PG ?

[dragonmind81]

Hi!
What are you're idea of PG on this game?
My 8 yrs old son have seen this on youtube and started to talk about it a lot and that he wants to play it.
Finding out its a "stealth horror game" it made me rethink this.
I was planning to try this one out myself fist, but desided to ask you guys to.

What does you think about PG in this game? How "scary" is it?
Personaly I think that the absence of gore does not mean that it is child safe. It can still be desturbing enough.

[GreenHouse!]

Well... The game is not that scary, the only thing that can scare you is the neighbor seeing and following you. The rest is just exploring his house.

[Flaenl]

the only scary part is some guy chasing you , you will be paranoid for the whole game thats it.

[Plastick]

I'll say you can have kids from 7 playing, but aslong as he doesn't modify the game to find the voice files (as in the pre alpha there are files where the neighbor is swearing ALOT) but in the game atm he doesn't talk

[notmikeh]

not gory if thats what your issue is. the horror is the anticipation of being caught and hiding from the neighbor while exploring. get it dude

[Kat_Zone]

the actual jumpscare isn't scary its the anticipation, there is no swearing, violence or other adult themes.

[Plastick]

Originally posted by MR. Dripper:

the actual jumpscare isn't scary its the anticipation, there is no swearing, violence or other adult themes.

only swearing in the games files

[AltAcc]

Its not bad actually at all! I don't think theres swearing or anything... IDK but, it isnt scary not even the jumpscares

[Buntkreuz]

May i give you and advise and idea?

Its a professional not a private one, as i am Social Worker and Pedagogue while studying Education Science. Im not trying to come off as something better and be arogant, just trying to say that dealing with such questions is my job and i have some experience that goes beyond subjective impressions.
So here i go, maybe it helps and i want to clarify, theres no "one fits all" solution. It ever depends on the person, the parents, the topic and many other aspects. So what follows is more of a general recommendation than a solution, since there are no solutions:

One of the most important things when dealing with media and education or raising children in a proper way, is to teach them how to deal with media themselves instead of parenting every step or walling of every topic that may appear there.
There are topics that are very likely to cause problems for a child depending on its development step.
For prime example we get when studying: Showing children in a dailycare a video about starving children in africa (classic trope) or poor regions is a horrible idea, they cant handle it. They havent reached their development step to deal with such topics and pictures.

What i could experience often enough and think is the best solution, but also needs alot of time investment (which to be honest is what parents should do as they decided to have children and should take on that responsibility, so no excuses there), is to get into dialogue with their kids about what they do, consume or deal with.

Its no problem to have a 13 year old play Unreal Tournament, but as soon as parents just park their kids infront of a screen and give them stuff to consume so they stay silent, problems will start to happen.
This game has a comical look, and seems to be funny and weird in certain ways, but it also has an implicit tone and feel which can cause reactions on a younger person.
He could start to feel stress in situations that remember him to the game, it could even easily become a problem no one notices.
Such as a subconscious fear from something (for example a neighbour, cellars or since i could see it in a trailer of the game, being burried alive). This could also develop in a trauma, since your son is 8 years old this may happen in secret.

To avoid that, ever try to figure out what your son is dealing with internally or when playing a game.
Do not only let him sit infront of his TV or PC and play these games, then let him figure out by himself what he experienced.
Back him up with doing it, which is also important for him to create an ethical stance.

One example would be:
To get into dialogue about the theme of the game. Talk with him about what he thinks about you as a player trying to invade another house.
Is it ethically correct to break into a house, damage another persons stuff just because you assume that your neighbour is hiding something in his cellar? Is it correct to do that when you believe he is holding a person captive there but you have no proof?

It may sound weird at first to think about such meaningless things, but thats only because adults (mostly) developed a stance on such things already.
Its key to get a child to develop a balance between a fearful and ignorant position like "i dont care what he hides there, its his right to have whatever or whoever he wants in this cellar" and a superhero powerfantasy like "its my duty to figure it out and save all these people in the village, because only i can".
We all went through that phase. Everyone did it differently.

You pick a topic out of the game, which could be anything you notice there and make it a topic with your son.
Explain what is right or wrong and most importantly also educate yourself.
You need to research what your son is consuming, what topics he is dealing with and you need to educate yourself on how to properly talk with him about it.
That means that you also need to critically selfreflect about your own positions.
Your son will take over ethical positions from you, make sure that these positions are solid, backed up and good.
If you want to have him become a empathic human being that cares about others but also knows how to keep a respectful distance or thinks about his actions and their effects, you need to first think about all of that for yourself.

I see no problem in your son playing this game, as long as it doesnt happen with him alone in a chamber and no talking about it.
He is young and kids have to learn not only how to see media critically (critical education is key for a human being and to develop an own opinion, knowing that not everything you see must be true and not everything said must be right is important).
But also on how to deal with the content of media and underline that what he consumes is simply not real and doesnt work in real life.
In case of some games thats obvious it seems, but in cases of other games like GTA V which is consumed by many teens and kids its important to reflect the content they see.
It needs explanation. And often its simply details, not explicit graphical presentation like gore. Gore or swearing is no problem (against general opinion of most parents). As long as they learn how to deal with that nothing happens. Its more about the implicit things you see in games, like ambience, agenda and intentions, idea and fantasy. Like the explained example above.
Again, is it ok to do what you do in this game if it was the real life?

You cant expect children of an age below 15 to know that the world isnt how a GTA V makes it out to be.
That you cant just steal a car and run over 3 people while firing precisely with a handgun on cops.
You wouldnt believe what many think in that age is possible.
And you wouldnt believe how many "problematic" families let their teens play GTA V, never talk about it, dont set rules and then oh wonder have them steal in supermarkets, start smoking with 12, beat children in school, never do homework or simply jumping out of a driving car (yeah that actually really happens and its ridiculous to hear them telling you that story, its hilariously dumb sometimes).
Maybe telling them that this wont have the same result as in the game is important.

If you follow the rule of talking and investing time to figure that stuff out and giving your son freedom but also boundaries, i see no problem in him playing it.
The worst you could do was mindlessly just buy a game, be done with it and not even set rules to how and when he consumes these things.
Set rules, together with him (not over his head) and cooperate.
The invested time will prove worthy when he grows older.
The other worst thing you could do was walling him off from the outside preventing him to deal with anything and cause a realworld shock when he gets older and cant deal with problems.
Problems are nothing bad.
Children need problems to develop strategies.
Developing the wrong strategies is something you want to avoid.
Like dealing with confrontation with physical attacks is the wrong strategy and needs better ones. Same goes with playing games.
Questioning the content and truth of a game is a solid strategy for consuming media and you want to teach your child to do that.
And remember that your son will EVER have access to far more violent media than you think he has.


Sidenote here on a private level:
My parents allowed me to play "hard" games. I played Diablo 1 when i was about 7, which was clearly not appropriate, Unreal Tournament with 13 and so on. But my father played Unreal Tournament WITH me online, we met on the same server and we talked about it.
My parents ever gave me rules to how and when i am allowed to play games, which i obviously also tried to bypass.
And they invested time to look on what i play and we made it a topic often enough.
Mostly that worked in the way that i had no money and had to lend out a game from my fathers "library" (back in the time we only had physical copies obviously, no steam library).
So it depended on what he was interested in and bought that i could play.
The only time i could decide what i want was either with wishing a game for birthday or so or with sparing enough money to buy one.
But mostly i consumed what was available in our household (which happens to be RTS Games mostly).


Sorry for the long text, i hope it may help you to make a good decision. I wouldnt take this topic too lighthearted. The influence of media on a developing child is immense and plays into the process that is called socialization.
That means a child will develop in the way that people reflect on the child.
The child will take over behaviour, strategies and other important aspects of personality from the people acting in the direct reference field.
Which are parents, friends, teachers, other family members and also media.
When you ever thought that your child laughs like someone you know (like yourself or your wife) or acts in a similar way or talks like someone else or does things the same way (like pelling an egg or so), you can bet its NOT genetically but simply socialization. Stuff inspired by other people and it plays into every aspect of the personality, including decisions, aspiration, ethical positioning, strategies and acting in environement.
(In fact the gene has less impact on behaviour than most people think, rather none at all, which is why so many are outraging about all that racism stuff, which implies that people are what they are because of their genes, which isnt true.)

[Bren]

Go For It Nothing To Be Afraid Of ecides Getting Chased Its Kinda Hard But go for it!

[Plastick]

Those swearing voicelines are in the current build, your desision