Kids Down the Stairs, the game I wrote my second narrative on, is a PC game I used to play as a child. The rules of the game are simple. One just has to keep on jumping from stone steps to stone steps in a downward direction, avoiding iron thorns on the ceiling and on certain steps. Once the player gets stabbed by the thorns, his energy decreases, and when the energy bar turns to zero, he dies (figuratively, of course). The player also loses if he falls down the step while jumping. There are two ways to play the game, either in one-player mode or two-player mode, and the focusing elements of the game changes as the player switches his mode.
Not all four elements can be seen in Kids Down the Stairs. Among the four, which are killing, socializing, achieving and exploring, the socializing aspect seems the least obvious. When played in one-player mode, the game has an emphasis on mostly achieving and a bit of exploring and killing. This is because what the player would like to achieve in this mode is to jump on as many stone steps as possible to break his own record. While the player could explore the area by moving around in different directions, it is not the main focus of the game. The player eventually dies, but that is just how the game ends and no actual killing is involved. Neither exploring nor killing is stressed in one-player mode. However, in two-player mode, the players become killers as whoever dies first loses the game. Like one-player mode, achieving and exploring are also noticeable, but not socializing, since players can’t communicate via the game when they play.
In light of the five aspects of morality, fairness is weighed most heavily. Take the two-player mode as an example, where neither of the players has an advantage over the other. Even their characters look exactly the same besides shirt colors. The game encourages fair competition, yet it at the same time discourages care, authority and loyalty because according to the rules the two players are supposed to harm each other to achieve victory. They do not respect or care for each other, and are only loyal to themselves.
I enjoy playing games with simple rules and a clear goal, so Kids Down the Stairs is a perfect match. Although I played games like The Sims before, its lack of emphasis on achieving soon made me lose interest. Nevertheless, if Kids Down the Stairs was made into a more complex game where you can form groups for competition, it may be interesting.
Initially, I thought this game was interesting to me, as someone who’s also typically into simple, straightforward, achievement based games. I especially like that fairness is the most important aspect of the game, because I think that that’s generally important to me in games of more than one player. But I’ve never been one who is interested in direct one-on-one competition, not necessarily because I’m passionate about loyalty and care and authority, but because I don’t usually fare well in tests of speed as opposed to just skill and logic. Despite that, I think I still may be interested in playing.