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Is the adventure community still biased against “walking sims”?
Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past 20 years - without a computer - any adventure gamer knows the bias I refer to. The big battle between “us” - the real, true adventurers who play games with challenge and actual puzzles… and “them” - the sworn enemies of our genre who dare to try and call games where you just walk around aimlessly without even using a single brain cell!
First it was Telltale with their Walking Dead series and their “choice-based gameplay” (ha!), then Anapurna and games like Firewatch and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. A lot of sites ignored them, or refused to recognize them as adventure games. Now it seems like they’re everywhere. It’s become pretty clear they’re not going away.
So what’s everybody’s attitude to these games now? Are these games any more welcome than back then? Have you changed your mind about them?
AKA Charo
[blasphemy]I like both.[/blasphemy]
Everybody wants to be Cary Grant.
Even Me.
-Cary Grant
I’ve never minded them at all.
Now Playing: Harold Halibut, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake Remastered, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Recently Completed: Botany Manor, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Silent Hill: The Short Message, Under the Waves
Anticipating: Beyond Good and Evil 2
Backing: Asylum
It’s like saying “are adventure games biased against racing games?!” Superficial similarities aside, it’s just different genres. No problem for me, but pretending they are the same is kinda annoying. I’m not walking around saying visual novels are point and click adventures either just because ... they got text ... and visuals ... and you sometimes click on things ...
It’s become pretty clear they’re not going away.
Pun intended?
Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale
[blasphemy]I like both.[/blasphemy]
LOL!
It’s the same thing they used to say about Mystian games: Not real adventures. 
Some of my favorite adventure games are walking sims.
Dear Esther
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
The Stanley Parable
Dr Langeskov, the Tiger, and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist
Kentucky Route Zero
Firewatch
What Remains of Edith Finch
Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! - Agent A
It’s like saying “are adventure games biased against racing games?!” Superficial similarities aside, it’s just different genres. No problem for me, but pretending they are the same is kinda annoying. I’m not walking around saying visual novels are point and click adventures either just because ... they got text ... and visuals ... and you sometimes click on things ...
I couldn’t agree with this more, every type of game deserves to exist and if they got fans more power to them. I just wish Developers would be honest about what they’re making and not add tags that are not correct. a walking simulator is not an adventure game, even if they share similarities. Just like an adventure game is not an action game because the developers added five horrible qte events in the game lol.
off subject but also on subject just like I hate how some Indie developers just throw out buzzwords. every new Adventure games marketing or Kickstarter says stuff like if you love monkey island, full throttle, gabriel knight, broken sword, you will love our game. That is usually a Telltale (lol) sign that the developer doesn’t know what they’re talking about, they are just throwing out buzzwords because besides being adventure games those games really have nothing in common with each other.
The other huge issue is so many games now are straight up ripoffs under the pretense of homages, like I tried that Brian Scott demo and it’s painfully obvious it’s almost a direct ripoff of a broken sword game, like how some B movie studios used to make rip offs of big Hollywood action movies. For instance do you like Blade Runner will come watch our movie called Robot runners and it’s basically the same movie except executed way more poorly.
Sorry rant over just had to get that off my chest
It’s like saying “are adventure games biased against racing games?!” Superficial similarities aside, it’s just different genres. No problem for me, but pretending they are the same is kinda annoying. I’m not walking around saying visual novels are point and click adventures either just because ... they got text ... and visuals ... and you sometimes click on things ...
I totally agree. I’m not ‘biased against them’, they’re just not adventure games (and adventure games are what I like to play). They’re their own genre, and can be great in their own way.
I wouldn’t go (see what I did there?) that far to call it a different genre. Even Wikipedia lists “Walking simulators” as sub-genre of adventure games. I see them as modern “interactive movies” of 90s, like Star Trek Borg, although they focus more on exploration/narrative/atmosphere, while interactive movies of 90s were mostly focused to present cool FMV animation while telling a story. So, “interactive narrative” can be even more precise. And no one said in 90s that “interactive movie” must be FMV, and that’s exactly what we’re getting now. It’s just a thin line before we can call it a “puzzle” or “interactive movie” game. For example, Phantasmagoria has been notoriously called interactive movie, only because real actors and FMV was all the rage then and you would call it “interactive movie” by default, but boy does that game have puzzles compared to walking sims! Not to mention Gabriel Knight 2, Black Dahlia and Tex Murphy games.
To sum it up, it’s not a different genre. They’re adventure games, and I gladly accept them as such. But it’s nothing new, they just evolved from “interactive movie” to “branching storylines with QTE” to “walking sims”.
Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale
I wouldn’t go (see what I did there?) that far to call it a different genre. Even Wikipedia lists “Walking simulators” as sub-genre of adventure games. I see them as modern “interactive movies” of 90s, like Star Trek Borg, although they focus more on exploration/narrative/atmosphere, while interactive movies of 90s were mostly focused to present cool FMV animation while telling a story. So, “interactive narrative” can be even more precise. And no one said in 90s that “interactive movie” must be FMV, and that’s exactly what we’re getting now. It’s just a thin line before we can call it a “puzzle” or “interactive movie” game. For example, Phantasmagoria has been notoriously called interactive movie, only because real actors and FMV was all the rage then and you would call it “interactive movie” by default, but boy does that game have puzzles compared to walking sims! Not to mention Gabriel Knight 2, Black Dahlia and Tex Murphy games.
To sum it up, it’s not a different genre. They’re adventure games, and I gladly accept them as such. But it’s nothing new, they just evolved from “interactive movie” to “branching storylines with QTE” to “walking sims”.
I know we’re getting into semantics here but I will just say I disagree, they definitely share similarities but they’re not the same genre. For instance Thrillers and some horror movies are very similar but they’re still two different genres. I mean you can realistically compare something like the movie Halloween to the movie seven but they are not the same, even though they share characteristics and motifs.
To use fmv, Gabriel Knight 2 is an adventure game, it literally has a crap ton of puzzles, now they’re not as challenging as some other adventure games but they’re there. these new interactive movies like nightshift are literally just watch a movie pick a choice, that is not even remotely a puzzle. By the way not every puzzle has to be inventory based, for instance contradiction has very few inventory puzzles but there are still lots of dialog puzzles, where the players still has to use logic and reasoning to solve the puzzle and it is not just pick between A and B choices.
Once again if anybody likes those type of games there’s nothing wrong with that, but it is its own genre, trying to co-opt it into something else is just factually inaccurate, at least to me
For context, I consider the first “walking sim” to be A Mind Forever Voyaging. The review says the game has one puzzle which is right at the end, but the game is 99% exploration. It’s really hard for me to see the game as an adventure game because of that one puzzle, then suddenly another genre entirely without it.
(Infocom also put its difficulty level as “Advanced”, showing the company’s view that difficulty isn’t just about solving puzzles)
AKA Charo
Doesn’t really matter one way or the other, but I have always viewed the walking sim as a sub-genre of the adventure game genre. And I’ve never had anything against them in general. The best ones imo may not contain puzzles in the more conventional way, but are still challenging to get through.
Some of my favorite games of all time are often labeled walking sims, such as INFRA, The Painscreek Killings and Ether One. Playing good walking sims for me generally scratch the same itch as playing more conventional adventure games.
Walking sims don’t really appeal to me but then I’m not a great fan of any game that involves exploring vast areas with little interaction otherwise anyway.
I don’t these days have a problem with them or any other subgenre that are included under the umbrella of Adventure Games as long as they are marketed as exactly what they are i.e. ‘walking sim’, ‘visual novel’, ‘adventure/rpg hybrid’ etc.
Just recently though I did for the first time experience a full 3D world when I had the chance to try out a VR headset. I found it amazing & it completely blew me away! For me a walking sim using VR would be more appealing.
these new interactive movies like nightshift are literally just watch a movie pick a choice, that is not even remotely a puzzle.
I’m not sure I understand the reference.
Do you mean Late Shift?
I found a couple of games called either Nightshift or Night Shift, but none of them seems to be an interactive movie. Have I missed something?
these new interactive movies like nightshift are literally just watch a movie pick a choice, that is not even remotely a puzzle.
I’m not sure I understand the reference.
Do you mean Late Shift?I found a couple of games called either Nightshift or Night Shift, but none of them seems to be an interactive movie. Have I missed something?
You are right it is called late shift, sorry.
Well i want exploration, interaction, and puzzles in my adventures. At least some games that have had the label of “walking sim” are just exploration and narrative. Its the same way i dont prefer visual novels that forego puzzles and adventure elements for all narrative. And i think you might be missing something about the media, its not about them being willing to accept these games as adventure, its that a majority of the media just doesnt even talk about our genre period. They might be more likely to call an adventure an rpg.
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