Reply With QuoteOh man.
I'm going to go ahead and post the actual trailer, because....this is awesome! The game looks pretty far along too, based on the variety of footage:Originally Posted by N'Al
Oh man.
Damnit, Brethren. I was gonna post that.
And yeah, it's so far along because it's been in development for awhile, originally intended to be the last expansion for the original Hollow Knight. From what I've read, they added so much extra stuff, they realized they were pretty much making an all new game, and decided to go for broke.
And they're giving it away for free to anyone who backed the original game on Kickstarter. These guys are way too generous.
That is nice. Shame I didn't back it when I had the chance.
Oh well. I'll happily pay $50 for it when it comes out.
50 bux? Where you shoppin man...
Should've said I'd be willing to pay that much. Chances are well and good it'll come out for around $20.
If its as much of a time sink as the first game then your in for a good solid amount of gaming.
Flower is out on PC. A decade old "walking sim". At least the price is appropriate for a short "interactive experience" like this.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/966330/Flower/
https://www.gog.com/game/flower
Journey is coming to Epic Store, FYI. Another walking sim.
Flower and Journey are walking simulators? I guess we can slot the term alongside "immersive sim" in the list of genres that no longer actually mean anything.
What would you classify Journey as, if not a walking simulator? To me it fits squarely in the genre, as it's about experiencing a thing, rather than any kind of challenging gameplay.
Haven't played Flower, so I can't speak for that.
An impression game. Or even an adventure game, although obviously not the "point and click" one. QWOP is walking simulator, although a rather paraplegic one. "Walking simulator" is a moronic term that should be long forgotten by now. Ironically, it was a joke term made by a game dev, but unfortunately it ended up similarly to "PC Master Race" one.
Hey I agree it's a dumb term, but it's so widely used now that I think we might be stuck with it. When you say "walking sim", most gamers know what kinda game you're talking about. When you say "impression game" no one knows wtf you're talking about.
My first reaction was the same as Pyrian's, but with respect to Journey I can kinda see how it could be described as a walking simulator. Nonetheless, the game feels very different from Gone Home and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, which I'd describe as the digital equivalent of site-specific theatre, and for me those are the archetypical walking sims. There are more overlaps with something like Proteus, but all in all I'd consider Journey its own thing, not least because of the multiplayer element, but also because unlike many so-called walking simulators Journey foregrounds its objective of getting from A to B. You're not just in the world to be in the world, you're there to reach a clear goal, which is more incidental in Gone Home etc.
IMO the term, whether it's used mockingly or ironically, doesn't fit Flower at all.
That's why I prefer "adventure game", as it's a very broad term. And I can add more precise descriptions to it, like Edith Finch can be a first person adventure game.
I have to admit that I wouldn't have the first clue as to what is meant by that, other than the "first-person" bit.
Just as a non-gamer would wonder why the hell this is called walking simulator, as it doesn't simulate anything.
I'm not sure you can point to semantics when the term you propose might as well include games as different as Breath of the Wild, Grim Fandango and Sunless Sea. All three are games, all three let you go on an adventure, but beyond that they have little in common. Yes, you can specify the way you have in your post above, but at that point the term "adventure game" doesn't actually seem to mean anything much in and of itself.
At least it doesn't point to something it isn't. It's similar to "action-adventure", you can put a whole lot into this bag, and at least you wouldn't be wrong, maybe just vague. "Walking simulator" is only recognizable by a certain group that will probably shrink over time.
1. I wouldn't wanna stretch the definition of "adventure games" as far as to include Journey. I think an adventure game should offer some resistance to the player, either in the form of puzzle-solving or choice-making.
2. There's enough good games in this new genre of experience-focused games that it needs its own name, even if it's a bad one like "walking simulator".
We've been over this and I still stand by "exploration games": https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148172
Genre label aside, have you played Journey, Starker, and would you consider it as part of the same genre as Gone Home or Dear Esther? There are some overlaps, but personally I think there are notable differences too. Both the player's interaction with the environment and the objective of this interaction are quite different. In that respect, while there's some exploration in Journey, I don't think that it's at the core of the game the way it is especially in games like Gone Home.
I don't think exploration is the defining trait of the genre. I'd say it's games that focus not on providing a challenge, but evoking a certain feeling in the player.
EMOTION GAMES IS WHAT WE SHOULD CALL THEM GUYS I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
also can some mod move all of this into the other walking sim thread(in Starker's post)?
Personally, I wouldn't put Dear Esther in the same genre as Gone Home.
Hmm. I see your point (though I think that Life is Strange or indeed some of the Telltale games are as much focused on evoking feelings), but I find the question of what the player does more relevant to how you group them, even if you can't fully separate the one from the other. In Gone Home and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, the way these feelings are evoked is by letting the player explore their locations, piece together information and thereby form a picture of who the people are that inhabited that space and what happened to them. Journey doesn't really do that: while you find some few collectibles, one part of any of the locations is much like another. It's much more of a tone poem, and the way it evokes that tone is by its environments. What information you piece together is conveyed by means of cutscenes. In that respect, I do think that what you do is pretty different, which is why I would hesitate to group Gone Home and Journey together.
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