What do you think of the "walking simulator" genre?

As a quadriplegic I don't understand the hate this genre gets.

>>386723051
They are good experiences to rent, play once, then never touch again. More often than not they are just not worth the money from a straight up utility vs. cost perspective.

I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing that is allowed to exist even if I personally have no interest in them myself. I really don't see much difference between them and a game with shit or piss easy gameplay that people trudge through "for the story", e.g. almost every Obsidian game.

They made games art

>>386723051
I think that Delilah can go fuck herself, flaking bitch.

>>386723051
They are generally very cinematic. If you pay for one think of it like buying a ticket to a movie.

File: 1367312573794.png (198KB, 300x384px) Image search: [Google]

198KB, 300x384px

>>386723316
damn you anon

>>386723051
John Ham makes anything pretty good, even a bad game.

File: 8c3.jpg (146KB, 496x496px) Image search: [Google]

146KB, 496x496px

>>386724808
>not ignoring her and hear her gradually get more and more paranoid.

>>386723316
fucking kek

File: 1417142480644.jpg (5KB, 145x145px) Image search: [Google]

5KB, 145x145px

>>386724980
>tfw havent gone to the cinema in 5 years
>ever since they enacted the no-singles policy

>>386726817
why the fuck would a cinema of all places have a no-singles policy?

They're garbage if they don't show me something novel to make up for a lack of gameplay engagement.
Smart walking sims at least choose a unique setting I can't visit in real life or tell a very good story that wouldn't work as a shooter or combat oriented game.

I guess firewatch was the only walking sim I endured because of the map/compass mechanics without a pointer. Good experience to teach people how to locate themselves in trails.

>>386726923
To prevent it from smelling bad.

>>386723051

As long as people acknowledge that it's relevance is as a walking simulator and just enjoy it for what it is then to overexaggerate than it's fine

Look at Ace Attorney, It's a VN and we are absolutely OK with that

We don't want it to be over praised, we just want more

>>386727054

It was pretty good

But that ending was Fucking horse shit, we should've had closure with Dehlila

>>386726817

pls don't post /tv/ memes here.

>>386727129
all the kids, popcorn and coke stains drown out manchild smell already though

>>386727054
>>386727215
Agreed. Firewatch is actually a very good example of a walking simulator done right, despite the flawed ending.

File: 1491229953-7733-jaquette-avant.jpg (145KB, 2184x1792px) Image search: [Google]

145KB, 2184x1792px

95% garbages, 5% of very good games.

Like What Remains of Edith Finch, holy fuck, that was a wild, clever ride.

Firewatch is not as good, but still a pretty good game. The character of Delilah and how she fucks you is delightful.

Unfortunately, the genre is plagued by the like of Gone Home (my sister is a lesbian, let me explain that to you in 30 minutes) and Dear Esther (my life is a parabola of mathematic, a metaphor for a car-crash where flocks of birds, DNA birds, DNA birds of the children of tomorrow, seek torture of the pickling of everything, in and out of itself).

I hated the Gone home Story too, but It did have some great environmental story telling.


But Dear Esther is fucking garbage, nothing of any value in that game.

>>386725074
Jon Hamm wasn't in this game, He was in Mad Men, and Harry Crane was in Mad Men too, and he voiced the protagonist of Firewatch.

>>386727401
Can you give me the run down on What Remains of Edith Finch?

File: what-remains-of-edith-finch-screen-03-ps4-us-21mar17.jpg (322KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

322KB, 1920x1080px

>>386728504
A very clever meta-fictional story where the last survivor of the Finch family learns about the family 'curse' that killed all the Finch. There's several levels of narration, huge foreshadowing, incredible set pieces, a very coherent story, and it really activates your almond in an unironical way. It is the best walking simulator I have ever experienced. I can't recommend it enough.

It is everything The Vanishing of Ethan Carter tried to do and failed. Not that Ethan Carter is on the same level of Gone Home or Dear Ester, but it's not a very good game.

>>386729523
Is it really that horrible?

Am I the only person who enjoyed Everyone's Gone to the Rapture?
Maybe you have to be British to enjoy it.

Doesn't really interest me. Never really played one.

>>386723051
I've played a bunch of them and have nothing per say against the genre.

My problem is for games that rely only on their narrative I feel their story is rarely engaging and good enough to leave me satisfied by the end of it.

Firewatch is a good example. Neat setting, some good banter, but I never got emotionally engaged in the story because not much was going on anyway. It really would have worked better as a novel.

File: 2624082-tvoec_screenshot_03.jpg (949KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

949KB, 1920x1080px

>>386729850
Ethan Carter? It's decent. It certainly tries to be better than decent, but fails terribly to do so. The ending is completely grade A dumb (what a twiiiiiiist!), and it drags way too long at time, and it isn't that clever to begin with, but it is enjoyable if you like walking simulators.

>>386723051
Always disappointing.
Try reading a book.

>>386723051
Good in small amount.
It destroyed Uncharted 4

Good for exploring fantasy worlds.
Unfortunatelly most games in the genre are meant to explore the real world, as if I didn't know lesbians exist.

>>386730657
How often do you get invited into their house?

>>386723051
Needs a different name for the genre

>>386730759
Cinematic experience

>>386730759
t. Walking simulator dev

The biggest thing with walking simulators is the story, and if that falls flat or is ineffective, you are often left with a rather mediocre experience. The other problem is they tend to be way, WAAAY overpriced for what they are offering, and sometimes stay overpriced for too long.

With that said, I have played several and very few have legit impressed me.

File: land_of_eternal_autumn_by_viaestelar-d3idi28.jpg (536KB, 1152x864px) Image search: [Google]

536KB, 1152x864px

I was kinda on board with the idea when it started. I like good narrative in a game, I always thought their biggest strength was immersion, and back when the first two major ones appeared (Dear Esther and Stanley's Parable - both still being free mods), I actually really enjoyed them.

That said, it became very apparent very soon that actually... the scope of stories you can effectively told by them is FAR more limited than I would like and the gimmick wears off very soon I over-estimated the weight of perspective in these games - once the novelty wears off, the lack of interaction ACTUALLY makes these game increasingly unimmersive, this defeating the one advantage of narrativity they had.

Today, I just kinda don't give a fuck about them anymore. They feel like the genre is already pretty much exhausted. Or - at the very least - people who make them are incompetent.
I've played Firewatch - it was a garbage story and completely wasted opportunity.
I played Ethan Carter - it was actually a decent story but still... it just did not get me immersed at all.
I played Kholat - it was garbage.
Played Gone Home - it was garbage story and completely unimmersive.
Played Jazzpunk - it was boring
Played a few more that were actually so boring that I even forgot their names...

I think the genre needs a revolution and restructuralization. It's not working anymore. It needs a new step.

I'm still all for games that focus on narrative and that don't put an emphasis on traditional concepts of gameplay - but it's becoming more and more obvious that Walk Sims are becoming more and more like visual novels - a medium where the format ACTUALLY actively hinders the storytelling, instead of enhancing it.

I wish more devs would take lessons from Miasmata, Pathologic, The Void, arguably Cradle, and started actually exploring the damn potential of interactive storytelling through you know... player doing interactions?

Really hit and miss. It's largely an experimental genre where all of the time and effort that would normally go into balancing mechanics and level design get funneled into weird, creative stuff that tries to subvert or change how players interact with a game.

So you get cool things like What Remains of Edith Finch and The Stanley Parable, but then you also get stuff like Dear Esther or The Beginner's Guide. It's like any other genre, I suppose.

Firewatch and The Beginner's Guide were good. TBG made me cry.

>>386730431
>The ending is completely grade A dumb (what a twiiiiiiist!)
The ending is pretty great, actually. And it is kinda clever.

I think the genre is unfairly named, and that anyone with a brain uses the term "Adventure" to describe these games instead. They've been around since the 70 and are one of the earliest forms of video games, but just because they streamlined the interface-a good thing- they are dogged on.

>>386731006
The games need more exploration and fun little side-things you can do. Say you can pick something up but also examine it thoroughly to see if there's any little hidden secrets or you can pick things up and throw them like basket balls.

>>386723374
Imagine being so much of a contrarian that you have reasonable opinions.

>>386731058
>The ending is pretty great, actually
It was all in the dream of a dying child!

No, it wasn't. I have read pretty good twists from all venues of fiction. The dying dream twist is one of the worst, even when properly foreshadowed, and it wasn't half as properly foreshadowed as it should have been for the twist to be even halfway decent.

Those kinds of twist often invalidate their story by their very existence. This one was unnecessary, and more importantly, it was not very clever. Quite literally baby's first twist. I expected better, everyone did.

Ethan Carter sure tried to be meta-fictional and clever. But with that kind of last minute baby's first asspull? It's almost a joke.

>>386730431
Decided to look up the synopsis, so he's
a figment of the kid's imagination except he's also the angel of death taking him away from the land of the living these stupid walking simulators, man.

>>386723051
I became slightly excited when your Lady Boss from the higher tower started flirting with you.
I thought we were going to hear some hot phone sex action
Then it cut to black

As such, we can safely say that this game is SHIT

>>386731220
>Say you can pick something up but also examine it thoroughly to see if there's any little hidden secrets or you can pick things up and throw them like basket balls.
Actually, most of them do that already.
That is not the problem. Small, trivial stuff like picking up objects and rotating them around is not going to solve anything. Just like the rudimentary "steal" mechanics did not really solve the issues of Kholat or Machine for Pigs.

They need - first and foremost - to figure out how to make the player part of the story, rather than an observer. That is the BIGGEST issue of all of these games. In this respect, actually, Firewatch was ALMOST a step in the right direction with the dialogue system. Shame the fucking awful story and awful environmental progression run it into the ground though.

>>386726817
as much as i like baneposting and no-singles greentexts, please keep that shit in /tv/

I like them. They push story to the front of the game, and some times I want just that.

>>386731382
>>386731403
Are you people FUCKING RETARDED?
It's a fucking love letter to weird fiction, and it's a story of a boy who takes escape in it, and as a result, never actually learns that despite all the fucking problems, his family DID fucking love him. Are god damn moron THIS incapable of reading basic narrative intentions? It's not about the fucking twist. It's not about Prospero either. It's about reconstructing the story of the boy and his family. What the fuck is wrong with you retards. Nobody actually ever taught you how to read a basic story?

>>386723051
That game is part of the System Shock universe.

>>386731580
Play games like Cryostasis, Pathologic, The Void, Silent Hill, Bastion instead. They do the same thing but better...

>>386731596
OK, this is such a weird statement that you did get my attention. What the hell do you mean by that?

>>386731006
I'm not sure whether to be more surprised that someone else remembers Cradle or that they actually thought it was good.

File: 0mUZDyU.png (2MB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1920x1080px

>>386723051
>What do you think of the "walking simulator" genre?
There are good ones and bad ones like in any other genre.
Naissancee is a good example in my opinion.

File: What-Remains-of-Edith-Finch_20170424171505.jpg (298KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

298KB, 1920x1080px

>>386731593
Please calm yourself. You're making a mess.

>It's a fucking love letter to weird fiction, and it's a story of a boy who takes escape in it,
Please do not project your ignorance into others. Everyone with half a brain understood that after twenty minutes of playing Ethan Carter. That doesn't change the fact that the final twist is not clever, and the game not half as good as it desperately tries to be.

Like I said, the game tries to be intelligent. It tries to present you with a deep story about a boy, his delusion, and his relation with his family. The end result is just incredibly lacking.

Try What Remains Of Edith Finch if you want an actually good, deep story about a family and their delusions.

>>386732052
What did you think a guy that says Firewatch was shit would like?

>>386731946
>Cryostasis
>Silent hill
>Bastion
These also have solid gameplay.

>>386732052
>or that they actually thought it was good.
I did not think it was good. I thought it was a glimpse of what could have been GREAT, but got throughly fucked over the development process. I've been actually following Cradle since it's announcement somewhere in 2009 or so. In the end, I was just kinda glad that after everything that has happened, the developers got some kind of closure on it.

Yeah, the end result was an absolute mess, but that is hardly surprising. All the elements of it show the greatness that it could have been. Such a damn shame.

Usually too expensive. I did pay full price for Beyond: Two Souls when it came out, and I absolutely fucking love that game. I'd be excited for Detroit: Becoming Human but no ps4.

>>386731995
It has a reference to Gone Home, which has a reference to BioShock, which has a reference to System Shock.

>>386732106
Which is why I'm saying that he should play those instead of walking sims.
That said: Cryostasis does not have solid gameplay. It's awful. I'd argue that even Pathologic has better gameplay than Cryostasis. Also, The Void has a damn complex and rich gameplay too.

>>386732174
>I did pay full price for Beyond: Two Souls when it came out, and I absolutely fucking love that game.
Are you real?

>>386732094
Dude, a retard who actually fucking reads the story as fucking literal and complains about "twist" when the twist is the least important part of the story does not get to act condescending to other people. You have the reading fucking comprehension of a ten years old. I'll bet big money that you are the kind of fuck who upon finishing Pathologic gets angry because of the Sandbox easter egg.

The story has flaws, no doubt about it. It's a bit clumsy in a way that it was told. But it's good story. The story of Ethan is a good one, well worth telling, and the way the game does it is functional and makes sense, down to the very ending.

I think the whole "MY GAME IS SMARTER THAN YOUR GAME!" shit is the real issue here. You really desperately need to prove the superiority of the one you personally resonated more with.
But you are an idiot. Ethan was not even a fucking dying dream you retard.

>>386732203
OK, that was not nearly as interesting as I hoped it to be.

>>386732174
Go to sleep David

>>386723051
I liked Until Dawn for the most part. It had a really fun slasher movie plot and great atmosphere.

The Walking Dead season 1 I also thought was pretty good. Season 2 was hilariously bad.

As for the genre? It's just alright. In all honesty the best walking simulator games would probably be better off as movies.

>>386733270
Until Dawn isn't a walking simulator it's a movie simulator it's mostly cutscenes.

>>386732372
Do you know what meta-fictional means? Because that word encompass the whole shebang thing about understanding the heart of the story. Ethan Carter is a meta-fiction about a boy, his delusions, and his family. Fine. Ethan Carter is a bad meta-fiction about a boy, his delusions, and his family. Better.

>The story has flaws, no doubt about it. It's a bit clumsy in a way that it was told. But it's good story. The story of Ethan is a good one, well worth telling, and the way the game does it is functional and makes sense, down to the very ending.
You probably never read any meta-fictional book, or indeed any book at all. Believe me, you are saying that because you don't know better.

Ethan Carter is derivative, ugly, and uninspired. The heart of the matter is inferred twenty minutes in: ah, so we are visiting the delusions of a boy? Fine. And we are probably a delusion ourself? Excellent. Then what? What is so good about the narration? What is so good about the story? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Once the uninspired is understood, what is left is a boring drag, some exhausting set pieces, and a frankly tiresome, banal story about a misunderstood child and his family. It's conventional. It isn't well written. There's no secrets to discuss, the characters are all incredibly flat, and the final twist is a punch in the face to anyone who actually expected something good to come up.

Look, anon. We all have pet peeves. Is Ethan Carter a good story? Not really. Is it worth telling? Barely.

>I think the whole "MY GAME IS SMARTER THAN YOUR GAME!" shit is the real issue here. You really desperately need to prove the superiority of the one you personally resonated more with.

You are really insecure about your own intelligence, are you?

Anon. Okay, please don't take it as an insult, but the fact that you are not very intelligent and the fact that you hail Ethan Carter as something incredible are both linked.

>>386723051
pretty good but often overpriced

point-and-click genre is still better

>>386734086
>Do you know what meta-fictional means?
Clearly a word you JUST learned are absolutely fucking desperate to wave around like a fucking baby showing off a new toy.

>Ethan Carter is a bad meta-fiction about a boy, his delusions, and his family.
Child, we had figured out that you are mouth-foaming angry at the game because there is another game you like and you can't comprehend that you don't have to form binary stances to everything. You do not actually make a single fucking point though.
Just a lot of swearwords. See:
>is derivative, ugly, and uninspired.
Which is funny, because:
>ah, so we are visiting the delusions of a boy?
So first of all, we aren't. Second of all, while it's very easy to discover that we are exploring stories written by a little boy, it's not indicated anywhere until the end that the actual perspective through Prospero's eyes is delusion of the child. In fact - it's not indicated anywhere, because it's not the case. There is no actual diegetic explanation for the perspective of Prospero: that is actually purely mechanical vehicle of the storytelling. Which I will admit - is a bit clumsy solution. You did not even get this: it's not vision in his head, it's just all the stories he wrote blending together, and the player experiencing it purely for the player's benefit.

>What is so good about the story?
The actual characters, are the way that the boy's stories reflect the reality. You know, the things that the story is REALLY about? For someone throwing around his "expertise" in literature, you really can't differenciate between layers of narrative here.

>You are really insecure about your own intelligence, are you?
Says the person also writing this?
>You probably never read any meta-fictional book, or indeed any book at all
>Okay, please don't take it as an insult, but the fact that you are not very intelligent
Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm gonna give you one more post for the insulting stupidity and insecurity of this.

>>386734086
>the fact that you hail Ethan Carter as something incredible are both linked.
For somebody accusing others of being insecure, you really aren't very good at basic reading.
Otherwise you'd be able to actually read the lines that say
"It's flawed, but pretty great."
Which is not the bloody same as "something incredible".

Your entire point is literally a bunch of meaningless swearwords. While the rest of your points are "YOU ARE STUPID AND I'M MUCH SMARTER THAN YOU BECAUSE I KNOW THE WORD "METAFICTION"

Dude, I used to teach courses on Borges and post-modern fiction. Starting fall, we are getting a fucking Pavić focused one running to. But sure, please keep throwing accusations about how I'm illiterate because you liked one story which means you have to hate a similar one and can't comprehend somebody may not see things that way.
And because you while you know the word metaficion, you still did not understand that the point is not "it was all in his head", so clearly the idea of metafiction is still completely eluding you.