Walking sims - yay or nay?
Just bought Leaving Lyndow which is currently on sale. From the screenshots that one does seem to have a bunch of other people you get to interact with but I haven't actually tried it yet.
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bought it. thanks for the recommendation. didn't even know that game existed.
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I bought it too. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!
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You bought it, I'm trying it. Thanks for pointing it out <3 :*
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I remember this one getting released, but how short is it really?
Looks nice and all, but it its basically just a tech-demo, then meh IMO.
Have you guys tried it yet?
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Just bought and finished it. I haven't seen it before, thanks for sharing!
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I get that it's a budget thing.
Yep, but I guess that's not a mainstream genre, so an high budget walking simulator is very risky.
I would love something like that bug I guess it's not going to happen
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you're probably right. i still would like to see someone try. higher production values could make the game attractive to a wider audience.
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Then I have problems defining the genres. What is exactly a walking simulator? What is the difference with other genres? What are the elements that define a walking simulator?
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Should I trust Urban Dictionary definition? :S Mr. 2CleverUsername and Mr. Ghost Tartar
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Not always, but in this case the definition is ok.
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well i tried to put my own description and i got as far as....
"a story based game with no weapons and typically no inventory to very few inventory items with nothing more to do then walk thru the story."
that just looked to vague so i thought i'd see what other descriptions there were, and that one kinda just fits best, so i sent it instead.
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Then... Is Home a walking simulator?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/215670/Home/
Visual novels are definitely not walking simulators but fit your description. The only difference is that you interact wtih people, not just walk around.
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yes, home is a great example. =)
i know what you mean though, you toss in any one aspect like a gun and it instantly turns it from a walking sim to a first person shooter instead. there's only really a handful of successful walking sims. i think just about all the top ones are already mentioned here.
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I really have not much idea about the frontiers in videogame genres nowadays. Genres worked really well in the old days, but today frontiers are too diffuse for me. Almost any game released lately has elements of several genres in it (there are always exceptions like mmmm Doom I suppose).
If I imagine a Stanley Parable with people you can talk with, that looks too much of an adventure game for me. Well, at least one without puzzles to solve nor inventary. Again I don't know if puzzles and inventory are core elements of adventure games. Then you have games like the Witness and Talos Principle, what are those? Walking simulators with puzzles? Are they a different genre?
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totally agree. genres are getting heavily mixed in games these days, and it makes it rather difficult to distinguish which is their main genre. basically walking sims are the games that didn't fit any of those other genres very well, so they made their own category for it.
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Games having aspects of a genre doesn't necessarily mean the game's that genre though. RPG and Strategy are great examples of this. pretty much every game on Steam has at least one of those two tags because you level up and/or make a choice.
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very true. i just wish they would stop taking great franchises and try to enhance them by adding in other genres. like for example fallout 4: minecraft edition.
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sorry, i missed you question parts for some reason.. those are just puzzle game. the majority of the game has to be getting thru the story without really doing anything but walking. those have a lot of walking to get to to the next puzzle section, but the majority of the time is still spent solving puzzles rather then walking to them.
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mmm so if you move the focus of walking simulator games from walking to interact with other people, aren't you alterating the genre? Is it still a walking simulator if the focus is put on dialogs instead of letting the story to be told solely by the scenaries?
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no, some interaction and dialog is fine, it can even spice it up a bit better to not bore you to death. but the primary aspect still has to be mostly walking. adventure and rpg games can border alongside a walking simulator, but they still have too much interaction & dialog to fall under just a walking sim.
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Yes, most often they use notes or other gimmicks to relay messages from the past - basically nonviolent games where storytelling happens through indirect ways (you're told what happened, you don't take part in it), and it heavily relies on environmental storytelling. I think even Fallout games could be turned into walking sims by removing weapons, enemy aggressions, people, and you should build up what could have happened by notes, letters, and the mentioned environmental storytelling (like corpses of people burnt in the flames, overdosed themselves or ended their life in some other way)
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i wish fallout would of taken it that direction rather then the crafting simulator direction they took in 4. i think even that would of captured my interest much more.
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Yes ; it's so weird to see the weak main questline in the Bethesda games while they make awesome job at environmental storytelling, they really should capitalize on it more.
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the best walking sims are those, where you actually have something to do. did you play The Fidelio Incident? fantastic game. it has quite a few puzzles you need to solve. and it has this mechanic, where you need to stay warm. so you always need to go from one fire/hot gas vent to the next one, or you'll freeze. this makes the walking far less boring, actually. it also had a great story. highly recommend it. :)
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no i haven't, added it to wishlist though. it does look like my kind of game, thanks! ^^
edit: it looks like firewatch meets long dark & i loved both of those. xD
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i couldn't tell, i still haven't played the long dark but it's planned for a while now. it's sitting there in my favorites list, ready to go. ^^
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i mostly just meant for the cold aspect, but i have a feeling the story mode (once released) will be another "walking sim" as well.
(obviously keeping survival as the primary tag though, secondarily walking sim)
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Me too. As far as I can tell a walking simulator is just an adventure game with an emphasis on exploration, and the term is redundant. I fundamentally disagree with defining something based on what it is missing - it's like defining an egg as a cake, but without flour, sugar or butter. Most modern games don't fit neatly into the genres used to advertise games in the 1980's and 90's, at least not into just one of them. The purpose of genre labels is to allow easy classification and therefore quick decision making, e.g. somebody shopping for music might want to exclude all rap, marching band music and spoken word poetry. If the genre labels don't allow this decision to be reliably made, they are worthless. However, people like to classify things regardless, and also to invent new classifications, either to be of genuine use for classification or to provide a marketing tool. It's worth noting that Steam store tags are user-applied and there are no instructions that I can find to define the tags, meaning that their application is open to interpretation. The thing that I don't like about crowd-sourced/democratic information (and linguistics) is that unlike in other fields of science, if enough people make an error for long enough, it stops being an error.
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but (at least for me) puzzles are the core element of the definition of adventure games. if you take that away, i really wouldn't say what's left is an 'adventure game without puzzles'. doesn't make sense to me. what's left then that defines this game as an adventure game? the story? a story alone is not enough to define a genre. most genres have to a bigger or lesser degree story elements.
so, walking simulators to me are not the same as adventures. they play and feel differently. certain overlapping elements do not make them the same. Portal and Half-Life have similarities, too. but they definitely are completely different genres.
if you can accept that, then the definition of walking simulator helps to prevent what you complain about. because most people know what i am talking about, if i use that term. so the definition is far from useless. if i say adventure, many people think of Monkey Island or Tunguska, while most will think of Firewatch and Ethan Carter.
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I still can't imagine a walking simulator with people to talk with :/ So definition is still useful for me (and that is why I asked for one).
What would you call always sometimes monsters? It doesn't have puzzles, the focus is on the dialogs with the other characters.
I also asked in a reply below to another sg fellow if we could consider walking simulators as a subgenre of adventure games.
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What would you call always sometimes monsters? It doesn't have puzzles, the focus is on the dialogs with the other characters.
didn't play that game, so it's hard for me to judge that. as an alternative example, i think i would even consider To The Moon a walking simulator. aside from the perspective, it's kind of the same thing. thing is, people don't call it a walking simulator. they have a different type of game in mind when using that term. and i think that is what ultimately matters.
I also asked in a reply below to another sg fellow if we could consider walking simulators as a subgenre of adventure games.
maybe we could, sure.
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Really? I hadn't considered puzzles to be an integral part of an adventure game. I suppose it depends on how you define a puzzle. Is it a puzzle just because you need to do things in a particular sequence in order to achieve a goal? I suppose anything that involves decision making could be regarded as a puzzle, including the choice of direction to travel in, which would mean that walking simulators include puzzles and are therefore adventure games under that definition.
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Why don't we have a walking simulator that let's you experience a story in the middle of a crowded city?
cause they added cars and guns to it and called it gta. xD
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It's usually inconsistency that makes these games bad for me (ofc not all of them) - for example The Beginner's Guide was great, because it was guided, so there was no running around trying to find what will happen, and the narration served as a focus point in storytelling, along with the game's environments. While interactivity is not a necessity, these games should have something to focus on, or the games end up being walking around in a low-stimulus environment, trying not to fall asleep.
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yeah, but there are lots of games who do exactly what you want them to. The Fidelio Incident, Edith Finch, Virginia... all those have either certain gameplay elements that keep you interested, or a constant narration (in Virginia even to the point where they will do hard cuts to the next scene, so you don't have a lot of unnecessary walking in between).
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The reason I mentioned TBG because that's the latest I played and loved - What Remains of Edith Finch would be one of the games I most looking forward to but having a laptop with nvidia 5200M doesn't really makes anything good looking possible from the past years. I haven't really had the greatest experiences with the few I played with, it's just a personal problem that I need a relatively constant information / stimulus to grab into. I love good stories in my own pace, but a slowly "writing" visual novel kills me. I love arcade shooting and story as well, but fistful of story between lots of shooting can get me goind just for a while (HL1, somewhat 2 as well) - I loathe the idea of artsy walking from A to B and get some half obscure revelation and then call it art. But if it has a concept, something to talk about, something to show, something to think about then I really doesn't have anything against walking sim as a whole genre - just it's worst is especially painful for me.
But add detective story, or a well presented discussion and I'm happy to play along. (Leviathan the Old City was horrible, it's one of the best examples of overcomplicated sentences to sound artsy to the point of it got repulsive, while the game itself was looking very promising)
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I'm really enjoying walking simulators. I love adventure games and at some point with interactivity walking simulators may become indistinguishable from Myst or similar. Or perhaps you're wanting the interactivity without the puzzle? I would definitely like to see something like that.
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Well, high budget walking simulator has to also sell to be possible. I'd like to see such a game as well but I doubt there's anyone who'd make such a risk.
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Showerthought: Walking sims would be money makers on VR systems cause then the player would have to walk.
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i dont hate walking simulators, but their gameplay is MINIMUM.
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In the case of Firewatch, the radio talks with Delilah are pivotal to the story and the isolation is a key element of the setting; this said, you do have a point and it would be interesting to play a WS with more interaction with other characters.
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Have you tried INFRA? I guess it's more of an adventure puzzle game with a walking simulator feel to it but I really enjoyed it a lot. There are no direct interactions with NPCs but it's still a great game.
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Let's not forget Dear Esther, the one that probably made walking simulators even a thing. I played the Landmark-Remastered Edition when it came out, amazing experience!
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Yep, definitely the game that introduced me to the genre.
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As much as I like some histories on walking simulators, most of them feel like an incomplete experience to me.
I mean, most of them (the ones I played) feels like a possible PNC/Scumm game, without the PNC elements or, as I said before, a Visual novel changing from the constant clicking to ASWD.
I play for the story, all the time. Normally I feel empty in the end when I play one of those. :)
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I would also recommend you Kholat and 35MM in which I currently play :)
In Kholat you are walking alone, but in 35MM with mate and there is few characters (i'm in the middle so don't know how many:)).
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Most walking simulators don't have any actual (visible) interaction with other people in them
Why don't we have a walking simulator that let's you experience a story in the middle of a crowded city?
play Off-Peak
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http://store.steampowered.com/app/467360/OffPeak/
Interesting title. Would you define its primary genre as "walking simulator"?
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Yes, the whole gameplay is just walking around, collecting pieces of paper and optionally talking to people.
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But the own developer defines it as "a first-person adventure game that takes place in one giant area with multiple nooks, crannies and hidden passageways to discover". So, are walking simulators a subgenre of adventure games?
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i'd say more like a spin-off from the classic point and click adventure games. there are many parallels, but the approach is different. i;d still classify them (broadly) as adventure games though.
both punk and metal are broadly alternative music, but one is not the same as the other, even if they have common ground.
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I mean, they couldn't say it's a "walking simulator" since it sounds kinda derogatory.
are walking simulators a subgenre of adventure games
I guess so, just like the adventure games they're focused on storytelling and exploration, and just like adventure games they rarely feature any action sequences
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For me these are: Interactive novels. But as d3m4n said, if you add too much interactivity, you get another type of game, and more importantly, lose the focus of the storytelling part that is the essence of these experiences.
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Firewatch is probably one of my favorite games from the last few years. I was not expecting much from the reviews but i loved it!
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is beautifull and i loved every minute of it.
What Remains of Edith Finch is a game i will buy during the sale if it drops a bit. Looks really good.
Edit: Through the Woods is another great one with nordic mythology.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/368430/Through_the_Woods/
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It's still a relatively new genre so it's bound to evolve. I just hope they'll remain light on gameplay. If there's one thing I hate in point-and-click games, it's being prevented to move on with the story by a stupid puzzle, and so far "walking sims" I've played have avoided that.
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Let me know what you think about this. Do you even like those games, that prioritize story over gameplay? Or do they bore you to death? Which ones did you play, and which are your favorites?
...
What is wrong with today's gamers? Are they all playing Dota now and have no time anymore for a brilliant story experience? ^^
Lol
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And your most played game is DOTA 2? Shit, OP was spot on! D:
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I agree, I hope that Walking Sims (which I do adore) get more character interaction. I think the reason why they're currently so light on that is most of the companies making them are quite small outfits, so they have to prioritize what to include. Developing AI that wouldn't break the careful immersion they created with their lush settings would be difficult.
One I'm really excited for is Tacoma, made by Fullbright Studios. It's coming out at the beginning of August!
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Wow Tacoma looks amazing. Never saw it before but highly wishlisted now. Thanks for mentioning it.
Oeps from the creators of gone home..... I did not like that game at all.
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It seems to be quite different in tone/setting/plot enough that I hope you'll not judge it by Gone Home.
Sometimes stuff like that happens. There are a lot of things that are suuuper popular that are also objectively competently made that I just.... don't like. Some things just miss you, and that's all right.
I can get how alienating it can feel, though, to be the only one in a chorus of people going 'BEST GAME BEST GAME' and you're like 'did I miss something? am I fuckt up? what am I not seeing?'
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Yes, I was going to say - that was my first. I haven't played all that many because time and obligations, but I really love them, and that was the one that opened the window for me.
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What is the thing with Gone Home? As I only like walking sims and this game is on every list available with recommended walking sims ofc I had to play it. I did not like it at all. Must be me but I do not even see it as a walking sim.
Walking sims are the reason I started "gaming" and got myself a game pc a few years ago, but this game? No no no.
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I can't speak for every player but what I liked the most about it was that the house felt extremely "90s", so it might be a generational thing (maybe you're younger, or older, so it didn't resonate with you the same way). I also enjoyed the "actually-not-horror" elements and how the characters were developed even though you never actually see them (although it's pretty common in that genre). What didn't you like about it exactly?
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I never looked at it this way but you could be right. Maybe it is just the setting. It felt boring lol. I know, how can I love ws and use the word boring? Looking at it now, the difference is I love strolling in nature, discovering non existing fantasy worlds etc. Than I don't feel bored at all. Walking around in an non appealing house, not so much. Did not get this "back to memory lane" vibe as I am much older. I think you just solved the mystery.
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so... walking simulator is a cheap-ish version of point and click.... and interactive version of visual novel ? xD
already played few of them. and yeah, i kinda like short game with a good story like Vanishing of Ethan Carter.. oxenfree..
maybe you can put Yume Nikki on the list
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Yume Nikki? I can't find that game on Steam. Only an old RPGMaker game, with a japanese-only website. do you mean that one? ^^
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yup that one. creepy old games... just walking around some weird places for hours
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So, I absolutely enjoy this relatively new genre known as walking simulators. There are quite a few black sheep, of course. But we already had so many highlights. Games that bring something new to the table. Games that tell brilliant stories in a different, innovative way.
Some example would be Firewatch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Virginia or the new What Remains of Edith Finch. Fantastic experiences, well worth the money in my opinion (despite the short length). Very few games in other genres deliver storywise like these games do. But at the same time, there is something fundamentally wrong with the genre.
Most walking simulators don't have any actual (visible) interaction with other people in them. Usually the scheme is "wander around in an empty space and find out what happened". Sure, there are a few exceptions to that. But in general that's what you do in most of these games.
Firewatch has the encounter with the teenagers at the lake, for instance. But do you really interact with them? Barely. You only see them from afar, and the whole scene is quite short anyway. Aside from that, you barely ever see anyone else. A guy on a rock, running off as soon as you see him. That's about it.
Ethan Carter shows other characters only in cutscenes (flashbacks). As beautiful as the game is, you walk around completely alone all the time.
Virginia actually has a descent number of other characters in it. And I appreciate that. But sadly, Virginia didn't get the reception I was hoping for (because I loved it).
Edith Finch has some other characters in it. But again - only in the story sequences. All the walking inside the house you do once again alone. Still a fantastic game, of course.
But I think you know where I'm going with this. Modern walking simulators should evolve and go further than they did until now. Why don't we have a walking simulator that let's you experience a story in the middle of a crowded city? I get that it's a budget thing. Empty environments are way easier to make, and therefore cheaper. But I personally am absolutely ready for a high-budget walking simulator that gives me the whole package. I mean, imagine one in a futuristic Blade-Runner-like scenario. With lots of people on the street, complaining about stuff, and flying cars right above you. What potential! I hope at some point someone invests a huge pile of money and takes the next evolutionary step of this promising genre. And I hope he'll succeed.
Let me know what you think about this. Do you even like those games, that prioritize story over gameplay? Or do they bore you to death? Which ones did you play, and which are your favorites?
I will also list the (in my opinion) best walking simulators here. Maybe you'll get some inspiration from it. Some of these games could certainly use some help sales-wise It really makes me sad to see, that a masterpiece like Edith Finch barely sold any copies. What is wrong with today's gamers? Are they all playing Dota now and have no time anymore for a brilliant story experience? ^^
If you have any recommendations of your own, please feel free to post them. I am always looking for this type of games. :)
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