was asking myself WTF I was thinking when I made those decisions.

Its not entirely different than teen experience with romantic relationships
and even to some extent friend relationships. Oh and drugs and alcohol too.
And finances.

Lack of patience seems to be the root of all evil, with me when I was a teen
and in other teens I saw. Can't teach wisdom or judgment, but you can teach
patience.

