The 'walking simulator' genre is a funny little corner of games which happens to be my top recommended tag on Steam. Just the title along is provocative-- why would we want or need a simulated experience of walking? I love that this approach to game design is so fundamental, meaning the core of the experience is to simply exist inside a virtual simulation. It's empathetic design, to quite literally walk in someone else's shoes. These are often short experiences, 1-3 hours, and tend to rely on simple level design puzzles, environmental narrative, first person POV. Some common storytelling tropes include first person narration, diary logs (written/audio, sometimes ghosts/flashbacks), dialogue via a communicator or transmission. Like the short film genre, it is a popular format for indie studios-- they are programmatically simple to develop, usually involve shorter production times, and are appealing genre for more intimate and personal stories. I also think there is an interesting overlap with Installation Art. An older relative of games genre (before 3D engines) might be Point and Click adventures.
Walking simulators often get told they are 'not games', so much that some designers have embraced the label 'notgames'. I might argue that they are games in the sense that the word 'videogames' has been abbreviated. I also argue that it really doesn't matter. If your definition of games is limited to experiences with a set of rules and a win state, then it's true, many walking sims are not that at all. Do we really need a different word for 'conceptual interactive design experiences'? Walking sims are built on game engines, distributed on gaming platforms, and engage a state of play. So, call them what you want, I lump them in and call them games.
What I look for in a successful walking simulator is an immersive world, a storytelling experience that couldn't be told through other media, and something that is accessible/playable by people who aren't typical 'gamers'. I am particularly excited about the future of VR games in this genre (please tell me about any that currently exist!) although I suppose every VR experience could be described as a walking simulator? Right now I believe the genre is still very limited and has so much room to grow.
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The Path
I have to start by talking about The Path. This is a game I loved so much I wish I'd made it. I have a soft spot for Grimm's fairytales and especially for Little Red Riding Hood interpretations-- it's actually a pretty fucked up coming-of-age story and is tricky to do 'right' in a modern context. The Path gets it right. The game itself is clunky, controls are slow and the graphics/animation is nothing amazing. The visual direction nods to early 2000s emo and pop punk music. The story is a small loop-- following the path in the forest to grandma's house. You learn about each iteration of little red and her wolf by replaying through the loop.
The studio Tale-of-Tales are responsible for some very important, conceptual (albeit clunky) works in the videogame world. They really defined the walking simulator genre through works like The Path, The Graveyard, The Endless Forest, and Fatale. Unfortunately they closed down a few years ago after their failed title Sunset, but the husband and wife team (couple goals!) who self define as 'realtime artists' still tease their projects on social media. I hope they make a comeback.
Portal
I can't say anything new about the original Portal that hasn't been said before, but it kinda changed everything when it came out. Portal made environmental puzzles cool, guns interesting, a woman protagonist normal, and a real story without using human characters.
Firewatch
This beautifully designed game left me with an odd feeling the first time I played through it. Spoiler: you spend your time building a relationship/falling in love with your supervisor (while your wife is home and terminally ill, you animal) strictly through interactive dialogue trees via walkie-talkies. At one point you believe you will finally meet her, but at the last minute she is gone. She is never seen in game. A developer stated on Reddit that the story was about the feeling of falling in love while away from home, like summer camp, the ending twist leaves you with profound loneliness.
I point this out because it is a weak point of many walking simulators-- oftentimes indie teams are unable to fully realize human characters, and so they rely on alternative storytelling techniques. Portal used robots. Tacoma used abstract renderings of mocap performance. Firewatch used a cliffhanger, which I found to be rather cruel. In fact there was some gossip that production was cut early, but who knows if this was a part of their original vision.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
I was so excited for this game. I have already talked about the photogrammetry pipeline that was used on this project, it was the first time this was done in games and it's greatly informing my thesis right now. Then I played it.
The first thing we see on screen after pressing start is a warning: "This is an experience that does not hold your hand". I'm already turned off by this. I love minimal HUD, I love a game that feels intuitive (which, by the way, is an illusion. For the most part, your "interactive intuition" is a vocabulary that has been trained by your past experiences with technology). But if you have to TELL your player that the game is hard before you even start, that should be a red flag that it's a poorly designed experience. Walking simulators aren't supposed to be 'hard'. Puzzles should feel challenging but should not be truly 'difficult', that is, your game should not be dependent on training a skill to achieve progress or win.
The game is gorgeous. I found myself exploring/zooming in just to see the virtual greenery. That alone still gets me excited. However, I don't recommend this game to people because it is difficult. It is not clunky/unpolished the way that The Path was. There are just too many 'clues' that are lost on screen and mechanics that did not make sense without following a walkthrough. You are able to leave areas without finishing objectives, which throws the story out of order. Without the internet I would have abandoned this game in the first 10 minutes.
Then, lastly, and this is a spoiler: There is a level halfway through in a coal mine which has an unexplained zombie character and awful jump scares. It is designed in the same vein as Amnesia or Slenderman, and it felt totally out of place. Let your player know that they're signing up for ambient horror and cheap scares ahead of time, jesus. I almost totally gave up at this point, but the walkthrough I followed happened to have a shortcut through the maze.
There are a lot of good things to write about this game too, but I think it exemplifies a lot of common issues in walking sims. Perhaps in the future I'll expand this into its own piece.
What Remains of Edith Finch
Another trope in walking sims are names that start with E. I don't know why (Edith, Ethan, Dear Esther...).
Edith Finch did SO many things well. Clever interactive design, beautiful art, tragic characters. It is told in a longer environmental narrative which is broken up into shorter vignettes. This is a game I love to show to anyone. The interactions gently guide you throughout the house, successfully striking that balance between feeling in control of your explorations while still feeling led along the correct path.
Return of the Obra Dinn
I need to play the full version of this game-- I played the demo when it was released online and I was SO excited about the '1 bit rendering' which the developer calls 'ditherpunk' aesthetic. I was so inspired I started making experiments with this style, my low tech approach was to literally render at 64x64 pixels and then resize in post.
The game gives you a stopwatch that replays time in order to solve murders that happen onboard a ship. The stylized rendering allows us to see freeze frames of these characters, with audio logs, which I found to be quite successful in feeling 'alive'.
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