I want Villanostra to show (among other things) relationships between the moral values of a community and the well-being of the people that live there. Right now it feels like I’m modeling some aspects of the villagers’ well-being, but not others.
There are lots of ways that researchers measure well-being, but the ones used at Sharecare.com seemed to be well-suited for my model. They look at the following aspects:
- Purpose: liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals.
- Currently modeled by the match between a villager’s moral values and the work that they do.
- Physical: having good health and enough energy to get things done daily.
- Currently modeled by the villager’s accumulated stress.
- Financial: managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security.
- Currently modeled by the coins the villager owns.
- Social: having supportive relationships and love in your life.
- Not currently modeled!
- Community: liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community.
- Not currently modeled!
It’s somewhat appalling to realize that most of our games–at least, the games that aren’t purely about physically destroying enemies–measure success / victory by no metric other than the financial. That’s certainly endemic in western society, but all games are educational: game designers should be teaching people that other things in life have value too.
A first idea to model the Community aspects of well-being is to compare each villager’s moral values with the same community moral value measures the players use to earn victory points. A high correlation will make the villager feel like they belong, and reduce their stress. A low correlation will increase their stress, and possibly add to the community’s unrest.
A first idea to model the Social aspects of well-being is to give each villager a support metric. Different life events each year affect the support. Higher support helps a villager recover each year from stress. I’m not thrilled about adding a new metric to track for 3-15 villagers, though. And it seems like support could be related how the villager’s values match those of their neighbors (especially if they value Loyalty!). Also considering how life events like Marriage and Having a Child would affect support. Lots to think upon.