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No new postsdifferent terms, same thing?
Yes, those constant cutscenes quickly got on your nerves, maybe even intentionally)) But I like how open for experiments Schafer was back then. Like, it’s an adventure game, but who cares, let’s include some Road Rash violence, or the bunny minefield, or kicking your way through some puzzles. And still nobody ever doubted this was a 100% adventure.
PC means personal computer
Yes, those constant cutscenes quickly got on your nerves, maybe even intentionally)) But I like how open for experiments Schafer was back then. Like, it’s an adventure game, but who cares, let’s include some Road Rash violence, or the bunny minefield, or kicking your way through some puzzles. And still nobody ever doubted this was a 100% adventure.
That is correct, even the road Rash gameplay on the old mining road was technically a puzzle because you had to figure out which weapon to use with which biker to get the next weapon that you needed
fan translated just a couple of weeks ago, “Dead of The Brain”.
Errr it must be for another NEC port then, because I’ve finished Dead 1 years ago and I think there was already a French and Spanish one also available by then EDIT: last month’s translation is for the PC-98 one while the PC-Engine (TGCD) port got translated before covid. Dead 2 also received an English translation for the TGCD btw.
maybe there should be a new thread specifically for Japanese-English translations?
Go ahead, seems to be the ideal moment with Agent Parser piquing our interest. I’ve been playing the recently translated Addie no Okurimono for the PSX, which has been a charming experience.
Would an IF be considered a Walking Simulator if typing W a few times concluded its narrative?
A good question.
Leave my rethoricals alone breh 
Microsoft Flight Simulators range from a myriad of aerodynamic systems to take into account if the player’s goal is to simulate flying a plane. And the option for no system if the player wants to fly from a to b. Contemporary games offer a myriad of options, from arcade to simulation.
It is the only “Simulator” in the medium where the noun was born explicitly as a derisive moniker to try and gatekeep what in fact had been there all the time, so it quickly devolved into a meaningless descriptor placed over everything and where any attempt to define it is always working retroactively. So meaningless that it became the subgenre du jour hence coming across lines such as “Walking Simulator with advanced gameplay”.
@Doom I’m underlining that its mention was contextual to your reading of Japanese Ags using an unsuitable example. I’ve experienced more Moon Logic in western Ags than Japanese. Especially in those which most influenced their mostly-impenetrable industry. My generalisation thus less unfounded than yours, based on my more balanced experience. And I’m not accusing you of having a vendetta. I’m not taking it personally. And underlining the above sooner would’ve prevented a page of off-topic discussion. Especially that difficulty is cursory to Moon Logic.
@Jdawg445 A flight simulator’s gameplay loop is the building blocks of its intention, to simulate flight. The core gameplay loop of Dear Esther, Gone Home and Stanley Parable is not to simulate walking as in Simulation. The core gameplay loop of Death Stranding is to manage luggage using any means of traversal, including shaping the environment. If 99% of Ags aren’t Walking Simulators due to 1% of its gameplay loop being composed of puzzles, what differs from you calling Death Stranding a Walking Simulator if not as scoffing term for a developer you have voiced your disapproval of before? Wipeout is not a flight, racing or hovering Simulation. With a capital S. Its an arcade racer. Its gameplay loop is 100% hovering and flight over a competetive race track.
@Lamb and @Gatekeeper I won’t be able to post much due to my job but I will try.
@Doom I’m underlining that its mention was contextual to your reading of Japanese Ags using an unsuitable example. I’ve experienced more Moon Logic in western Ags than Japanese. Especially in those which most influenced their mostly-impenetrable industry. My generalisation thus less unfounded than yours, based on my more balanced experience.
I’m afraid you still have soom moon logic on your way 
The fact that you played more Japanese games doesn’t make your judgment of Western adventures (especially as some collective phenomenon) any better. It makes it your opinion.
PC means personal computer
It’s an opinion based on having more acquaintance with JAgs. My reading of both worlds as a generalised comparison, which you began on faulty premises. Thus my opinion is more informed because by your admission you’re lacking in one department. No need to pursue more of this, it already ate half a thread.
At least I can’t recall anything similar to Sierra/LucasArts where you actually had to use your brains to progress. But Snatcher, for example, has been long considered to be the best Japanese ag of all time, yet there is hardly any gameplay besides choosing options from a menu of verbs and constant shooting.
It’s an opinion based on having more acquaintance with JAgs. My reading of both worlds as a generalised comparison, which you began on faulty premises. Thus my opinion is more informed because by your admission you’re lacking in one department. No need to pursue more of this, it already ate half a thread.
At least I can’t recall anything similar to Sierra/LucasArts where you actually had to use your brains to progress. But Snatcher, for example, has been long considered to be the best Japanese ag of all time, yet there is hardly any gameplay besides choosing options from a menu of verbs and constant shooting.
Regarding that last quote I think it helps clarifying that Snatcher was released in 1988 and the one we got at the tail end of 1994 was a censored, even more streamlined port without Kojima’s involvement; the original one was already set out to be more cinematic than other releases at the time. By 1988 the Japanese industry was already experiementing and mixing genres, and already flirting with the yet-to-explode sound novel concept. It was so big almost every TV show had one, an industry arguably more varied compared to what Sierra and LucasArts were offering that year, i.e., King’s Quest 1 and Maniac Mansion:
In 1994~1995 Japanese adventure games coming out were Clocktower, Corpse Party, a lot of sound novels, Yu-no, Lunacy, Policenauts, etc. while in the west it was Full Throttle, The Dig, Phantasmagoria, Beast Within, and so on. Regardless of quality which is ultimately subjective, I think we can all agree the Japan’s market offered more variation for quite some time?
And fun fact regarding Snatcher, Kojima tried pushing for a puzzle where the floppy disks reveal a secret message using the NEC PC-88’s heat(?) but Konami said no due to safety worries. Early on he already wanted to blur the lines between software and hardware, it seems.
It’s an opinion based on having more acquaintance with JAgs. My reading of both worlds as a generalised comparison, which you began on faulty premises. Thus my opinion is more informed because by your admission you’re lacking in one department. No need to pursue more of this, it already ate half a thread.
Lol ok, suit yourself, I’m too old for arguing about tastes. Although, as GateKeeper mentioned, the discussions on adventure boards are so few that nobody cares whether it’s offtopic or not as long as people don’t get personal. Also one thing I’d like to point out: pretty much everyone who’s into Japanese (adventure) games consider interactive/sound novels/dating sims and such as an integral part of the genre, while many people raised on “Western adventures” are still at least skeptical about those games having so few puzzles or none whatsoever which speaks for itself. Also the (very interesting) article you linked to featured Snatcher as one of its top illustrations.
In 1994~1995 Japanese adventure games coming out were Clocktower, Corpse Party, a lot of sound novels, Yu-no, Lunacy, Policenauts, etc. while in the west it was Full Throttle, The Dig, Phantasmagoria, Beast Within, and so on. Regardless of quality which is ultimately subjective, I think we can all agree the Japan’s market offered more variation for quite some time?
And fun fact regarding Snatcher, Kojima tried pushing for a puzzle where the floppy disks reveal a secret message using the NEC PC-88’s heat(?) but Konami said no due to safety worries. Early on he already wanted to blur the lines between software and hardware, it seems.
Didn’t know Kojima wasn’t involved in making Snatcher! As well as those cool ideas of his. I liked Snatcher as an experience, it was a beautiful game. Although the 90s were innovative for the whole world, especially with the start of the CD boom. Myst wasn’t even a remotely traditional adventure, many who bought it didn’t even know it was a game — they thought it was just a multimedia beast, a walking simulator as they would say today. Only it had puzzles as an integral part of the gameplay, and everyone tried to make their own Myst afterwards. There’s a very interesting article regarding Myst at The Digital Antiquarian blog where he discusses the reasons why it became the best-selling adventure game of all time: https://www.filfre.net/2020/02/myst-or-the-drawbacks-to-success/
Around the same time Alone in the Dark series was launched in France which also became very influential in what would eventually became known as survival horror with Japanese Resident Evil which pretty much copy-pasted it. Only AitD was more focused on puzzle-solving and was sold as an adventure game back in the day. I’d say Clock Tower borrowed quite a bit from it.
Tex Murphy games were a breakthrough in both 3D and FMV, they were sold as interactive movies despite an advanced gameplay where you could search locations by moving your camera and solving hard-boiled puzzles. There were also pure interactive movies where you just needed to click to advance, as well as all those “multimedia CDs” as they were called where you also just clicked your way through and watched “cool 3D clips” — they are now also considered to be part of the genre. Developers also actively started to insert adventure elements into other genres, System Shock even had separate tumblers for action and adventure difficulty.
It was a cool time when Hollywood producers, companies like Microsoft, famous musicians and other people of art invested huge money into adventure-related projects of all sorts. Many of them failed pathetically, because a lot of people back then already started leaning towards shooting/fighting/etc. over puzzle solving. The Japanese market might’ve helped though, I don’t know why it preferred to keep so many games to themselves without localising and selling them to the West.
PC means personal computer
It was a cool time when Hollywood producers, companies like Microsoft, famous musicians and other people of art invested huge money into adventure-related projects of all sorts.
Yeah, you don’t see games like 9: The Last Resort these days anymore.
“9: The Last Resort is a 1996 adventure computer game developed by Tribeca Interactive. The game was produced by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, and sported a cast of voice-artists including Cher, James Belushi, Christopher Reeve, Tress MacNeille and Steven Tyler & Joe Perry of Aerosmith.”
It would be very hard to see even a single person like that contributing to adventure games nowadays. Whether their participation made games any better can be debated.
Didn’t know Kojima wasn’t involved in making Snatcher!
I’m sure you didn’t meant to word it as such, but just to clarify he was the mind behind Snatcher just not the 1995 Sega-CD port that got localized which had some differences.
Resident Evil which pretty much copy-pasted it.
Interestingly enough, for decades its director and producer, Shinji Mikami, denied it and claimed he hadn’t seen Alone, and that it was just his take on a spiritual successor to the middling Japan-only Horror RPG Sweet Home, adapted from an unsuccessful movie. This made a ton of people in the industry reject that Alone had a significant influence in Resi despite the obvious similarities. Even though he finally admitted in a 2014 French interview that he had been perfectly aware of Alone and that if it wasn’t for it Resi 1 would’ve probably turned out to be a FPS, the damage had already been done. His lie (mostly likely Capcom’s BS) still lives on.
The Japanese market might’ve helped though, I don’t know why it preferred to keep so many games to themselves without localising and selling them to the West.
The executive-producer of Square Enix’s Nanashi no Game, Takashi Tokita, said that a localization was in the works but then a focus group shut it down irked by the lack of shooting. Similar takes are what perpetuated the notion that no action would translate in a flop overseas.
It was a cool time when Hollywood producers, companies like Microsoft, famous musicians and other people of art invested huge money into adventure-related projects of all sorts. Many of them failed pathetically
Yeah, Christopher Walken made life worth living in the Ripper.
I’m sure you didn’t meant to word it as such, but just to clarify he was the mind behind Snatcher just not the 1995 Sega-CD port that got localized which had some differences.
Interestingly enough, for decades its director and producer, Shinji Mikami, denied it and claimed he hadn’t seen Alone, and that it was just his take on a spiritual successor to the middling Japan-only Horror RPG Sweet Home, adapted from an unsuccessful movie. This made a ton of people in the industry reject that Alone had a significant influence in Resi despite the obvious similarities. Even though he finally admitted in a 2014 French interview that he had been perfectly aware of Alone and that if it wasn’t for it Resi 1 would’ve probably turned out to be a FPS, the damage had already been done. His lie (mostly likely Capcom’s BS) still lives on.
Yes, I meant the Sega CD one I played, not a good way to treat the original developer. Still a nice game. And I know they claimed it was Sweet Home which inspired Residents, but glad they actually admitted it was Alone in the Dark. It was just too obvious. At least AitD was also rebooted and enjoyed a success it deserved, I think there was even a remake of the original 1992 game in the works.
The executive-producer of Square Enix’s Nanashi no Game, Takashi Tokita, said that a localization was in the works but then a focus group shut it down irked by the lack of shooting. Similar takes are what perpetuated the notion that no action would translate in a flop overseas.
Oh, this sounds familiar. Those focus groups and produces ruined quite a few of Western adventures as well by telling “They won’t sell without 3D and shooting”. The concept of Nanashi no Game sounds really cool, never heard of it before. Hopefully they will continue the trend of bringing those Japanese exclusives to Steam and such.
PC means personal computer
I want to give another example of what I mean with inputs compared to actual gameplay. With a game I just beat, Syberia 4. I’m about to talk about a puzzle in the game in great detail with no story context to avoid spoilers but I use the term puzzle very loosely.
At one point the main character is at a cemetery and she goes to leave and the gate locks because it is on an automated timer. You have to walk back through the cemetery to get the pickaxe to break open a lock on a toolshed to get a lever to open a gate. For the record the cemetery is presented like it’s a maze but it is really only like seven screens, so it’s not very hard to find your way around at all. Plus since this is the end of the level you kind of already explored the cemetery and know where everything is. so it was like the devs were thinking we need more time here and more interaction for the player to do, so let’s put a “puzzle” right here. But as I pointed out earlier in this threas that this is not a puzzle but busy work. All interactions/inputs do not count towards gameplay in my opinion. To bring it full circle that is how I feel about a lot of walking simulators, do they have inputs and interactions… yes, does that equate to real gameplay, not to me, no not at all. For the record this game actually does have some real puzzles that are incorporated into the game world, but just barely enough to pass that threshold of being an adventure game to me.
To bring it full circle that is how I feel about a lot of walking simulators, do they have inputs and interactions… yes, does that equate to real gameplay, not to me, no not at all.
Walking Simulator was a derisive term born and exploding in the exact same era as Gamergate, in which gatekeeping a hobby meant creating an exclusionary safezone for a vocal group without a significant knowledge of the medium; and, even though narrative-driven games mechanically built for widespread appeal were already a dime a dozen way before Dear Esther, it was merely because that game won awards that a backlash chock-full with its typical, stale buzzwords that accompany such kickstarted. You’re doing it there; it will always come with an implicit [just a] Walking Simulator for it was solely created as a put-down, a lesser thing than this thing that I like. It isn’t a Simulator especially in gaming terms, and making it a genre descriptor is merely retroactive whitewashing.
In sum, X is a Walking Simulator because I like Y.
To bring it full circle that is how I feel about a lot of walking simulators, do they have inputs and interactions… yes, does that equate to real gameplay, not to me, no not at all.
Walking Simulator was a derisive term born and exploding in the exact same era as Gamergate, in which gatekeeping a hobby meant creating an exclusionary safezone for a vocal group without a significant knowledge of the medium; and, even though narrative-driven games mechanically built for widespread appeal were already a dime a dozen way before Dear Esther, it was merely because that game won awards that a backlash chock-full with its typical, stale buzzwords that accompany such kickstarted. You’re doing it there; it will always come with an implicit [just a] Walking Simulator for it was solely created as a put-down, a lesser thing than this thing that I like. It isn’t a Simulator especially in gaming terms, and making it a genre descriptor is merely retroactive whitewashing.
In sum, X is a Walking Simulator because I like Y.
once again you’re just wrong. While all art is subjective to an extent we got to quit acting like there are not some objective truths out there lol. Terms like gatekeeping, gaslighting and even gamergate are so eye rollingly cringe that I can’t believe people would take them seriously or use them in 2023. For example the movie The Room. I know a lot of people enjoy it ironically because it’s a so bad it’s good movie but objectively speaking I don’t think anybody looks at it like wow that was a really great drama written and directed by a first time artist. They enjoy it because of how ridiculous it is. If somebody said that The Room was a great drama and should have won an Oscar. Well that is their opinion, but 99% of the rest of the world will look at them like they’re crazy. The truth is you personally do not like the term walking simulator even though it has been adopted by 99% of the rest of the world. which is cool, but quit acting like you don’t understand the term walking simulator in of itself, or that it is a made-up imaginary word, because clearly it’s not.
So once again in closing if you make a game as a walking simulator label it as such. An Adventure game is not a walking simulator and a walking simulator is not an adventure game. Even though they can share some elements. That way players who enjoy adventure games can enjoy those and for the people that enjoy walking simulators they can enjoy those too… And the consumer will know what they’re purchasing bc there is truth in advertisement. That is the Crux of my argument, it is not to put down people who enjoy walking simulators. Even though you constantly conflate the two issues as one in the same, by using #gamergate lol.
Even though you constantly conflate the two issues as one in the same, by using #gamergate lol.
Those reading comprehension skills though. I said that Walking Simulators were born, rose and proliferated with Gamergate. Whether you like this or not, many have already detailed it. Or, as Dr. Melissa Kagen, Teaching Professor in the Interactive Media & Game Development Program and a games studies and academic writer MIT said in her many papers:
The term Walking Simulator originated as a derogatory sneer, intended to denigrate games that were less violent, less task oriented, or less difficult to complete. Gamer culture’s dissatisfaction with such games, and fury at the critics and players who found them valuable, formed a substantial thread of #GamerGate. But what began as the insult “Walking Simulator” has, over the past decade, become a catch-all term for games that are interested in alternative modes of expression, embodiment, environment, orientation, and community. The genre now serves as a catalyst for debates about anti-game aesthetics, changing gamer demographics, and the radical potential of poetic spatial storytelling in video games. And in its attempt to slur a certain mode of play, the term Walking Simulator semi-accidentally tapped into something else.
And “cringe”? Please, do try keeping this mature.
An Adventure game is not a walking simulator and a walking simulator is not an adventure game.
Retroactive whitewashing. Both older AGs like Myst and its spiritual successors like Obduction are already being labelled as such. Nothing prevents any other publication to denigrate (and mutate) AGs as WS for being the bottom of the barrel in regards to interactivity, because Walking Simulators neither are Simulators nor a genre descriptor.
And, while we’re at it, are you ever going to provide any sources for your claim that Sony cut ties with Kojima Productions, despite the same exact deal being in place with them financing the temporary exclusive sequel, after financing the Director’s Cut of a game in which its director already had total creative freedom to being with, or is it another baseless claim to memory hole?
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