Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 47

Nina Freeman’s next game is based on her mom’s 1960s childhood

Game designer Nina Freeman first rose to prominence with How Do You Do It (2014), a game exploring precocious sexuality based on her own experiences as a child. The following year, her senior thesis project at NYU-Poly was commercially released as Cibele, a game about online gaming, sex, and falling in love on the internet. Interested in themes of sexuality and self-reflection, Freeman currently works as a designer at Fullbright.

Freeman’s latest project, Kimmy—made in collaboration with Laura Knetzger and Aaron Freedman—shifts the focus to childhood. Based on her mother’s experiences as a babysitter in the 1960s, Kimmy will explore what it was to be a child before the advent of smartphones. Player character Dana is tasked with babysitting the eponymous little girl, Kimmy, who undoubtedly has a lot to teach them both about responsibility, friendship, and family. Over the course of one summer, Dana will help Kimmy collect trinkets to play street games and make friends with the other kids in the neighborhood. In the process, Dana will learn more about Kimmy and her situation at home. Freeman discusses Kimmy’s themes and influences with us in the Q&A below.

Kill Screen: What made you want to team up with Laura Knetzger? What’s her role and what does she bring to the project?

A year or two ago I started working on this game called Freshman Year and was looking for an artist and I thought of Laura. She and I had met at this Ghost Pokézine party in New York City—she had a piece in the zine and I thought it was really great. So, we chatted at that party and kept in touch! Her, myself and Stephen Lawrence Clark teamed up to work on Freshman Year. Laura did the art for Freshman Year entirely using gouache paint and I thought that was a super interesting idea! I always wanted to work with her again after that.

We had a lot of fun making that game together, so I am really excited to be working with her now on Kimmy. It’s especially exciting to have her as my co-writer, because her writing work in her comics is really great. She also made this game I really like called Don’t Go In The Old Greene House, and the writing in that made me think she’d be a super good writer to collaborate with.

KS: I know you have a somewhat contentious relationship with your mom. What made you want her insights for this project in particular? How has that been going?

Most of the games I’ve worked on in the past have been about my life experiences. However, I’m also really excited about finding other people’s stories. So, I’m always looking for people who are open to telling me a story and letting me ask them questions about it—I really like doing interviews and research in this way.

My mom has always been pretty open to this, so whenever I visit her I ask if she’s got any new stories for me. She grew up in a sort of urban area in Massachusetts in the 60s, worked lots of weird jobs, and is happy to let me pick her brain about this stuff. I have all these notes on my phone full of different stories she’s told me about her life that I’ve written down—I look there frequently for new game ideas.

The idea for Kimmy came from one of these conversations. I think we were driving around and I was asking her what kinds of street games she played as a kid, and that reminded her of the summer she spent babysitting this one little girl. So, she told me briefly about what it was like babysitting that summer and about how this kid had kind of a weird family situation. I wrote all this stuff down and then called her a couple weeks later to record an in-depth interview about this story, and that’s what Laura and I are using as reference while we write Kimmy.

KS: Why the late 60s? What about the era drew you to it?

Kimmy is a game that’s all about kids, making friends, babysitting, responsibility, family turmoil … these are all timeless, in a way. However, it’s also about street games! Kids still play street games, but I don’t think you see crowds of kids out in the streets wandering around alone and playing as much as you did back then.

So, since I really wanted to focus on street games as I was working on designing the game, I knew I needed to stick to a time period during which it would make sense for all these kids to be outside playing together in different parts of a semi-urban neighborhood. I also like to be as true to my source material as possible. Since my mom grew up in the 60s, and this game is based on something that actually happened to her during that decade, it made a lot of sense to set it during that era.

KS: Did you have your own “Dana” experience?

I didn’t babysit to the extent that my mom did as a kid. I have two little brothers, so I’d babysit them from time to time. But my mom really babysat a lot of the kids in her neighborhood and made money that way as a kid. She tells me that she was very serious about it. She needed those quarters to buy snacks and other stuff! I never really had anything like that. I did spend a lot of time playing games with my friends outside, but not in the same way.

For Kimmy, I’m mostly drawing on my own experience as I write the character dialogue. The player spends a lot of time getting to know the other kids in the neighborhood, learning about their lives, and having these little conversations with them. Some of that draws on my personal experience, and conversations I remember having as a kid, and kids I remember meeting. However, most of the game, and especially the core story, are really drawing from the interview I did with my mom. I asked her a lot about what life was like for her during the specific time. Who were her friends? What was it like to ride her bike into Boston? What was it like being a majorette? How was she treated at school? All this stuff, in addition to the specifics about Dana and Kimmy’s time spent together, informs the game and the characters.

KS:  Were you at all inspired by Chop Suey and other Theresa Duncan games?

I wish I’d played them! But I haven’t, so I can’t say I’m being influenced by them. I think my biggest influences for Kimmy are games like Cart Life (2011), Papers, Please (2013), and also visual novels. The game isn’t really a visual novel, but it resembles that format in some ways and certainly draws on that tradition quite a bit.

Kimmy will be released for Windows and Mac in 2016. You can find out more on its website.

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Upcoming game uses genetic science to create alien gardens

NYU Game Center alumni Owen Bell is the first game designer to be awarded the Public Understanding prize from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Sloan’s Public Understanding prize, in particular, is intended to support projects that blend science and the humanities; it’s for creators and researchers that recognize science and humanities as operating under a single culture. Books, film, and theater have been supported in the past, but never a videogame.

With $10,000 in prize money, Bell will commit serious time to Mendel—his “science creativity sandbox” game that allows players to breed different combinations of plants to create unique, lush gardens. Though the game itself is simple, the underlying system in Mendel is pretty complex, Bell said on his website. “All the plants are procedurally grown from genetics that behave just like the genetics of our own word.” In exploration of Mendel‘s flowering plant life, players will learn about the inner workings of genetics. And as they do, players will be able to create more complex combinations.

“I started working on Mendel because I wanted to create a space for players to craft their own beautiful gardens and learn about the fascinatingly intricate science of genetics through observation and experimentation,” Bell said. “Both the Foundation and I are passionate about sharing a love and curiosity for science and I’m excited to be creating a work that carried that vision into the world of games.”

creating flora that Bell “never dreamed were possible”

Mendel is different from other sandbox games—like Minecraft (2009) or Terraria (2011)—in that players don’t have a set of assets created by the designer to work from. “All plants will be grown from a mathematical seed that the computer interprets to finished plant,” Bell said. “By breeding their plants together, the player can mix the seeds, creating new plants for the computer to display.” This formula is then applied repeatedly, creating flora that Bell “never dreamed were possible” in Mendel.

Bell is adamant in keeping the game grounded in reality—and real science—despite the whimsical, otherworldly plant life. That’s why he’s, tentatively, at least, decided to set the game on a real planet, Kepler-186f. Scientists at the Planetary Habitability Laboratory have compiled a list of potentially habitable planets, and Kepler-186f is one of them. The player, playing as an astrobiologist, is sent there to study alien flora.

Mendel is expected to release in 2017. Follow its development on Tumblr. More of Owen Bell’s work can be found on his personal website.

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A game that uses a real floppy disk as its controller

It’s been a long time since I’ve used a floppy disk. Years and years ago I remember having a digital camera and having to load old floppy disks in it. Before that I would store small pictures and writings on a floppy disk. These days, floppies exist most in the form of save icons. But a game called Mr. Floppy is giving the old format a new purpose. No longer about storage, the floppy disk is now a videogame controller.

“I don’t really remember the last time I used a floppy disk, but I had a Mac when I was young and used them a little bit,” said Cosmografik, the creator of Mr. Floppy. He had forgotten about floppy disks until, one day, he found some and started messing with them. “I just wanted to try new things during my free time,” he explained. This led to Cosmografik using a Makey Makey Card and some electric paint to turn a floppy disk into a game controller.

Trying to place the wires into the floppy disk without breaking it was challenging

So how does it work? “It’s pretty simple actually,” Cosmografik said, “the ground of the Makey Makey Card, which emulates keystrokes, is connected to the metallic part of the floppy disk.” He then connected two wires using copper tape to parts of the floppy located to the top and bottom of the metallic slide. These wires are connected to the Up and Down key inputs on the Makey Makey Card. “So, when you move the metallic part, you connect one or the other wire with the ground, creating a very tiny electric field that sends the info to a computer,” said Cosmografik.

With this as a basis, Cosmografik was able to create a platformer during #AltCrtl Game Jam 2016, a jam that focuses on creating games that use non-traditional controllers and inputs. It’s a simple platformer inspired by Thomas Was Alone (2012) and the TV show Mr. Robot (2015). The idea is to move a square up a vertical passage—it moves left and right automatically, so the player only needs to instruct it to jump at the right time.

And that’s the special part: to jump, the player pulls back the metallic slide on the floppy disk and then lets go. The slide snaps up and the character in-game jumps. “The haptic return and the sound that is produced has a very strong nostalgic feel,” according to Cosmografik.

As you might expect, working with floppy disks proved to be the most difficult part of creating Mr. Floppy. “Floppy disks are very fragile and you can’t really open them without destroy[ing] them.” Cosmografik said. Trying to place the wires into the floppy disk without breaking it was challenging. Cosmografik is still trying to figure out a better way to do it in the future. Unlike floppy disks, Mr.Floppy has a future—Cosmografik wants to take the game to more festivals and conventions and eventually he wants to add multiplayer and new levels.

Mr. Floppy is available right now on itch.io for free. You can also check out #AltCrtl 2016 for more games made this year or follow Cosmografik on Twitter for more information about Mr.Floppy.

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Cyberpunk 2077 may feature a “huge living city,” seamless multiplayer

Grants submitted by CD Projekt S.A., the head company of developer CD Projekt Red and GOG.com, have surfaced online, giving some insight into the prospective scope of its upcoming game, Cyberpunk 2077. That’s the next game from the people who made The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, if you didn’t know, aka Kill Screen‘s game of the year 2015.

Submitted to the GameINN program (translation via Gamepressure), CD Projekt has requested funding to create something it calls “City Creation.” According to Gamepressure’s translation, City Creation will be a complex technology that will create a “huge living city, playable in real time, [where the technology is] based on rules, AI, and automation, and supports innovative processes and tools for making top-notch open-world games.” At this time no further information about what this means—or how it differs from other open worlds—is available. But, heck, it sounds pretty good, right?

“huge living city, playable in real time”

CD Projekt has also requested additional funds to add Seamless multiplayer to its game, where players will be able to “search for opponents, manage game session, replicate objects, and support for different game modes along with a unique set of dedicated tools.” As the site points out, this is similar to the multiplayer of Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs series.

It’s worth noting that these grants do not necessarily reflect what Cyberpunk will be as a finished product. As these applications only publicly surfaced three days ago, there is also still a chance CD Projekt’s requests will be denied.

But it’s enough to keep us intrigued, as all we knew about Cyberpunk 2077 prior to this is that it’s based on the role-playing game Cyberpunk 2020 (1988)—inspired by the works of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling—and takes place in a “dark future in 2077 where advanced technologies have become both the salvation and the curse of humanity.” There’s also the teaser trailer above which, yep, does little more than tease. 



For more on CD Projekt Red’s large worlds, read our review of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Look out for news on Cyberpunk 2077 on its website.

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Are relationships worth it or not? Find out in The Door

Your fingers hover above the keyboard, hesitating to type out a response to the enthusiastic bubble that pops onto the screen, asking about your day. It’s tiring, trying to keep up the charade. When did the shift occur? At what point did communicating become a chore as opposed to a treat? A lazy response is sent before you remove yourself, choosing instead to look at the framed photo of him on your desk. He wasn’t allowed to smile when the photograph was taken—regulations said so. The computer pings softly and your eyes dart back to the desktop.

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The Door is a short student project created by Nicholas Reynolds and is described as “a game about relationships and whether they are worth the effort or not.” The player is dropped into a dark room with the only other distinguishable feature being a door, made up of a single giant eye and a mouth always slightly agape. The Door is described as being “primarily a walking simulator,” but it includes within it some small games, mostly clones of other well-known titles like Snake (1998) and Galaga (1981), which break up the dialogue.

starts to sound a lot like an angry partner

Boxes are mentioned a lot in this game. The Door will provide some short snippets of information to the player (“pizza comes in a box, but is not a box”) regarding boxes, especially if you choose to leave the section of the area you’re confined to, where you can interact with the Door. It becomes apparent that the only other space you can walk to is a dimly-lit room connected by a short hallway in the shape of a square. There are no walls, and the ever-watchful eye of the Door follows you wherever you go. At one point the door says, “You can fit a lot of things in boxes,” which can lead to a few different interpretations at the time.

The game takes a strange turn after playing and defeating the second mini-game, when the Door becomes hostile and starts to sound a lot like an angry partner, trying desperately to have you stay. At several points during the Door’s dialogue, you can choose to walk away from it as it’s speaking and it will make a comment about the fact that you left. The game makes a comment on relationships but it’s all very dependent on who the player is at the time they are playing it.

But The Door does tell some pretty amazing jokes, so why anyone would want to leave it all alone is anyone’s guess.

For more information about The Door or to download the game on itch.io, click here.

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New game lets you throw paper planes to people around the world

Today, I sat alone in my house on my phone, catching, stamping, and releasing virtual paper airplanes with over 150,000 people from all over the world. I was alone, but I felt part of such a large, positive community.



Created by Active Theory in celebration of Peace Day at Google’s I/O 2016 conference, Paper Planes is a mobile and desktop-based browser game that allows its users to catch and throw paper airplanes that have “traveled” all over the world. Once caught, you are invited to leave a stamp on the plane with your location and usually a cutesy cartoon character, you then fold the paper back into its aerodynamic shape, and send it back on its way across the planet for someone else to discover and enjoy.

It’d be nice to see Paper Planes live on

It’s endearing and communal. It might be fabricated, but it gave me a sense of camaraderie with over 100,000 people I have no chance of seeing. Knowing I had interacted with people from far off places like Italy and Germany, as well as cities as close as Detroit, Michigan, was a bizarre sensation, as if we all decided to go outside and play at the same time.

It’d be nice to see Paper Planes live on, to check on it in a few months and still see over 100,00 people playing together, throwing something as menial as paper airplanes to and fro, leaving notes for each other. Perhaps I’m romanticizing it a bit too much, but a few days after watching the recent Presidential Debate—especially as an American citizen—Paper Planes left me with just enough of a sense that people can still come together, albeit anonymously, to enjoy time together, to share with one another.



To play Paper Planes, click the link.

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Dead of Winter: The Long Night is a survivor

The Andes Flight Disaster of 1972 is infamous for the part about the cannibalism. On October 13th, a chartered Fairchild FH-227D crashed on the spine of the Andes between Chile and Argentina. A search was conducted for just over a week, leaving the team stranded. After two months of starvation, frostbite, and sickness, the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571’s original 45 members had dwindled to 16, who all had to resort to eating the dead to survive. The survivors were all part of a rugby union, all Roman Catholic, and operated as a team: they salvaged together, they kept warm together, they starved. With the only qualified doctor dead from the crash, it fell to the medical student to fashion splints out of shrapnel from the aircraft. The Andes Crash is the definition of an extreme survival scenario.

It is impossible to discuss Dead of Winter: The Long Night without discussing the first Dead of Winter (2014). Plaid Hat Games’s Dead of Winter could be pitched as a “fun” tabletop survival scenario, if you enjoy The Walking Dead and the vote-down segments of Survivor and other reality TV series. In the game, a colony of survivors tries to survive the first winter of the zombie apocalypse: gathering food and supplies, killing encroaching zombies, and mitigating pressing crises. All the while, the group of players works toward resolving a larger game objective like, say, surviving a zombie horde or stockpiling supplies for the long winter. Each component—hunger, injury, overpopulation—creates a stress environment in which every decision carries some risk, and every risk promises some reward.

every decision carries some risk, and every risk promises some reward

Dead of Winter’s greatest strength is its hidden objectives, a mechanic heavily inspired by the Battlestar Galactica (2008) board game. At the start of the game, a number of objectives are drawn, shuffled, and dealt—most are harmless, some are malicious. The hypochondriac wants to help the group, but she needs extra medicine to win; the trigger-happy betrayer wants to bring the group down, but only if he’s stockpiled an arsenal. At any point, a player can be voted out by the majority and left to wander in the cold outside, but the group can never truly know if the exiled player was a betrayer or simply selfish until the end of the game.

Filmmaker Gonzalo Arijón—responsible for 2009 film Stranded: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors—said of the Andes Disaster survivors, “How did they manage to work together? Don’t forget they’re rugby players, and this is a game that requires a lot of group sacrifice . . . They managed to get out, as a group, with a system of rotating leadership, with no chief or leader being declared and no worker ants. The energy circulated.” This pull between individual want and collective need is at the heart of Dead of Winter. Players can hole up in the colony, but they’ll starve as the zombies pile up outside. If they leave to gather supplies, they brave the elements and risk instant death from a bite wound. Taking care of one’s own objectives can put the group at risk. And there’s always the haunting suspicion that one player might not be sharing enough supplies, that so-and-so might have sabotaged the crisis this turn.

The game plays a lot of its excessive darkness off as a joke. If anything, Dead of Winter: The Long Night puts some of the subtextual farce of the first game into text. The original game’s food cans with their wry labels (“Refurbished Vegetables!”, “Zombie-Free Beans!”) have been replaced with hot pink Bloody Munchies cereal boxes (“They will revive you!”, “Whole Human Parts Guaranteed”). Although “replaced” is a misnomer: while all of The Long Night’s components can play a full game on their own, the box is an expansion. Beyond an array of new characters, crises, and story elements, The Long Night’s biggest additions come in the form of three new modules that slot into the original game’s stress-machine.

The first module allows survivors to fashion crude improvements to the colony, building turrets or fashioning a ramshackle clinic. The colony improvements cement the group survival mentality while softening the blow of the other two modules. In the second, the Raxxon Pharmaceutical company (a blatant homage to Resident Evil’s Umbrella Corporation) contains a pastiche of horror and zombie film monsters: werewolves, creepy little girls, even a riff on Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger. While silly in appearance, the Raxxon sideshow pushes the group to constantly seal its doors every turn, and that’s in addition to the regular challenges of the game, or else the nightmarish creatures will escape and wreak havoc.

a fully-functional Walking Dead-esque war of colonies

It’s important to note that, while the incident is known as the Andes Flight Disaster in English, the tragedy was popularly referred to as El Milagro de los Andes (The Miracle of the Andes) in Spanish. The horrifying acts of cannibalism were likened unto the rite of Communion, in which believers symbolically eat the flesh and blood of Christ. Survivor Nando Parrado wrote in Miracle of the Andes: “I didn’t know how to explain . . . there was no glory in those mountains. It was all ugliness and fear and desperation, and the obscenity of watching so many people die. Shortly after our rescue, officials of the Catholic Church announced that . . . we had committed no sin by eating the flesh of the dead . . . [T]hey told the world that the sin would have been to allow ourselves to die.”

But what if the binary is changed from survival vs death to our survival vs theirs? The Long Night’s third module introduces a hideout of bandits, which brings the game closest to playing out like a segment of Walking Dead and The Last of Us (2013). Adding this module introduces an automated colony of competing raiders who scavenge and draw zombies out to their locations on their own. The bandits don’t simply add an additional pressure point like the Raxxon module: they bleed into the map and seep into the colony (the module’s token scenario even includes a bandit betrayer who has to “play along” with the group to win). The bandit module is a step toward what players are asking for: a fully-functional Walking Dead-esque war of colonies between players. And that’s essentially what The Long Night is—giving players more of what they already want.

For more about Kill Screen’s ratings system and review policy, click here.

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Weekend Reading: Planes, Trains, and The X-Men

While we at Kill Screen love to bring you our own crop of game critique and perspective, there are many articles on games, technology, and art around the web that are worth reading and sharing. So that is why this weekly reading list exists, bringing light to some of the articles that have captured our attention, and should also capture yours.



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The X-Men and the Legacy of AIDS, Jackson Ayres, Los Angeles Review of Books

The X-Men, in their inception, are commonly understood to be an analogy for the bigotry against people of color, but the comparisons of racism and fear of people who can control fire are at best ill-fitting. Jackson Ayres reflects on a chapter of the Marvel saga that was much richer and subtle about social commentary: the 80s AIDS crisis and the 90s Legacy Virus saga.

Danny Brown Cares About Rap More Than You Do, Ross Scarano, Complex

With Atrocity Exhibition, the latest album from Danny Brown, it seems like the Detroit rapper has gifted us yet again. With a vivid profile of the artist, Ross Scarano explores the slow burn success of Brown, and the uncanny world the artist has built around his craft.

Japanese Rail Sim 3D: Journey to Kyoto, after the real thing, Mathew Kumar, Tiny Cartridge

For players abroad, rail simulators are a snapshot of another person’s commute, but for Japan, where these games gain popularity, the simulation is of something woven into the fabric of daily life. Somewhere in the middle, Mathew Kumar shares a personal reflection on one of these passageways, and how a simple videogame took him back there.

The Age of the Instagram Eyebrow, Leigh Alexander, How We Get To Next

Beauty tips used to be written in stone in the pages of hundreds of different magazines. Social media, Snapchat, and Instagram, in particular, have certainly chiseled at the tradition of where trends are popularized. Leigh Alexander explores eyebrows throughout generations and the ascension of a defined Nike checkmark above thousands of eyes.

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Is it time to stop using the term “walking simulator”?

The history of the term “walking simulator” is short but heated. It’s only seen wide usage over the past few years and is often applied frivolously. There’s a lot of uncertainties around it but the one thing that’s for sure it it’s a divisive term. Some people see it as a useful way to bunch together a group of games with similar interests—typically slower games, ones about exploration and contemplation. While others abhor it and wish it would go away. But it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, at least, not any time soon.

“Walking simulator” seemed to come into popularity around the time that the standalone version of Dear Esther came out in 2012. It’s a game that involves walking over a coastal landscape while the story is told through a poetic voiceover. At the time, it drew a lot of hatred, partly because it was labelled a “videogame” and some viewed its low interactive demands as not being qualified (it has no true fail state, no “mechanics” outside of walking and looking around), and partly because this type of game was being sold at a price.

But there were also a lot of people that loved it: “the people who liked it, loved it, and they loved it because they just let go and went with it,” said Dan Pinchbeck, one of the creators of Dear Esther in a recent interview with PCGamesN. That interview dredges up what have already become exhausted discussions: is Dear Esther a “videogame,” what is the value of that type of game, should everyone have to like it? What it misses talking about, however, is whether or not “walking simulator” is a fair term for these games in the first place—should it stay or should it go?

arrive at an answer that works for you

There is no right answer to that question. But most people seem to have an opinion on it. And that makes it worth discussing. A couple years ago, Kill Screen challenged the term “indie,” arguing that it lacks any use due to it being so hard to define in the videogame space. “Walking simulator” isn’t quite so elusive, but the issue some have with it is that it encompasses a range of games that, between them, could also be called “dramas,” “exploration games,” “thrillers,” and “narrative games.” We’re talking Gone Home (2013), Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (2015), Firewatch, The Stanley Parable (2013), Virginia, and Proteus (2013), and many more.

These are games that cover a range of different topics and tones. To some people, it seems unfair to categorize them under the idea that they’re about walking, and not much else, as the term “walking simulator” implies. However, what’s interesting to see over the past few years is how the term “walking simulator” has gone from being used in a derogatory manner to being somewhat reclaimed by the creators and fans of the games it’s applied to.

With that in mind, we decided to grab some of our writers as well as a bunch of people who have made games classified as “walking simulators” to argue FOR or AGAINST the term. Those opinions are listed below, with a few people refusing to fall on either side, which have been put into the just as admirable NEITHER camp. We’re not looking for a definitive answer here but, perhaps, among these opinions, you’ll be able to arrive at an answer that works for you.

FOR:

Tyler Owen (TIMEframe, Lacuna Passage)

Personally I’m a fan of using terms that everyone can collectively agree on for meaning. Everyone already knows what “walking simulator” means in reference to videogames. I’d rather co-opt the term and use it positively than try to convince a subset of gamers to stop using it negatively. I’ve had several players express that they only became interested in TIMEframe because it was labeled as a “walking simulator.” A label that many consider a disparaging term is being used as marketing shorthand to reach precisely the niche players that I wanted to find when I made the game in the first place.

Kevin Maxon (Eidolon, The Absence of Is)

I think the greatest asset of the term is that, like other art movements’ names (e.g. impressionism) it’s been applied derisively but in many cases captures the spirit of the things well. As someone who loves walking, it has a good balance of “I can’t tell if you’re being ironic” and “Yes that sounds like a good time.” A potent blend!

Levi Rubeck (Writer)

Genre is garbage, but there is power in signification. “Walking simulator” is a reclamation of the positive, active aspects of walking. Especially in a Robert Frost sense, active participation in an outside world through the senses rather than creation/destruction/colonization. A habitation of space where so many other games have to “incentivize” the player into interacting with the high-resolution worlds they’ve molded because they are otherwise zipping through so fast that details minor and major leave no lasting impact.

Walking is all about taking a place in a world, not taking over that world, and since videogames establish so many fantastic worlds, there should be no shame in embracing one’s small but sensitive position in them. And by this point the phrase has transcended the condescending tones of the original epithet. Or we can just call most sports games “running simulators.”

David Szymanski (Fingerbones, The Moon Sliver, A Wolf in Autumn)

Personally, I actually don’t like it. It’s a condescending term born more out of a desire to dismiss than to actually define. It doesn’t really accurately describe what those games are, implying the focus is on the action of walking rather than exploring environments or experiencing a narrative (which is more of the case). And I think there are a lot of different games and philosophies that fall under it.  

Specifically, you have some Walking Simulators that seem to think player agency and interaction get in the way of the narrative, and others that try to use player agency and interaction to enhance the narrative. Two nearly opposite philosophies falling under the same label. For the most part I think people understand “walking simulators” as narrative-driven games with a non-traditional approach to gameplay and challenge, but even there … games by David Cage and Telltale fit that description but few people would call them Walking Simulators without some qualification.    

So it’s definitely a confused label that doesn’t adequately describe what it professes to describe, encapsulates some games with opposing philosophies, and fails to encapsulate some games with similar philosophies.

We all mostly understand what sort of game it refers to

But the thing is, cultural terms don’t live and die based on their accuracy. Generally they’re something the culture instinctively understands. The term “videogame” is nowhere close to accurately describing the robust combination of audio-visual presentation and player interaction that videogames are. But we still understand what it means, and (setting aside the “are Walking Simulators videogames?” debate) we understand what it does and doesn’t refer to. Same thing with the term “Walking Simulator.” We all mostly understand what sort of game it refers to, and if you tell someone a game is a Walking Simulator, or tends toward being a Walking Simulator, they know what you’re talking about.

So I think it’s far more practical to just accept “Walking Simulator,” rather than trying to force a new term that might be technically more accurate.

Peter Moorhead (Stranded, Murder)

For hundreds of millions of people, walking is a favourite pastime, so I’ve always found the assumption that anything wishing to simulate it is inherently dull and uninteresting, a little reductive. Many of the best games I’ve played in the last decade are often referred to as “walking simulators”, and the fact that it’s mostly used as a term of derision probably tells us more about the people who use it than the things it’s used to describe. It’s also proved unexpectedly useful, since I’ve no problem at all with those people steering entirely clear of my work.

Connor Sherlock (Walking Simulator A Month Club)

I’m all for the term! It’s silly yet technically correct. My games often don’t focus on narrative, so “interactive narrative” doesn’t fit them well, and neither does “empathy games.” I’d be fine with “exploration game” but that doesn’t have the same ring to it. I’m not sure if I lucked out and “walking sim” describes my games perfectly, or if I’ve changed what I make to fit the term better, but I’m happy with the result.

Walking Simulators also seem to have gathered the critical mass needed for it to become (almost) a real genre, which will help to sell future walking sims on Steam or GOG. I think trying to pull away from the term after its got its claws this deep into the industry will only help these games fall through the cracks between First Person Shooters and Role Playing Games. At the end of the day I don’t care what we call them if it will get people playing them.

Julian Glander (Lovely Weather We’re Having)

There are probably a lot of better descriptors for this kind of game: Explorey Thing, Computer Dream, Movement Zone. In comparison, “Walking Simulator” feels dismissive and derogatory—I don’t know who even coined the term but it’s hard to imagine they were a fan. But that’s what I like about it, it’s such an amazingly uncool combination of words. It has cultural power as a label because rather than trying to sell you on glamour or action, it takes the core criticisms of the genre—all you do is *walk*, it’s so *boring*, it’s not even a *game*—and reclaims them as values.

Emma Kidwell (Writer)

You look up from your keyboard. Walking Simulator is standing in front of you, tapping their foot. “Give me a second,” you say. “I need to figure out how to describe you.” Walking Simulator rolls their eyes. “My name describes me pretty accurately, don’t you think?” they ask. You lean back into your seat. “Yeah, but I need to find a better way to talk about you.” Walking Simulator crosses their arms. “Okay, I’m all ears.” You shrug. “What if we called you an experience?” Walking Simulator laughs in your face. “‘Experience’ is too broad. Every game is an experience.” They have a point. Walking Simulator isn’t a derogatory term. It’s an accurate description. But it’s unfairly shoved into this box where people might look at it and mark things off: no combat? Check. Focuses on telling a very specific story? Check. Minimal player agency? Check. It’s not offensive. It’s niche.

Vic Bassey (Shelter, Shelter 2, Pan-Pan, Meadow)

Personally, I believe walking simulators are perfect vehicles for developers wishing to provide their player base with in most cases a carefully choreographed narrative experience (as we tried with [the now-canceled] Child of Cooper). In some cases, it is simply opportunity to try out the viability of some new concepts. The reality is walking simulators make up a minuscule percentage of the gaming landscape and the industry would be much worse off without their existence (see titles from The Chinese Room etc).

Brendon Chung (Gravity Bone, Thirty Flights of Loving, Quadrilateral Cowboy)

At this point, I read the term as meaning “a game that is probably played from the first-person perspective and doesn’t have guns.” It makes it easier to discuss games. I know its origins are from a disparaging place, but at this point I feel the term has been disseminated and genericized to the point where it no longer bears its original edges.

NEITHER:

Michaël Samyn (The Path, The Graveyard, Bientôt l’été, Sunset)

I am in favor of not discussing the term “walking simulator”and using our time at least discussing more important issues, or better researching this damn medium before it completely disappears.

So I guess this means I am for the term because that seems to be the option that produces the least amount of wasted time talking about words. And then there’s more time left for actually talking about things, the world, ideas, and so on.

Fernando Ramallo (Panoramical)

My answer is NEITHER. I don’t think these labels are helpful at all. Terms come and go and the labels we put on them mostly come from commercializing these works and making them fit into neat little categories or tags storefronts want their users to sort through to have preconceived expectations like HOW MUCH ENJOYMENT CAN I TAKE FROM THIS PRODUCT FOR EVERY DOLLAR I SPEND.

Sure, walking simulator I guess started as a joke, turned into an insult, got reclaimed as a proud little badge and now is meaningless. This will happen with whatever we come up with next.

I’d say burn it all down. The storefronts, the buying, the commenting, the tagging. Let’s start a utopian way of experiencing playful art where game developers advancing the medium are paid like doctors, anyone can become one and has a voice, games are free and a big part of society’s everyday life, families sit down after dinner to play the latest experimental game and have a meaningful conversation about it, and the world unites in celebration of this glorious new medium that has finally brought change, unity and peace.

Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable, The Beginner’s Guide)

I unfortunately think that my position on this matter is one of general apathy.

AGAINST:

Sam Zucchi (Writer)

Too many indelible connotations of assumed pretentiousness, artistic preening, and jejune ambition—the same kind of assertions made by the culture at large to, say, modern poetry. It also parallels the phrase “SJW” in this regard—the term doesn’t actually signify anything except the misguided points its critics think are native to the concept. And I have no idea if/whether the term has any merit in being reclaimed/redeemed from that mess.

Gareth Damian Martin (Writer)

In many ways the word simulator represents some of the worst instincts of games. Simulators make a pretense of being non-artistic, culturally benign objects. Think of “flight simulators,” or “space simulators,” genres where the term is used without a hint of irony. Those genres function on the idea that there is an objective reality which can be distilled down into a series of interactions, and drive towards a 1:1 recreation of the real world in a virtual space as the manifest destiny of games.

This is an attitude that has been parodied in games like Goat Simulator (2014), Surgeon Simulator (2013), Job Simulator, where the distance between reality and the reality of videogames is stretched for the sake of comic effect. Yet despite this, the word retains a strong connection to a particular view of games, one which requires them to adhere to a philosophy of imitation, “believability” and “immersion.” The term “Walking Simulator” emerged as a slur, an answer to the shrill whine of “but what do you do?” It privileges simulation as the defining aspect of any game and in doing so strengthens that position as the center point, the orthodoxy of games. When applied to a diverse set of games whose only connective material seems to be a nebulous focus on narrative, this term means defining those games in relation to a dull and limited view of what games are.

it is a straitjacket of creative restriction

This definition comes from a place of privilege, from those who have sought to close down definition of games to only their own myopic fantasies, who wish to preserve the idea of games as “just entertainment” though that time has long passed, if it ever lived at all. I have no issue with the term’s accuracy; what genre name has accuracy? I have issue with its hegemonic power, with its intent to sideline games like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture as strange or abnormal, when they are as much a part of the mainstream of videogame culture as any “triple A” release.

Why does it matter? Because for games, genre is more than a label. Videogames are obsessed by genre, haunted by it. Perhaps that is because it provides the necessary signposting for a form whose variety seems near limitless. But the side-effect of this is that genre is used as a weapon as often as it is used as a tool. Critics review games on their adherence or deviation from genre, and more importantly, developers can be seen to add features just to meet genre expectations. This is no playful game of expectation and diversion—it is a straitjacket of creative restriction. If we champion “Walking Simulator” as a genre, it will create a feedback loop, a self-fulfilling prophecy where critics will start talking about “walkfeel,” and creators will turn a space of experimentation into just another set of rules for success.

However, this is a futile argument. The continued life of this ugly term now seems guaranteed, but I can’t help but feel frustrated when developers use it describe their own work. It feels like stepping willfully into a segregated corner, away from the “real games” and the “real gamers,” and reneging any claim on the form. It feels like laughing along with the bullies in the hope that they might let us join their club, or at least leave us alone.

Delphine Forneau (Sacramento)

I’d say I’m against the term “walking simulator.” Mainly because I don’t like labels, but also because it sounds very negative. It’s like it emphasizes there’s nothing to see or to do in the game, and that you’re just walking. And “simulator” sounds like a terrible link to reality for me.

Most of the time the main interest of this kind of game is not focused on the way you’re moving, but on the surroundings, the experience, the feelings, exploration & discovery of clues left by the creator to make you understand a world. I’m not good with words, but I’d prefer “exploration game,” for example.

Elwin Verploegen (Fragments of Him)

I feel like the term “Walking Simulator” was coined by those who don’t enjoy the genre of game, back when these type of games first started to pop up. At the time we didn’t have a better definition, and I’m pretty sure that at the time the entire “simulator” joke/meme was at its height. For those who don’t care about a story, the term is fine, but it’s not what these games are about. Usually they’re about exploring a world, about a story or learning about characters. Because of that, I very much prefer the term “Interactive Narrative Experience” or just “Interactive Narrative,” as these games generally focus on the story, not the gameplay.

Pete Bottomley (Ether One)

I guess overall I’m against the term, but possibly not for the same reasons as other people. The walking simulator term doesn’t necessarily appear on my radar too often. I’ve never heard more than a handful of people use the term ‘walking simulator’ when referring to Ether One (2014) and when it did, it was mostly when the term was gaining momentum a couple of years back.

The reason I’m against the term is because of the negative connotations connected to it. People use it as a derogatory term and I’ve never come across anyone saying ‘I’m looking for another good walking simulator’. It also simplifies a game which could have complex systems behind it which the designers wanted to hide from the player to provide simplified experience for the player.

I think we’ll see the walking simulator term quickly die out

I often use the term narrative exploration instead. This could define an entire game, or it could define an element of the game. For example, Ether One was a first-person adventure with narrative exploration. I think we’ll see the walking simulator term quickly die out as these games and the developers behind them evolve over time. The main reason for the approach to games like these is mostly a technical one. You set up with a small team and limited (or no) resources and you try to create the best experience possible within your team’s skillset.

Most of the time, this is without a 3D representation of character but aided by a strong sense of world which becomes the main character. As you see these teams develop, Fullbright being a great example of this, you’ll see a refining of the process with an expanded skillset and a more ambitious game design. This isn’t to say they’ll be bigger or longer or even change in tone. I believe they’ll continue to explore interesting subject themes and, if anything, remain shorter more crafted and well executed experiences.

I’m personally really excited to play the 2nd, 3rd, 4th games from the developers who created the first wave of ‘walking simulators’ because I think we’re going to experience some incredible stories.

Raphael van Lierop (The Long Dark)

I think calling something a “walking simulator” is doing it an injustice, particularly since the label is often applied disparagingly. It somehow implies that moving around a game world is a lesser experience than “shooting” or “role-playing,” while in fact walking is movement and movement is exploration, and really, exploration is what games are all about.

A big inspiration for The Long Dark was the countless hours I spent exploring the abandoned wastelands of Fallout 3 (2008). Yes, there was some levelling up, the occasional bit of fighting, a whole lot of looting, but mostly—walking, walking, and more walking. That, to me, was the game’s strongest draw—its ability to present a destination on the horizon, then make me feeling something as I walked towards it. Walking down a dusty, broken highway with the promise of some new location to explore was Fallout 3’s magic. Walking = exploring.

So, I’d opt to replace the label “walking simulator” with “exploration game,” and if appropriate, “first-person explorer.”

Rand Miller (Myst, Riven, Obduction)

I think my primary motivation in voting against is simply an attempt to better categorize what these various kinds of interactive experiences are. Walking simulator just humorously focuses on the non-frenetic pace that most of them have in common without really highlighting any of the strong features that revolve around exploration—surprising discovery, deeper storytelling, meaningful environments, cerebral observation and connection—the fact that the journey is just as rewarding as the achievement. We need a broad phrase that wraps all that up into a neat little package. Let me know when you get it.

Davis Cox (Writer)

If games are ever going to “grow up” beyond having protagonists be floating hands holding guns shooting at other things holding guns, inherently dismissive phrases like walking simulators denote a kind of “non-game” status to titles that explore that idea.

Still, everything needs to be called something, and a name’s just a name. Other sub-genre titles like “shoegaze” and “emo” started as derogatory terms, too. I can’t think of a suitable replacement, so … maybe I’m actually supportive of the term, even if I’m not a fan of it?

Reid McCarter (Writer)

“Walking simulator” is one of those game terms that bugs me on sort of a basic, reactionary level. When I think about why that is, it’s maybe a little bit to do with the derogatory connotations it carries—narrow definitions of what exactly a game is are inherently self-defeating—but, more than that, because it’s a descriptor that’s so antithetical to why I find games interesting. It uses a form of input to force diverse work into a nonsensical genre, one whose category is defined by basic mechanical interaction rather than the tone and intent of the game itself.

Most videogame categories are bunk anyway (just look at how every game is, really, a role-playing game), but “walking simulator” is the apex of an outmoded, limiting way of thinking about what games are and can be. It glosses over the actual substance of an experience by reducing it to the most simplistic, basic level. It’s a hangover term from the days of feature-list game reviews—a bizarre, reductive attempt to create a genre where none exists so as to fit a new form of design into archaic ways of thinking and talking about games.

Dan Solberg (Writer)

My main problem with the term “walking simulator” is the redundancy of “simulator” as shorthand for an action in a virtual space which isn’t part of the identification of other genres. It’s not “first-person shooter simulators.” If anything, there is often the word “game” attached to the end of these, such as “platformer game,” in which case the inclusion of simulator leaves no room for the “game” designation. There is no “walking simulator game,” just “walking simulator” and I think that informs the dialogue around these games.

The term “simulator” also seems to have gotten increasingly muddy

The term “simulator” also seems to have gotten increasingly muddy with all of the ironic simulators floating around, feels like it’s all part of a joke. It’s one thing for these “walking sims” to try to reclaim the term, but I don’t think they have the pervasive visibility to pull it off, and every time a new one pops up, it gets hit with the “walking sim” label from the outside like a mallet on a whack-a-mole game. Joke simulators are far more visible, which is separately a problem if you’re actually looking for a real simulator (i.e. a training program).

Benjamin Rivers (Home, Alone With You)

I don’t for a moment discount that some players feel a need to assign a genre to newer styles of games, but like with many genre names (“alternative music,” anyone?), the name “walking simulator” is a poor descriptor. Does it describe games like Dear Esther, which, yes, has walking, but no, does not contain simulation elements? If so, is that because the game is one of narrative discovery, as opposed to, say, challenged-based action? If it is, then “walking simulator” becomes only derisive and, frankly, unhelpful. If assigning a genre name helps legitimize games like this to a wider audience, or helps them better understand it beforehand, then by all means, let’s do it—but I know we can do better!

Robyn Miller (Myst, Riven, Obduction)

I absolutely abhor the term “walking simulator.” I’d love to know where it originated because it sounds like it may have started as an insult, as if “what a dumb game … all you do is walk around.” Navigation is only one aspect of this style of gaming. To name an entire genre after this one action? It’s ludicrous. Or ignorant.

These so-called “walking games” typically have narratives, puzzles, characters, staging, visual design, music. The game creators combine these elements and more in complex and creative ways to create entertaining and thought-provoking experiences. Yes, as you play, you walk (maybe). But you also become the main character in another reality—another world. Focusing on the walking seems besides the point.

And by the way, calling it a “simulator” is an additional way to demean the genre. Which is why Valve doesn’t list games as “FPS simulator” or “adventure simulator.” At some level, even Valve is aware that this tag is a bizarre and bad way to sell something. Calling something a simulation breaks the suspension of disbelief before you purchase the game. It makes the game look ridiculous.

I’d be surprised if any game creators in the “walking simulator” genre love the specificity focusing of this term. We need something better. I feel we need a term that’s more ambiguous: that doesn’t try to nail down the genre so specifically. When French New Wave cinema came along, the term didn’t try to describe a single quality of the genre. The same is needed here: a term that instantly signifies the genre without focusing on any aspects of game-making or game-playing.

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Nidhogg 2 is going to eat you alive

Remember Nidhogg (2014)? Before its release there was whispers of it as the 2D fencing game that people just couldn’t stop playing. After its long-awaited arrival it made its way to other platforms, until it seemed to become nearly ubiquitous—its pixels once only glanced at now brash and animated in everyone’s face.

It was a cult hit, but a cult hit you could play on nearly anything, as long as you had two people. The opposing fencers were rendered in bright colors of orange and yellow, blood spurting neon in their signature shades as the battle raged on. Now, Nidhogg 2 is coming, and it’s ditched its garishly simple visuals for something busier: a retro-ish 16-bit art style, with characters that look like nude monsters torn from a Troma movie.

it’s a long way from the confident simplicity of the first game

The teaser trailer for Nidhogg 2, which you can see above, shows off this new look, but also some of the new weapons in the game. There will also be 10 different levels this time around and a single player campaign that lets you throw down with a variety of AI opponents. While this is standard for a videogame sequel, I admit I’m a little worried about all these changes and additions to the original game. More weapons, more stages, more visual details: it’s a long way from the confident simplicity of the first game.

Still, there’s no reason to believe that Mark “Messhof” Essen can’t make this work the same way he made the original shine. Especially with such a keen and varied history of videogames under his belt, from the deft, neat movement of Flywrench (2015) to the grotesque madness of Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist (2008). Plus, for Nidhogg 2 Essen is joined by Toby Dixon as lead artist and animator, while Kristy Norindr is dealing with the music direction and other deal-making.

Nidhogg 2: Nidhogg Harder (not the game’s final name) will be launching in 2017 for Windows, Mac and “maybe some other platforms.” If you’re at TwitchCon 2016, you can play it at the show at booth 104. There is a website .

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