The biggest reason why Arlo dislikes the term "walking simulator" for his favorite genre of gaming: We have never seen his legs and he doesn't plan to change that anytime soon. :D
+Titan2001 It's a reference to an old meme (not sure if it's dead) which pokes fun at British vs American words. Pants=trousers Bathrobe=dressing gown Candy bar=chocolate goompshnazzle Gun=Rooty-tooty-point-n-shooty Etc etc etc.
I didn't realize how many people would misunderstand what the video was about based on the title, so I'm going to change it to something a little more clear. On another note, I do encourage any and all opinions in the comments, but in this particular case if you're chiming in just to say, "because walking simulators suck and aren't games," you might want to reconsider if that's really going to contribute to the conversation, heh. I spend a good amount of the video trying to emphasize how it's fine to not like these games, so it's a tiny bit irksome that so many other people just aren't okay with the idea of someone liking something they don't, so they feel the need to call it all trash.
+Arlo First off, I want to say that I really like your rational, constructive, thought-out videos. I like the puppet gimmick and the fact that you're not afraid to do your own thing in regards to topics, as well. I was introduced to you while riding the outrage tsunami over Paper Mario Color Splash and while I don't always agree with your conclusions, I like what you try to do with your videos for the most part. With that out of the way I want to express my own dissatisfaction with the "walking simulator" genre in a way that doesn't come off as needlessly snobby (soapbox rant warning). At 21, I'm a pretty young guy but I've been playing games pretty much since my infancy. Growing up, I developed a very strong interest in the history and growth of the videogame industry as I played from the 4th gen all the way up to the current gen (retroactively playing 3rd gen once I got a bit older). I can't speak for everyone but, personally, videogames are my go-to hobby and as such it's important to me that "gamers" as a colloquial audience think carefully about the types of games they want to see and offer unrelenting criticism towards games that strive to be innovative in all the wrong ways, or for all the wrong reasons (Sticker Star is an example of one such game). It's my viewpoint that many games in the "FPE" genre stem from a broader, relatively new movement that wishes to paint videogames as something other than what they are: videogames. I feel like the idea behind many FPEs is the idea that's also behind half-baked games like Order 1886; the idea that games for the sake of games don't cut it anymore and that games now have to be something mature, or immersive, or they have to have complex, "deep" themes to be worth anything. There's a stigma among those who are relatively new to the industry that games have been a childish medium up until recently and they want to push games to be something that's "more than a videogame", something that a player can justify to their friends as being "just like a movie" or something in that vein without needing to feel ashamed of their hobby. It's a type of mindset that, I feel, is scared of the concept of fun gameplay for the sake of it and feels the need to substitute those notions with something more engaging, for more "adult" audiences. Those kinds of themes in a videogame are in no way bad, of course, but a videogame that centers itself around them, that lives and dies off of them, isn't something that interests me very much and frankly I'm not fond of the growing trend of those types of games flooding the market.
+Arlo Similarly speaking, your video sounds like you are whining and saying "please don't criticize the games I like", and it looks as if you are seeking validation from the internet to feel ok about yourself when playing these games. I understand what these walking simulators are trying to do, but what we've seen so far is just lazy story telling, lazy programming, and lazy design. This is why we mock the genre. Do you feel frustrated when people mock the genre? then be the better person you are pretending to be and ignore the genre's detractors.
+Lion heart Criticism is absolutely fine. "Because they suck" is not real criticism. I'm not looking for validation, just trying to have a real conversation. For instance I'm fine with your assertion that the genre isn't living up to what it could be and in fact enjoy seeing different points of view even if I don't agree with them.
Does "The Stanley Parable" count as an FPE? Because that game is so ridiculously funny and amazing and weird, complete with narration and everything! Yeah, that's about the only FPE game I like, or at least the only one I know a decent amount about...
If you like that one- you should check out "The Beginner's Guide". It's made by the same person but has a much more serious tone. Still a great game in my opinion.
The term "Big Bang" was also created to make fun of that theory. Even Terry Pratchett made a joke out of it in the first page of "The colour of magic". The more you know.
Why do people even care that pewdiepie is popular? so what? Anyone saying 'he doesn't deserve his subs' should take it up with... *drumroll* his subs! Seriously, I don't get it, why hate on the popular idiot? because better channels have less subs? that doesn't make sense to me, you wanna know why? what if I told you _not all subs are equal?_ that some are better than others? maybe arlo and other youtubers like him are smaller because they appeal to a more refined audience.
"Walking Simulator" refers pretty much exclusively to games where you literally do nothing but walk around and possibly listen to audio clips from time to time. If there's any real puzzle solving or platforming, the game is immediately disqualified from this "genre" because they have too much actual gameplay. A true walking simulator is something like Dear Esther, Gone Home or Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, where the only thing close to gameplay is figuring out where you need to walk to in order to complete the game. Gotta agree with you though....the laziness with which people tag games that actually have nothing to do with this genre is kind of annoying. Also, it's pretty late to mention this but if you're a fan of subtle/interactive storytelling that lets players seek out and piece together a narrative for themselves then I'd suggest trying out the Souls games if you haven't.
+Arlo If you're going to play any of the Souls games, go with the first Dark Souls. After all the patches, it's the most accessible and (in my opinion) most fun of the series. Also, don't let the difficulty scare you away. Once you learn the mechanics and nuances of the game, it's an incredibly rewarding RPG experience.
@@SpaceFox93 Agreed, even after 4 years these games are still rewarding. I however prefer Bloodborne to Souls world/narritve wise, but that is just me.
I think FPAE, or First-Person Atmospheric Exploration covers the genre of games a bit more, since not only are you exploring the world the game puts you into, you're also taking in the atmosphere so it won't be a generic, boring trip the entire time.
+999MonsterJam Yeah, I came really close to settling on that. I think the only reason I didn't was the brevity thing. I wanted it to be short and easy. However, even if FPAE was the thing that caught on, I'd still be psyched.
+999MonsterJam Personally, I think FPE is better since it (in my opinion) better represents the core of the genre. I think the atmospheric setting is more a side effect of the other core elements than a core feature itself (the game wouldn't work if you didn't WANT to explore the world you're in).
All of those people who seem hung up on the idea that a game should have a "fail state" will very soon sound as ridiculously reactionary as those who insist that poetry must rhyme, music must have melody and harmony, films must have plot and painting should represent reality. I know that gaming is a new medium, but given that most of the 20th Century was spent expanding the limits of art forms by breaking arbitrary rules, you'd think that games would have a head start in breaking their own limitations.
I feel like all walking simulators could have real mechanics over just walking around and still be just as good though. Which I think is the main reason people dislike the genre. Look at metroid prime, bioshock. They do both exploration, atmosphere as well as any great walking simulator/FPE and have relatively deep gameplay mechanics in there as well. I don't think walking simulators should go away per se, but that's the main reason many people feel they aren't worth playing.
I think the dismissive term "walking simulator", and subsequent backlash against such games, all started when every journalist hub out there tried to hype up Gone Home as one of the best things ever. Now this wouldn't have been so bad if the majority of the gaming public could play the game and agree it was at least reasonably good, at least halfway worthy of the praise it received. But it wasn't, in fact, it was widely disliked. I doubt it was due to a "lack of understanding" of the genre either since, as you said, there have been similar games such as Metroid Prime or Mist that did garner a lot of praise, not to mention the gaming public has shown to be largely accepting of other genres with few gameplay elements, such as visual novels (I don't see a lot of hate towards Clannad or Phoenix Wright). In fact, the majority of people I saw that WERE grading the game more on its story-telling merits as opposed to actual gameplay came to the conclusion that the story was told very poorly, and many suspected that it only got pushed by the "progressive" media because it featured a lesbian couple. Simply put, walking simulator or not, Gone Home just wasn't very good in most people's eyes, and it was one of the key signs that there was a massive disconnect between "professional" critics and gaming audiences (something that would ultimately lead to GamerGate). From there, I guess "walking simulator" just caught on as a way of bashing that game and others like it that would follow. Of course, it doesn't help that many others in the indie scene sought to make "games that aren't supposed to be fun", resulting in a surge of gaming's equivalent to modern art. No matter how much some hipster tries to convince you that what you're looking at represents human emotions and whatnot, it doesn't change the fact that some college dropout just flung a bunch of shit onto a canvas and deemed it a masterpiece.
+YamatoFukkatsu You nailed it. If some critics wouldn't praise these "Games without gameplay" like an incarnation of god we (players with skill) could ignore them. I dislike these "cinematic" 3rd person games too, it's basically the same issue. Some people mix up "mature" with "casual".
YamatoFukkatsu I've never seen this put better. I absolutely love the genre: The Beginner's Guide and Firewatch are in my top 5 (BG being #1), and yet gone home never caught that spark. It was hyped as the saviour of gaming, and because it couldn't live up, the whole genre had to be dismissed. It's really a shame.
I don't think Gone Home was the greatest game...but I enjoyed it. Of course, context probably played a part: I missed the hype about it and heard the disdain first...so my expectations were low...and I was pleasantly surprised. I do think that the genre in general has great potential, but innovation is necessary, is happening, and more will come with time. I think that What Remains of Edith Finch is proof that you can have good mechanics in an interactive story that validate the need for interactivity without the need for "kill or be killed" gameplay. In particular, the cannery level wouldn't connect the audience nearly as well if it were just a movie...the mechanics themselves actually give you more empathy for the character's situation. Just watching that scene on youtube would be a serious loss of the point. I look forward to seeing the genre evolve, fueled by creative ways to engage with clever gaming mechanics that feel like a natural extension of the story, and fit in without seeming wedged in for the sake of feeling like a "game" in the strictest sense. I'm ok with it not being a "game" in the literal sense, because it doesn't have to be. But it is valid to suggest that these games are missing out if they don't take advantage of the inherent element in the medium: interactivity.
4:19 You actually do bring up a good point here, but I still think the term "walking simulator" is completely appropriate for a game that only has a story and/or atmosphere, where there's no real challenge or meaningful input aside from guiding your character to the next event trigger.
The term Walking simulator is supposed to insult and make fun of the genre and makes it sound like they are only about walking and nothing else so no i dont think its appropriate at all.
Your way of explaining what you're talking about is complete and perfect. I didn't know much about "walking simulators" originally, and now I feel like I know all about them.
I thought you where talking about literal walking simulators. You know, the ones where each joint is mapped to a key and you have to move the legs by pressing the keys at the right time.
Arlo: "Adventure" genre includes story, atmosphere and exploration. That's why Puzzle Adventures have STORY. because you need a "story" to make an Adventure game. if you make a Puzzle Adventure game without any story progression, it simply becomes a "puzzle" game. Arlo, you don't need "First Person Atmospheric Exploration" to call this type of games. Just call it puzzle adventure because it is the name of this genre. We had many Puzzle Adventure games in the old days, like Myst. But do you know why people call it "Walking Simulator"? It is not because this genre has no name or not defined because. Some Puzzle adventure games like Dear Esther doesn't give much story or exploration but loses much time with walking. So, a game like Journey is an Puzzle Adventure, but no one complains it as a Walking Simulator. because it gives more story than walking. but Dear Esther is defined as Walking Simulator because it gives more walking than story. This is the key point. Calling Dear Esther as "First Person Atmospheric Exploration" doesn't solve its lack of story progression problem.
I strongly disagree with using the word "exploration" because most of them (not all) are on a very linear path, no exploration to be had at all. I myself enjoy a good Walking Simulator every once in awhile and feel that "Walking Simulator" is a suitable name. I also agree with the opinion that most of them - except for the ones that have puzzles - can't be classified as games. They can still be enjoyable in the way that a book or a movie can but I wouldn't call them games at all. The ones filled with puzzles are... well, Puzzle Games. Being able to look and move around definitely does add to the experience. Makes you feel like you're more in the world, in the story. But it doesn't make them games. More immersive but in no way games. I wan't to clarify that I'm not hating on Walking Simulators. I just feel that for the most part they're *generaly* not games and can't be described with the word "exploration".
These games are better and more accurately *games* than the kinetic novels that people keep insisting on calling 'games'. KINETIC NOVELS AREN'T GAMES. If people are going to call those games, then websites, books, comics, movies, tv shows, etc. all qualify as games too!
+Diwasho Nope. The same creator of LSD, Osamu Sato, came up with FPEs before LSD, like Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou (1994/1995) and its extremely rare and recently found sequel, Chu Teng (1995/1996). If you haven't heard of these games, I HIGHLY recommend that you take a look at them. They're just as strange and just as brilliant!!
I think this topic is very interesting. The reason why the term walking simulator is used is because the game values story and presentation over actual gameplay. There's nothing wrong with having a great story and experience but I believe that gameplay is the most important aspect of the game. So I guess, people don't like calling a game "great" when the gameplay is so mediocre, basic and bland but the story is great. I do believe this is the reason why the "casuals' love these type of games like uncharted and last of us. I get it. People are getting older, and have less time to be "good" at games like Starcraft, Counterstrike etc so they just want to play the game for the "experience" rather than getting better at the game and gain more skill. Games like Heavy Rain or Until Dawn shouldn't be praised as great games because the gameplay is not good at all. I know this is an old video but if you do read this, hopefully you can see why people dislike these type of "games". There is a review on the last of us so maybe it will at least let you see why people are labelling these games this way. ruclips.net/video/2ZdbQOSte5U/видео.html&t=
BorneGamer Z great point!! I came back to this vid and I’m looking at Newest Comments First to see how people feel about this a few years later. I also think Portal 1 and/or 2 could be described as a FPE, which blows my damn mind!
When I first heard the term, my first reaction was "Aha! That sounds like the genre for me." It seemed to describe the last game I'd really loved (Proteus), and it also described what I eventually spent most of my time choosing to do in older games like GTA: just wandering around exploring the game world. I was actually quite shocked to find out that it was intended to be a derogatory term! Mind you, a lot of art movements got their names from people who thought they were being clever in criticising them, such as Brutalism and Fauvism.
There's nothing wrong with the term "walking simulator" though. Is walking bad? No. Are simulators bad? No. And "first-person experiences" is way too vague. Thief is a first-person experience, but that doesn't describe the *game* at all... and you certainly wouldn't confuse the *game* with something that could be called a _walking simulator_. Walking simulator describes something specific: a simulation of walking. Sometimes you look at things... sometimes you listen to things... but not necessarily either and not all the time... sometimes you just absorb your surroundings. Walking simulator. Makes complete sense to me. I think it's just *_massive_* insecurity shining through from the people who balk at the term. If you enjoy them, then you enjoy a kind of simulator. Personally, I enjoy flight sims... both terrestrial and space flight. Do I get bothered when people call them flight sims instead of... I dunno... "first-person flying experiences"? No. I think, rather than demanding people change an appropriate term, the people who are bothered by the term _walking simulator_ should ask themselves why they're so bothered by it in the first place.
Possibly it's considered a put-down because walking is considered such a simple thing that simulating it is ridiculous. And most walking simulators don't actually simulate the mechanics of walking in the way that flight sims simulate the mechanics of flying: you pretty much guide your POV through the space and the leg movements are taken for granted. Also, there are some games that *feel* like walking simulators while being about other forms of motion, such as Abzu. Is it a swimming simulator? A walking swimulator? Once could argue that some survival games simulate some aspects of walking in a non-benign environment. The Long Dark, for instance, makes you consider food, water, pack weight, boots and clothing before you venture out into the forest. But that would be more of a "hiking simulator" than simulating the simple act of going for a walk. The criticism from traditional gamers seems to be due to the limited degree of interactivity and challenge: you're mostly either just seeing new places or discovering pieces of a fragmented narrative, rather than affecting the world or driving the narrative. Personally, that's what I love about them, and why I gravitated to the genre and was surprised to hear that it was coined as a sneering insult. There is some inaccuracy to the term, and perhaps the video's suggestion that "first-person exploration" (not "experience") is a better term has some merit. Even then, exploration often requires a degree of challenge and risk, and that is eliminated or minimised in the games we're talking about. So we still need a better term, but for now I'll know that if something is labelled as a walking sim, whether sneeringly or not, my interest will be piqued.
I may not agree with you on this topic, but you make a good point. When you brought up what made people like walking simulators, it made me realise why I dislike the genre.
FPE is a good name! here's an idea have: a game that's actually called "WALKING SIMULATOR" it's a fitness game where you walk around with a motion controller in your pocket to tour a wacky dream-esque world, getting exercise from walking, jogging, running, jumping and other exercises in the process!
First-Person Exploration is a good name, but I think it should be modified to First-Person Explorer. First-Person Shooters aren't called "First-Person Shooting" after all
_Walking simulators_ aren't games because there's no fail state. Think about every game ever: tic-tac-toe, football, chess, tennis, marbles, darts, billiards, crossword puzzles, sudoku... even the earliest video games like Pong and on from there.... a super diverse cross-section of samples, right? What do they all have in common? The ability to lose. The ability to get a "game over" state. You can't get a "game over" in Dear Esther or Everyone's Gone to the Rapture or Gone Home or, yes, even The Stanley Parable. If you're not being challenged in any way, it cannot be a game. And if you _still_ want to water the definition of game down that far, you have to consider if movies are games... if books are games... after all, you can't fail a book or movie... you can only stop reading or watching. "What do you mean Agatha Christie isn't a game? I'm discovering clues and unraveling a mystery while enjoying a story, aren't I?" Let's push this one step further. What is the fundamental difference between playing a _walking simulator_ and watching someone else play one, aside from someone else controlling the character? After all, there's no skill involved. The only possible difference is that maybe the other person moves at a different speed than you would or discovers more or less than you would... otherwise, it's just a matter of who's sitting in which chair while you watch. The outcome is the same... just like a movie. Contrast that with... let's say Madden... where every play can go a thousand different ways based on strategy, player skill, and your opponent's skill. Or Deus Ex... where the skills one player activates may be completely different from another. In either case, every single outcome is completely different. The irony is that while you think you're getting a rich, engrossing, complex experience... you're actually getting something vastly more shallow and static because it will never change and your participation is _minimal_... whereas I can play Deus Ex and decide who lives and who dies... and see the consequences of every outcome... or try to complete the game without being seen by any enemies... or build up the most awesome tank of a character and crank up the difficulty. *That* is the difference between a game and a _walking simulator_.
+Worded Puppet how is it cringey? I thought it was a fairly well constructed argument. Games are about interactions and "games" without the ability to lose or have a failure state lack a very critical interaction. The only exception I can think of is maybe Braid and Prince of Persia since you could fail in the game but you would just rewind time to correct your mistakes.
There is no fail state in crossword puzzles and Sudoku. You simply elect not to finish them. Otherwise they're linear, predetermined sets of actions until you reach completion. _Ah, but they require specific skills to complete properly!_ So do FPEs. They require you to know first-person controls. They have implicit rules like 'no walking through walls'. They require you to perform specific actions before you can reach completion. Isn't that absurdly easy, though? Fuck yeah, it's easy. _So what?_ Nobody plays these games for bragging rights. So what does tic-tac-toe, football, chess, tennis, marbles, darts, billiards, and pong have in common? They're competitions. They *require* two players. By their very rule sets, one player must emerge victorious. "Game over" for the other guy.
I feel like 'First Person Interactive Stories' (or 'FPIS') are a more proper name. I don't really feel like these are games, but they're an lovely piece of media that you interact with
The main issue I have with walking simulators is that they're games in the loosest possible sense. All you do is walk around an environment. 99% of the gameplay is boring walking. If it has puzzles, it's a puzzle game like myst If all it has is story, what sets it apart from a book? I can read a book's chapters out of order and have fun with it, and I get rid of all the tedious, monotomous walking. If it had atmosphere, well so dogs the metroid games and bioshock, but those two had more than just walking. If it has exploration, well again metroid, bioshock, let's also add Shadow of the Colossus to the mix. But again they have more than just exploration. Atmosphere... I sure how every game had atmosphere, without that a game is pretty lifeless and void. And most games offer more than just that. So as you can see, you can have a game with story, exploration and atmosphere, but if that's all it had to offer, what's the point? Games let you make choices and let you interact with the world. If the only interaction I get is to look at pretty things and walk around, that's not stimulating, that's not fun, it's boring and samey. And hey, maybe you like that stuff, just like some people like bad movies and books unironically. But that doesn't make them good. It just makes them phoned in games with the bare minimum to be qualified as such. Nothing more nothing less. So no, they deserve nothing more than the generous title of walking simulator, because they are minimal effort piles of trash. I'll take SotC and Metroid over these any day of the week, because they are objectively superior products. And I demand more from my media than minimal effort because I want to see games improve.
I think I'd like to see some main series game and TV properties adopt some of this style into a game. I love just exploring the Pokemon world for example and if I could more realistically interact outside the RPG norms that'd be cool. I'd love to just walk around and explore some cartoon worlds I've seen as well, the town of Gravity Falls being at the top of that list
+Randy Johnson (MetaSceptile) Verde Station is a pretty good representation of what the genre has to offer. It's mostly passive and story-driven, and about an hour long. If you don't enjoy that one I'd say you probably won't like many others, but who knows?
Arlo idk I just really like the idea if exploring a world with no real limits, just seems like there are a lot of fictional worlds that would work well with the concept
as i was watching, i thought i'd write "ugh yeah, i thought Walking Simulator was a term to poke fun at the genre, but i was UNpleasantly surprised to see it actually used in Steam tags!!: ( " but then you covered it at 2:58 x ) i don't mind it as much, but to me, it seems like when people see "walking simulator" in one of the tags, it means it's like... "lesser of a game" or "not really a game" and it riles me up a little inside!!
I hate that myself, when dumb internet memes or sayings suddenly become the official thing we all can't escape and can't change. Really makes me realize how majority of ignorance always manages to get the most attention and have their needs satiated over the reasonable people.
My biggest issue with said games are, more often than not, many of these games can achieve the same result by being a movie. On top of that is how, once you get past the initial "wow" factor, few of them have anything of substance beyond the surface. It's usually pretentious farthuffing (see: Dear Ester), obnoxious identity politics (see:Gone Home), or done a thousand times (see: the millions of 'survival' games). I don't mind the idea of exploring a world, but you need to give me something else to do. Plopping me into a world where I can't touch much of anything and can only look at all the pretty imagery amounts of walking a museum. If only there was a time of *game* that let me *play* a *role* in the world... hmmm... what's that called again? That's really what it boils down to, frankly. Many RPGs do what most "walking sims" do a heck of a lot better. RPGs will usually simplify the combat, boiling it down to the basics to allow for more world exploration. You can enjoy them all you want. For me, however, walking sims don't do anything RPGs already do.
+TheTundraTerror This best describes what I wanted to say. I don't want be elitist but as a gamer I kind of like going beyond visuals and storytelling. Otherwise I really am just watching a movie.
Sounds like you're conflating walking simulators with adventure games. People who hate walking simulators aren't hating on Myst, Broken Sword, King's Quest, etc. They're hating on games like Dear Esther and Gone Home, which legitimately have zero challenge. There are no puzzles and there is no clever thinking and problem solving. You're literally just walking. There's not even exploration in these games because exploring needs to have some defined purpose or else there's no reason to do it. How much of Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time got explored once players knew it contained nothing? I can only remember about 2 Heart Pieces and 2 Gold Skulltulas in Hyrule Field. It was mostly pointless. I would call Metroid Prime and The Elder Scrolls a First Person Exploration over any walking simulator. Have you played King's Quest or any old adventure game title? They're ridiculously brutal at times and sometimes you need to be in the developer's head to solve some puzzles. King's Quest is notorious for being brutal, as are many old Sierra games. Hell, they even went as far to enable the player to create a no-win situation for themselves where the player would have to start over to finish the game. Also, walking simulators typically get derided because their developers and their fans tend to have a vendetta against other genres and treat their non-fans as if they're unenlightened idiots for not enjoying their boring games. I think the general consensus among the gaming community is that these people are gaming's equivalent of "modern" artists. Just like the painters who tell you random splotches of paint is high art or the film creator who says TV static for 90 minutes is art, these people think that not enjoying their bullshit makes you a neanderthal who plays games wrong. Let's not forget that websites like Polygon and Giant Bomb gave a walking simulator like Gone Home a perfect score, but they'll easily dock points off other titles, like Dynasty Warriors, just for being repetitive, or Bayonetta, for being "misogynistic". The defenders of walking simulators are the pinnacle of hypocrites in the gaming community.
Whenever these games come up or whenever someone talks about story as if it's the most crucial part of a good video game i think of what the devs of DOOM once said, that story in a game is like story in a porno, it's ok if it's there, but it's not necessary.
They aren't games, they are interactive story telling programs. At least with "Point-and-Win" those are actually games that has legit game-loop with skill involved. What does walking-simulator have? Go to a place and press a button, no challenge in the middle like a platformer, no mastery of gameplay mechanics other than move to a point and press the use-key. It's walking simulator, because that's pretty much what you do in these "games". About 7 years already, it's still "Walking Simulator". Live with it.
All I want is a VR game that allows me to walk around a pretty well detailed city. Like tall skyscrapers, people walking by, cars whizzing past me, bright blue skies and the flashy stores and buildings I walk by...
There is a simple solution: look at which verb best describes what you do. Do you primarily *observe* the environment (either on a linear or a non-linear path), or do you primarily *play* in the environment. Observation = walking sim. Play = adventure (or lifestyle sim) game. This definition would move a lot of so-called FPE games into the adventure genre, but would mean that we rightly classify the likes of Animal Crossing or Tomodachi Life as distinct from the likes of Dear Esther.
For me, honestly, It varies. One the one hand, Myst, The Journeyman games, and their sequels strike me as examples of this kind of game done right, because there is real story and gameplay and challenging puzzles along with all the "simulated walking." They nail a unique atmosphere too. On the other hand, the genre is a magnet for laziness, and the current gaming climate pumps out some really crappy, low effort games that people demand be hailed like the second coming of Mario. Like you said, a lot of it boils down to preference. Personally, I never thought of Myst as a "walking-simulator" until I saw it in that list of games you found with the tag. When I use the term, I'm usually thinking of a game where it's literally just walking from point A to point B, with maybe a little reading thrown in. I'm against this kind of game, because I can get the exact same experience from watching it played. I'm not actually influencing anything. I'm less of a player and more of an observer. If I wanted that, I'd go watch a movie. At any rate, Kudos for making me really analyze my own thoughts on this genre and see what makes my opinion tick.
4 months later and "Walking Simulator" is still a tag on Steam with new releases being added to it all the time. I don't think this term is going away any time soon, in the same way that it took almost a decade for the term "first person shooter" to take the place of "Doom clone". So yeah, for the time being, these non-games will continue to be classified with this label.
RPGs would be Vicarious Growth Simulation. Instead of you getting better at something, you just watch somebody else get better stats. I'm not as familiar with them, but RTS would be Genocide. Because that seems to be the most common win state.
As a narrative designer, I'm a huge fan of First-Person Exploration games. Thank you for championing this term, Arlo. I'll do my part to spread it to other NDs and developers as well.
Gone Home wasn't very good. People only praised it because it pushed their "we gotta support the gays!" buttons. But one extremely prominent example of a genre being bad doesn't damn the whole genre any more than 3D platformers would be a terrible genre if Bubsy 3D was somehow the _only_ famous one.
+Nathan Karr You make a good argument there, I hadn't thought of it that way. Gone Home sucked, sure, but maybe I should give this idea more credit. I did like Proteus after all, though I didn't realize it counted as one of these games because it has no storytelling at all. :B
"Walking simulator" is the best term for genre, it describes best what do you do in these type of games. It does poke a little fun at the game, but so do other "cute names" for genres, like: 2spoopy4me - horror games murder simulator - ultraviolence action games nade simulator - call of duty 4 and so on. If you feel bad that other people are making fun of you for enjoying these type of games, that reminded me of a story about a little boy in our school. That boy was called Valdemars and he had cancer. We were little, about 4th, 5th grade and some kids made fun of him. Our teacher had noticed that so she gathered us in the classroom and explained that cancer is a serious illness, that can only be passed through genes, and you can't get it. So we all understood what was wrong with Voldemars and some classmates became his best buds. After a year or so he died. This video reminded me about Voldemars and that we shouldn't judge others on their preferences and personalities. It also reminded that our teacher was wrong, I did get cancer. From this video.
Have you ever tried Gardenarium? It's not very long and the last part of it is a little out of left field but it has really nice art and animation and is just a nice trip to play when you want to be in a good mood, kinda like proteus which I love. :D
Hey, look, don't get me wrong. I absolutely love games like Yume Nikki, .flow, flower, or Journey. The two former because it emphasizes narratives that are never outright told to you that you discover through interpretation and because they're good horror games. I like the later two because flower and Journey touched upon an emotional connection for me while also looking visually stunning. So, I can enjoy a game that focuses more on the world around it than any actual gameplay. Some of these games get it right, but a lot don't. Gone Home was sold for 20 dollars and could be finished in seconds if you knew what you were doing, but was lavishly praised for reasons that were mostly outside of the game itself and/or its mechanics. Does that make for a "good game?" No, not in my opinion, and deserves the so called 'walking simulator' moniker it has been given over the years.
But it is a walking simulator. What else would you call it? There is no game play in these games. Looking at pretty things picking up items and that's it. There is nothing to them.
But what if I am able to play the games even though you don't like them, or think they can't be played? There should be a name for them that comes from a place of love instead of annoyance. It just makes sense.
ed R It only "perfectly describes" it if you don't like it. To someone who sees why they are good games, it's a really poor and vague description that tells you nothing about what makes them special.
Alex Franklin It doesn't describe it if someone doesn't like it. The name reflects what you do in these types of games, walking across a map as the story railroads you to minor interactive sequences. Other story focused games cant be described by "walking simulator" like Ace Attorney, or the TellTale Walking Dead game because you cant walk in those games and they fall more under a Visual Novel categorization.
ed R There are millions of games where you can walk as one of the activities. Mario wouldn't be a walking simulator. Should we call visual novels "options menu simulators"? It's what you do in them.
The reason people are annoyed by walking simulators is because the gaming media praises them as innovative even though they do nothing that games before haven't done better - games like Deus Ex, Morrowind or Myst had all of those elements AND also had challenge, deep mechanics and customization. I guess you could say that the appeal of these is the minimalism and that less is more in this case, but some people understandably disagree that this is the direction video games should go into, and so the mockery makes sense. Also, the term "FPE" is booooooooooring and will never catch on. You're better off just accepting the existing term, kind of like fans of 3D platformers accepted the derisive name "collectathon".
If that the case then the game MYST was the first "Walking Simulator" game. BTW LOVE MYST game still have it for PC, Mac and even Jaguar CD. Yeah thats how much I love it.
"Walking simulator" is the best description for games that do nothing but that. Others have already said this. Some walking simulators aren't even games and yes I really put my foot down calling some of these simulations, not games. Gone home has no way of losing/winning/rules or anything other than reading a mediocre story about a random lesbian and yet it was championed as the best game for months. Tells you a lot about the awful state of the video game industry.
I don't think you know this, but shooters actually started with a joke-name, which was "Doomclone". Well, it wasn't really a joke as much as it was pointing the fact that developers tried really hard to copy Doom's success. So first of all, these games don't focus on anything in particular. Game genres are most often defined by their gameplay elements, and since "Walking Simulators" often lack gameplay elements in general, they're hard to fit anywhere, even into games at all. You cannot say Walking Simulators focus on delivering a story, because a ton of games have stories and most of them use gameplay elements to enhance their stories, a feature that far surpasses games in which you walk around and listen to audio cues. Same can be said for atmosphere. You cannot say they focus on exploration, since that's a term for sandbox games and, again, they surpass Walking Simulators by having these explorable elements have actual impact on your gameplay. Finally, you cannot say they focus on puzzles, because, simply speaking, they don't. If they do, then they're puzzle games. Your video assumes that these games focus on having great stories that require patience, but the most prominent of it's representatives actually have quite bad and pretentious stories that wouldn't fly in any storytelling medium, like books or movies. They also cannot require patience, if often they last just a couple of hours tops. Walking Simulators are not a new genre, that explores the boundaries of games. It's a genre that purposefully limits itself and the options that games can provide. It's not a "like or dislike" thing, because they're just a straight-up failure of design, like a painting without images, or book filled with gibberish. Some might gather around to praise it's "newness", but most do realize it as a cheap cop-out from making something better.
+Yagi Let's agree to disagree! Thanks for chiming in though, I love to hear different opinions. And I didn't know about the "Doomclone" thing, that's interesting.
+Patrick Bateman There's no point in countering when you simply disagree. We're taking the same information and coming to different conclusions about it, and when those conclusions are so vastly different there's little point in trying to change each others' minds. But I do enjoy seeing both sides!
Arlo I dare to say that the whole point of counter-arguments is rooted in disagreement. I also dare to say that there's no "different conclusions" - there can be different views and less or more educated opinions, but a conclusion is always singular.
+Yagi Fair points! It might be more accurate to say that a differing opinion doesn't bother me so much that I feel I need to change it. In an individual conversation such a debate can be fun, but if I were to counter every point of every commentor on my videos I would spend my whole life arguing with people on the internet. I would rather just accept that we have different tastes and viewpoints.
they are not games, all those characteristics listed at 1:47 can be present on a regular game, though are not necesary, like condiments on food, they made the dish more enjoyable though its not food just by itself and the dish can be eat with out them, now try eating only condiments, thats playing these walking simulators.
Plenty of games lack a win state. There's no win state in Half-Life or Halo. Furthermore, plenty of games lack a lose state. Animal Crossing, Harvestt Moon, The Sim, Kirby's Epic Yarn and plenty of simulation games lack a lose state."Challenge" doesn't hold up because, if we want to be technical, interaction itself is the challenenge in many games, such as rhythm games and it furthmore also neglects the notion of self-imposed challenge, such as in the aforementioned Sims series and Animal Crossing. "Puzzles" is too vague to mean anything. Is figuring how to light a bunch of torches to open a door in TLOZ a puzzle? Well most would say yes. Is finding out a boss' attack pattern in the same game a puzzle? Some would say so. In fact I've known quite a few developers who refer to the stealth genre as a puzzle genre because it shares the same fundamentals.
So thats what they are called. I saw a video in DashieGames and I think it was something people liked, but omg I literally could not stay awake trying to figure out if there was something I was missing that made it interesting. Of course, it was this morning, and I stayed awake all night until 12 the next day, but still, I literally could not stay awake. I only stayed awake because I was laying in bed and accidentally (being sleepy) hit my phone on my head that clicked somewhere to load a new page. I then did something else. Walking Simulator kind of nails it. If the name would change, I would only remove the "simulator" part.
I don't like how the term "game" has been used for literally anything mildly interactive. A game by default does not require a story but it does require a gameplay element which in itself requires input from the user, hence making it interactive, but requires more than just pushing the stick or playing QTEs all the time. There is nothing we can do to not call these games "games" because it is simply easier that way rather than having to explain your new naming convention, kind of how walking simulators are called walking simulators. A name that stemmed from a joke that just turned out to be the easiest to explain the game in a brief
That one-two punch at the end of the video made me laugh. "That may or may not represent cancer" and "the top 10 Mario enemies that look like butts". Classic!
Everything you listed is what makes a good book. A videogame should never be a vessel to tell a story and just tell a story alone. Telling a story in a game is fine, but gameplay should be first and for most in any game. I'd say that these games are more like the evolution of text based adventures. Stuff like "Story, Atmosphere, &Exploration," is incredibly well done in games like Metroid prime and The Last of us. Even games like Bioshock, and sillier stuff like No more heroes get this stuff right. Yet all of them place gameplay ahead of story.
+OuroborosChoked Ok, you know what I mean. Even a novel in first-person doesn't have you making the decisions, unless it's like a choose-your-own-adventure. In a game like The Stanley Parable or Gone Home I have some level of choice, but this is not true in (the vast majority of) novels. I find the element of choice to be significantly more immersive, which is why I phrased that like I did. I probably should have said 'books don't have the same level of first person immersion,' or something along those lines. And I do read actually, not as much as I'd like to, but I think that's true for a lot of people, haha!
That's "second person" not first. Writing in the first person is when the story is being told from the view of a character. Third is a narrator. Second is "You". As in "Then I end to the store" (first) "Then they went to the store" (third) Then YOU went to the store" (second) You should read more often.
+David Garcia Yes, yes, I know all this. I've taken College English classes and read many, many novels. I was describing (or trying to describe) why first person perspective in a video game and first person writing are not at the same level of immersion (because of what the other guy said about what I said about books not having first person immersion). Perhaps I'm the one that's confused here, and if I am I'll gladly eat my shame, but I'm like 95% sure I'm in complete understanding of this thread.
I think Walking Simulator (I'll call it WS) is a fine name for the genre, and I do mean that in at least a slightly derogatory way. When it comes down to it, the genre is a stripped down version of my favorite genre - open world, or western, RPGs (Elder Scrolls, Fallout). The world you explore in a WS is always like a smaller, less interactive version of these games. These games are full of mystery, narrative, emotion, etc. but they feel less sterile. My love of these games comes almost exclusively from the exploration, but the combat, even decreased by 95% or made impossibly easy, adds some element of life and simulated danger. A game like Morrowind has has the story elements of 100 walking simulators within quests, all within a world that feels organic, like it wasn't engineered as a rat maze (a big problem I have with the WS). Survival Horror games also consistently do a better job of story, atmosphere and exploration while keeping the bite of urgency. The pretension is most WS games is also very real, and has been very apparent in almost every one I've played. It's story telling potential is dwarfed by this in comparison toe the point-and-clicks of old. In the end, the WS title I feel is deserved for being a lesser version of existing games genres, but still being distinct enough in medium to not just be a book.
This video was awesome, Arlo. I know I'm late to the party by a year but I wanted to say I agree with you! I don't play many of these types of games but that doesn't invalidate them as games. First Person Exploration is a great term given their substance! I feel like the gaming community, online in particular, has become far too critical. We judge every game by the exact same merits and when there's a diversity of taste and preference that never works out; to me, it's like watching someone complain about a drama movie because it isn't an action movie! Not all movies are made for the action-lovers crowd. Likewise, not all videogames are made for the First Person Shooter crowd! Keep on keepin' on, Arlo! I'm gonna tear through your vids because they're awesome, I'm glad i stumbled upon your channel!
Walking Simulators are little more than pretentious artsy pieces of crap. They're the equivelent of Modern Art; absolute crap that people say is good because they are told it's "deep" and that people who dislike it just don't "get it".
I don't think that's true at all. The reason why I like these types of games and think they're good is because they either have an interesting narrative or offer an atmosphere or an experience I can't find in other games. There might be some games where the developer is trying to create something that is "deep" but more often than not I think they're just trying to create an experience where they're focused on the narrative elements or the atmosphere rather than some gameplay mechanic. If I want to provide an interactive narrative or atmosphere why do I have to have platforming or combat that would get in the way of the experience I'm trying to create.
I'm fine with "walking simulators" my favorite game is Morrowind, but there needs to be a game somewhere in there. Firewatch is literally listening to a radio and occasionally climbing a ladder. Gone Home is just you pick up and turning objects while narration plays. This needs to stop
Not everyone has the same definition of "game" as you. Traditional gameplay mechanics like puzzles, action sequences, etc. don't necessarily have to be the end-all-be-all definition of "game". To me and some others, "gameplay" can mean learning about story and enjoying an atmosphere, not necessarily shooting enemies or matching blocks. Games, like all forms of art, are subjective, and saying one genre has to stop just because you don't agree with it isn't logical.
Then im just gonna make a play with just dialogues, the story is there and characters too, but not what makes it a play Thats why "walking simulators" cant be called games
There do exist plays that are just people sitting down and talking. There are full movies like that too. A game is interactive, and walking simulators are. So what do you consider Walking Simulators as lacking that makes them a game?
Interactivity alone is not the threshold for what can and cannot be considered a game. If that were the case, every DVD, VHS, and RUclips is a game. After all, you started the experience by interacting with a controller, didn't you? The need for skillful execution and the existence of a fail states are what define games.
OuroborosChoked What's the fail state of Animal Crossing? The Sims? SimCity? Myst? Some older LucasArts adventure games don't let the player die, so are they not games? Also, if I play a game on a very easy mode, is it no longer a game? Beccause it doesn't require skillful execution?
This is great! Love your channel. I really like the term First-Person Exploration, I'm currently playing Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and I was just thinking about that, the game is about exploring and revealing a very profound story. :)
I think the biggest complaint/criticism I hate thrown on 'walking simulators' is when people say "You don't need to play it, you can just watch someone play it and get the same experience". To me that's just... so clearly untrue. I don't think people put enough stock in controlling the character yourself. When you are the one controlling the movement and action you get a lot more immersed than you would just watching it. However, I will say that if you DO watch a let's play of a 'walking simulator' game there is not as much of a point playing through yourself, since most of the fun is discovering the story. But playing through the game yourself the first time will always be the superior experience imo, and I think that experience has value
When I see the phrase "walking simulator", what comes to my mind is a game that simulates walking through a neighborhood, or anywhere, with a counter in the corner that records the distance you've traveled. So it's like showing you how to burn calories! ...When you could just be out there actually walking.
The only problem with this new term is, well... they don't have to be first-person... or even exploration-based, at that... so the term "First-Person Exploration" kind of works to limit the genre to those things when it doesn't have to. To be honest, the term 'walking simulator' kind of makes me smile with its tongue-in-cheekness too, I don't find myself bothered by it at all, and kind of entertained by it really. It just doesn't strike me as particularly disrespectful, just playful- it it were something as derogatory as "Point to Win" I'd TOTALLY be agreeing with you though! That is absolutely a fair point, I just find the existing term a bit of harmless fun, personally.
I so agree with this video! I do have one question about what games qualify as "First Person Explorer" Would Bendy and The Ink Machine count as part of that group?
I don't think "walking simulator" is a derogatory term and have never thought of it like that, it was an honest search term used to find games like DAYZ in it's earliest states and completed games like dear ester and even firewatch, I don't hate those "games" but hey I'm also the guy who has a definition of a game, many of these studios aren't even using the term "game" themselves and why do they have to be?
What Remains of Edith Finch & That Dragon Cancer both belong to this catagory & are yet both amazing games. I think the term itself was made because it's alot easier to say rather then saying a whole mouth full of words.
The biggest reason why Arlo dislikes the term "walking simulator" for his favorite genre of gaming: We have never seen his legs and he doesn't plan to change that anytime soon. :D
lol
So dark :)
He doesn't have legs. That's right I'll say it, he's a double amputee.
+One Puff Man who said he only had 2 legs before the incident?
I thought FPS games were called "Rooty-Tooty Point-and-Shooties"
Hahahaha you're funny. Get your on jokes tho
thechronicfury6000
But then he won't be funny.
is this a wreck-it-ralph reference?
+Titan2001 It's a reference to an old meme (not sure if it's dead) which pokes fun at British vs American words.
Pants=trousers
Bathrobe=dressing gown
Candy bar=chocolate goompshnazzle
Gun=Rooty-tooty-point-n-shooty
Etc etc etc.
They were called "Doom-clones" in the 90's, in Finland anyway.
FPE, Consider it done, you've convinced me and so, that is now what I shall refer to them as.
Lockstin & Gnoggin Hi lock
Wait.... You watch Arlo??? YOU of ALL people? Actually...... I guess it makes some sense.
I feel the same.
@@JustJacobe they're friends as far as I'm aware
I didn't realize how many people would misunderstand what the video was about based on the title, so I'm going to change it to something a little more clear.
On another note, I do encourage any and all opinions in the comments, but in this particular case if you're chiming in just to say, "because walking simulators suck and aren't games," you might want to reconsider if that's really going to contribute to the conversation, heh. I spend a good amount of the video trying to emphasize how it's fine to not like these games, so it's a tiny bit irksome that so many other people just aren't okay with the idea of someone liking something they don't, so they feel the need to call it all trash.
Arlos if your seeing this oh please oh please please play pikmen 4 level editor!
+Arlo First off, I want to say that I really like your rational, constructive, thought-out videos. I like the puppet gimmick and the fact that you're not afraid to do your own thing in regards to topics, as well. I was introduced to you while riding the outrage tsunami over Paper Mario Color Splash and while I don't always agree with your conclusions, I like what you try to do with your videos for the most part.
With that out of the way I want to express my own dissatisfaction with the "walking simulator" genre in a way that doesn't come off as needlessly snobby (soapbox rant warning). At 21, I'm a pretty young guy but I've been playing games pretty much since my infancy. Growing up, I developed a very strong interest in the history and growth of the videogame industry as I played from the 4th gen all the way up to the current gen (retroactively playing 3rd gen once I got a bit older). I can't speak for everyone but, personally, videogames are my go-to hobby and as such it's important to me that "gamers" as a colloquial audience think carefully about the types of games they want to see and offer unrelenting criticism towards games that strive to be innovative in all the wrong ways, or for all the wrong reasons (Sticker Star is an example of one such game). It's my viewpoint that many games in the "FPE" genre stem from a broader, relatively new movement that wishes to paint videogames as something other than what they are: videogames. I feel like the idea behind many FPEs is the idea that's also behind half-baked games like Order 1886; the idea that games for the sake of games don't cut it anymore and that games now have to be something mature, or immersive, or they have to have complex, "deep" themes to be worth anything. There's a stigma among those who are relatively new to the industry that games have been a childish medium up until recently and they want to push games to be something that's "more than a videogame", something that a player can justify to their friends as being "just like a movie" or something in that vein without needing to feel ashamed of their hobby. It's a type of mindset that, I feel, is scared of the concept of fun gameplay for the sake of it and feels the need to substitute those notions with something more engaging, for more "adult" audiences.
Those kinds of themes in a videogame are in no way bad, of course, but a videogame that centers itself around them, that lives and dies off of them, isn't something that interests me very much and frankly I'm not fond of the growing trend of those types of games flooding the market.
+Arlo Similarly speaking, your video sounds like you are whining and saying "please don't criticize the games I like", and it looks as if you are seeking validation from the internet to feel ok about yourself when playing these games.
I understand what these walking simulators are trying to do, but what we've seen so far is just lazy story telling, lazy programming, and lazy design. This is why we mock the genre. Do you feel frustrated when people mock the genre? then be the better person you are pretending to be and ignore the genre's detractors.
+Lion heart Criticism is absolutely fine. "Because they suck" is not real criticism. I'm not looking for validation, just trying to have a real conversation. For instance I'm fine with your assertion that the genre isn't living up to what it could be and in fact enjoy seeing different points of view even if I don't agree with them.
Arlo fair enough.
Pokemon GO is walking Simulator
Robeon Mew No, it's actual walking Lol
That means it's so ultra realistic, it's indistinguishable from the real thing.
More like walking stimulator.
Lavender OOOOOOOOOOOH 0_o
You mean walking STIMULATOR
Does "The Stanley Parable" count as an FPE? Because that game is so ridiculously funny and amazing and weird, complete with narration and everything! Yeah, that's about the only FPE game I like, or at least the only one I know a decent amount about...
I would consider it one. And also that game is AMAZING.
Yeah totally. That game is so weird and funny. The "atmosphere" involves the weird narrator dude making your brain hurt!
it's kind of making fun of it but it also wants to be it
If you like that one- you should check out "The Beginner's Guide". It's made by the same person but has a much more serious tone. Still a great game in my opinion.
+arlo I knew that subscribing to you was always the right choice, but it's doubly confirmed with this video and comment.
The term "Big Bang" was also created to make fun of that theory. Even Terry Pratchett made a joke out of it in the first page of "The colour of magic".
The more you know.
How is this muppet not more popular then pewdiepie?
+Logan McClure Because RUclips focuses on frequency of uploads and viewer retention over creativity and originality.
He's relatively new to youtube. Give it time.
Why do people even care that pewdiepie is popular? so what? Anyone saying 'he doesn't deserve his subs' should take it up with... *drumroll* his subs!
Seriously, I don't get it, why hate on the popular idiot? because better channels have less subs? that doesn't make sense to me, you wanna know why?
what if I told you _not all subs are equal?_ that some are better than others? maybe arlo and other youtubers like him are smaller because they appeal to a more refined audience.
Because his opinions are downright retarded.
Whette Fahrtz and now this thread is cancer.
I don't really think you can call them exploring games if they only allow you to move on a predetermined path in a specific direction.
"Walking Simulator" refers pretty much exclusively to games where you literally do nothing but walk around and possibly listen to audio clips from time to time. If there's any real puzzle solving or platforming, the game is immediately disqualified from this "genre" because they have too much actual gameplay. A true walking simulator is something like Dear Esther, Gone Home or Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, where the only thing close to gameplay is figuring out where you need to walk to in order to complete the game. Gotta agree with you though....the laziness with which people tag games that actually have nothing to do with this genre is kind of annoying.
Also, it's pretty late to mention this but if you're a fan of subtle/interactive storytelling that lets players seek out and piece together a narrative for themselves then I'd suggest trying out the Souls games if you haven't.
+SoundwaveCooper There's so much about the Souls games that appeals to me, but I know I would never have any patience for the difficulty. XP
+Arlo If you're going to play any of the Souls games, go with the first Dark Souls. After all the patches, it's the most accessible and (in my opinion) most fun of the series.
Also, don't let the difficulty scare you away. Once you learn the mechanics and nuances of the game, it's an incredibly rewarding RPG experience.
@@SpaceFox93 Agreed, even after 4 years these games are still rewarding. I however prefer Bloodborne to Souls world/narritve wise, but that is just me.
are you related to cookie monster?
I think it's his far cousin
+The Anonymus Gamer or maybe cookie monster is his uncle!
Jan Cruz Or maybe Cookie monster is a failed clone of arno?
+The Anonymus Gamer I don't know Arno...
Jan Cruz Arno is Arlo's evil brother who is red and toootally didn't make up as a excuse for a typo
I think FPAE, or First-Person Atmospheric Exploration covers the genre of games a bit more, since not only are you exploring the world the game puts you into, you're also taking in the atmosphere so it won't be a generic, boring trip the entire time.
+999MonsterJam Yeah, I came really close to settling on that. I think the only reason I didn't was the brevity thing. I wanted it to be short and easy. However, even if FPAE was the thing that caught on, I'd still be psyched.
+999MonsterJam
Personally, I think FPE is better since it (in my opinion) better represents the core of the genre.
I think the atmospheric setting is more a side effect of the other core elements than a core feature itself (the game wouldn't work if you didn't WANT to explore the world you're in).
Except when a game IS a walking sim
Death stranding
Bendy and the ink machine
All of those people who seem hung up on the idea that a game should have a "fail state" will very soon sound as ridiculously reactionary as those who insist that poetry must rhyme, music must have melody and harmony, films must have plot and painting should represent reality. I know that gaming is a new medium, but given that most of the 20th Century was spent expanding the limits of art forms by breaking arbitrary rules, you'd think that games would have a head start in breaking their own limitations.
Music must have melody and films must have a plot anf these are not ridiculous notions. Yours are. Welcome to reality.
I feel like all walking simulators could have real mechanics over just walking around and still be just as good though. Which I think is the main reason people dislike the genre. Look at metroid prime, bioshock. They do both exploration, atmosphere as well as any great walking simulator/FPE and have relatively deep gameplay mechanics in there as well. I don't think walking simulators should go away per se, but that's the main reason many people feel they aren't worth playing.
I think the dismissive term "walking simulator", and subsequent backlash against such games, all started when every journalist hub out there tried to hype up Gone Home as one of the best things ever. Now this wouldn't have been so bad if the majority of the gaming public could play the game and agree it was at least reasonably good, at least halfway worthy of the praise it received. But it wasn't, in fact, it was widely disliked. I doubt it was due to a "lack of understanding" of the genre either since, as you said, there have been similar games such as Metroid Prime or Mist that did garner a lot of praise, not to mention the gaming public has shown to be largely accepting of other genres with few gameplay elements, such as visual novels (I don't see a lot of hate towards Clannad or Phoenix Wright).
In fact, the majority of people I saw that WERE grading the game more on its story-telling merits as opposed to actual gameplay came to the conclusion that the story was told very poorly, and many suspected that it only got pushed by the "progressive" media because it featured a lesbian couple. Simply put, walking simulator or not, Gone Home just wasn't very good in most people's eyes, and it was one of the key signs that there was a massive disconnect between "professional" critics and gaming audiences (something that would ultimately lead to GamerGate). From there, I guess "walking simulator" just caught on as a way of bashing that game and others like it that would follow. Of course, it doesn't help that many others in the indie scene sought to make "games that aren't supposed to be fun", resulting in a surge of gaming's equivalent to modern art. No matter how much some hipster tries to convince you that what you're looking at represents human emotions and whatnot, it doesn't change the fact that some college dropout just flung a bunch of shit onto a canvas and deemed it a masterpiece.
+YamatoFukkatsu
You nailed it. If some critics wouldn't praise these "Games without gameplay" like an incarnation of god we (players with skill) could ignore them. I dislike these "cinematic" 3rd person games too, it's basically the same issue. Some people mix up "mature" with "casual".
YamatoFukkatsu I've never seen this put better. I absolutely love the genre: The Beginner's Guide and Firewatch are in my top 5 (BG being #1), and yet gone home never caught that spark. It was hyped as the saviour of gaming, and because it couldn't live up, the whole genre had to be dismissed. It's really a shame.
I don't think Gone Home was the greatest game...but I enjoyed it. Of course, context probably played a part: I missed the hype about it and heard the disdain first...so my expectations were low...and I was pleasantly surprised.
I do think that the genre in general has great potential, but innovation is necessary, is happening, and more will come with time. I think that What Remains of Edith Finch is proof that you can have good mechanics in an interactive story that validate the need for interactivity without the need for "kill or be killed" gameplay. In particular, the cannery level wouldn't connect the audience nearly as well if it were just a movie...the mechanics themselves actually give you more empathy for the character's situation. Just watching that scene on youtube would be a serious loss of the point.
I look forward to seeing the genre evolve, fueled by creative ways to engage with clever gaming mechanics that feel like a natural extension of the story, and fit in without seeming wedged in for the sake of feeling like a "game" in the strictest sense. I'm ok with it not being a "game" in the literal sense, because it doesn't have to be. But it is valid to suggest that these games are missing out if they don't take advantage of the inherent element in the medium: interactivity.
4:19 You actually do bring up a good point here, but I still think the term "walking simulator" is completely appropriate for a game that only has a story and/or atmosphere, where there's no real challenge or meaningful input aside from guiding your character to the next event trigger.
The term Walking simulator is supposed to insult and make fun of the genre and makes it sound like they are only about walking and nothing else so no i dont think its appropriate at all.
Your way of explaining what you're talking about is complete and perfect. I didn't know much about "walking simulators" originally, and now I feel like I know all about them.
I thought you where talking about literal walking simulators.
You know, the ones where each joint is mapped to a key and you have to move the legs by pressing the keys at the right time.
QWOP lol
an interactive experience where you just wander around and look for things sounds like the perfect vr experience
I shouldn't have laughed as hard as I did at "top ten Pokemon that look like butts"
Mario is my favorite jump and win.
+Salt XD
I just call them First-Person Narrative.
Arlo: "Adventure" genre includes story, atmosphere and exploration.
That's why Puzzle Adventures have STORY. because you need a "story" to make an Adventure game.
if you make a Puzzle Adventure game without any story progression, it simply becomes a "puzzle" game.
Arlo, you don't need "First Person Atmospheric Exploration" to call this type of games. Just call it puzzle adventure because it is the name of this genre.
We had many Puzzle Adventure games in the old days, like Myst.
But do you know why people call it "Walking Simulator"?
It is not because this genre has no name or not defined because.
Some Puzzle adventure games like Dear Esther doesn't give much story or exploration but loses much time with walking.
So, a game like Journey is an Puzzle Adventure, but no one complains it as a Walking Simulator. because it gives more story than walking.
but Dear Esther is defined as Walking Simulator because it gives more walking than story.
This is the key point. Calling Dear Esther as "First Person Atmospheric Exploration" doesn't solve its lack of story progression problem.
A full-grown man playing around with a children's puppet toy is exactly the kind of person I would imagine enjoys walking simulators.
Puppetry is an art, not a toy
@@ryko1478 LOL Reddit is down the hall and to the right
I strongly disagree with using the word "exploration" because most of them (not all) are on a very linear path, no exploration to be had at all. I myself enjoy a good Walking Simulator every once in awhile and feel that "Walking Simulator" is a suitable name.
I also agree with the opinion that most of them - except for the ones that have puzzles - can't be classified as games. They can still be enjoyable in the way that a book or a movie can but I wouldn't call them games at all.
The ones filled with puzzles are... well, Puzzle Games.
Being able to look and move around definitely does add to the experience. Makes you feel like you're more in the world, in the story. But it doesn't make them games. More immersive but in no way games.
I wan't to clarify that I'm not hating on Walking Simulators. I just feel that for the most part they're *generaly* not games and can't be described with the word "exploration".
These games are better and more accurately *games* than the kinetic novels that people keep insisting on calling 'games'. KINETIC NOVELS AREN'T GAMES. If people are going to call those games, then websites, books, comics, movies, tv shows, etc. all qualify as games too!
Would LSD on PSone be considered the first ever FPE?
Yeah maybe that makes a lot of sense
maybe there older fpes
+Diwasho Nope. The same creator of LSD, Osamu Sato, came up with FPEs before LSD, like Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou (1994/1995) and its extremely rare and recently found sequel, Chu Teng (1995/1996). If you haven't heard of these games, I HIGHLY recommend that you take a look at them. They're just as strange and just as brilliant!!
@MAGAMan. Z er0 full title is 'LSD: Dream Simulator'
I think this topic is very interesting. The reason why the term walking simulator is used is because the game values story and presentation over actual gameplay. There's nothing wrong with having a great story and experience but I believe that gameplay is the most important aspect of the game. So I guess, people don't like calling a game "great" when the gameplay is so mediocre, basic and bland but the story is great. I do believe this is the reason why the "casuals' love these type of games like uncharted and last of us. I get it. People are getting older, and have less time to be "good" at games like Starcraft, Counterstrike etc so they just want to play the game for the "experience" rather than getting better at the game and gain more skill. Games like Heavy Rain or Until Dawn shouldn't be praised as great games because the gameplay is not good at all. I know this is an old video but if you do read this, hopefully you can see why people dislike these type of "games". There is a review on the last of us so maybe it will at least let you see why people are labelling these games this way.
ruclips.net/video/2ZdbQOSte5U/видео.html&t=
BorneGamer Z great point!! I came back to this vid and I’m looking at Newest Comments First to see how people feel about this a few years later.
I also think Portal 1 and/or 2 could be described as a FPE, which blows my damn mind!
When I first heard the term, my first reaction was "Aha! That sounds like the genre for me." It seemed to describe the last game I'd really loved (Proteus), and it also described what I eventually spent most of my time choosing to do in older games like GTA: just wandering around exploring the game world. I was actually quite shocked to find out that it was intended to be a derogatory term! Mind you, a lot of art movements got their names from people who thought they were being clever in criticising them, such as Brutalism and Fauvism.
There's nothing wrong with the term "walking simulator" though. Is walking bad? No. Are simulators bad? No.
And "first-person experiences" is way too vague. Thief is a first-person experience, but that doesn't describe the *game* at all... and you certainly wouldn't confuse the *game* with something that could be called a _walking simulator_.
Walking simulator describes something specific: a simulation of walking. Sometimes you look at things... sometimes you listen to things... but not necessarily either and not all the time... sometimes you just absorb your surroundings. Walking simulator. Makes complete sense to me.
I think it's just *_massive_* insecurity shining through from the people who balk at the term. If you enjoy them, then you enjoy a kind of simulator. Personally, I enjoy flight sims... both terrestrial and space flight. Do I get bothered when people call them flight sims instead of... I dunno... "first-person flying experiences"? No. I think, rather than demanding people change an appropriate term, the people who are bothered by the term _walking simulator_ should ask themselves why they're so bothered by it in the first place.
Possibly it's considered a put-down because walking is considered such a simple thing that simulating it is ridiculous. And most walking simulators don't actually simulate the mechanics of walking in the way that flight sims simulate the mechanics of flying: you pretty much guide your POV through the space and the leg movements are taken for granted. Also, there are some games that *feel* like walking simulators while being about other forms of motion, such as Abzu. Is it a swimming simulator? A walking swimulator?
Once could argue that some survival games simulate some aspects of walking in a non-benign environment. The Long Dark, for instance, makes you consider food, water, pack weight, boots and clothing before you venture out into the forest. But that would be more of a "hiking simulator" than simulating the simple act of going for a walk.
The criticism from traditional gamers seems to be due to the limited degree of interactivity and challenge: you're mostly either just seeing new places or discovering pieces of a fragmented narrative, rather than affecting the world or driving the narrative. Personally, that's what I love about them, and why I gravitated to the genre and was surprised to hear that it was coined as a sneering insult. There is some inaccuracy to the term, and perhaps the video's suggestion that "first-person exploration" (not "experience") is a better term has some merit. Even then, exploration often requires a degree of challenge and risk, and that is eliminated or minimised in the games we're talking about. So we still need a better term, but for now I'll know that if something is labelled as a walking sim, whether sneeringly or not, my interest will be piqued.
1:39: I have all of those except patience.
I may not agree with you on this topic, but you make a good point.
When you brought up what made people like walking simulators, it made me realise why I dislike the genre.
hahah my sentiments exactly.
Lmao nice pfp
FPE is a good name! here's an idea have: a game that's actually called "WALKING SIMULATOR" it's a fitness game where you walk around with a motion controller in your pocket to tour a wacky dream-esque world, getting exercise from walking, jogging, running, jumping and other exercises in the process!
First-Person Exploration is a good name, but I think it should be modified to First-Person Explorer. First-Person Shooters aren't called "First-Person Shooting" after all
_Walking simulators_ aren't games because there's no fail state. Think about every game ever: tic-tac-toe, football, chess, tennis, marbles, darts, billiards, crossword puzzles, sudoku... even the earliest video games like Pong and on from there.... a super diverse cross-section of samples, right? What do they all have in common?
The ability to lose. The ability to get a "game over" state.
You can't get a "game over" in Dear Esther or Everyone's Gone to the Rapture or Gone Home or, yes, even The Stanley Parable.
If you're not being challenged in any way, it cannot be a game. And if you _still_ want to water the definition of game down that far, you have to consider if movies are games... if books are games... after all, you can't fail a book or movie... you can only stop reading or watching.
"What do you mean Agatha Christie isn't a game? I'm discovering clues and unraveling a mystery while enjoying a story, aren't I?"
Let's push this one step further. What is the fundamental difference between playing a _walking simulator_ and watching someone else play one, aside from someone else controlling the character? After all, there's no skill involved. The only possible difference is that maybe the other person moves at a different speed than you would or discovers more or less than you would... otherwise, it's just a matter of who's sitting in which chair while you watch. The outcome is the same... just like a movie.
Contrast that with... let's say Madden... where every play can go a thousand different ways based on strategy, player skill, and your opponent's skill. Or Deus Ex... where the skills one player activates may be completely different from another. In either case, every single outcome is completely different.
The irony is that while you think you're getting a rich, engrossing, complex experience... you're actually getting something vastly more shallow and static because it will never change and your participation is _minimal_... whereas I can play Deus Ex and decide who lives and who dies... and see the consequences of every outcome... or try to complete the game without being seen by any enemies... or build up the most awesome tank of a character and crank up the difficulty.
*That* is the difference between a game and a _walking simulator_.
+Worded Puppet how is it cringey? I thought it was a fairly well constructed argument. Games are about interactions and "games" without the ability to lose or have a failure state lack a very critical interaction.
The only exception I can think of is maybe Braid and Prince of Persia since you could fail in the game but you would just rewind time to correct your mistakes.
you can lose The Stanley Parable if you pick the wrong path
I go by Chris Crawford's definition, and by that they're puzzles (mostly).
you dont lose, just recover a different ending. I also agree that The Stanley Parable isnt much of a "game", but is still amazing.
There is no fail state in crossword puzzles and Sudoku. You simply elect not to finish them. Otherwise they're linear, predetermined sets of actions until you reach completion.
_Ah, but they require specific skills to complete properly!_
So do FPEs. They require you to know first-person controls. They have implicit rules like 'no walking through walls'. They require you to perform specific actions before you can reach completion.
Isn't that absurdly easy, though? Fuck yeah, it's easy. _So what?_
Nobody plays these games for bragging rights.
So what does tic-tac-toe, football, chess, tennis, marbles, darts, billiards, and pong have in common? They're competitions. They *require* two players. By their very rule sets, one player must emerge victorious. "Game over" for the other guy.
I feel like 'First Person Interactive Stories' (or 'FPIS') are a more proper name. I don't really feel like these are games, but they're an lovely piece of media that you interact with
Jonay i feel like that classifies things like graphic novel games (stuff like Life is Strange)
The main issue I have with walking simulators is that they're games in the loosest possible sense. All you do is walk around an environment. 99% of the gameplay is boring walking.
If it has puzzles, it's a puzzle game like myst
If all it has is story, what sets it apart from a book? I can read a book's chapters out of order and have fun with it, and I get rid of all the tedious, monotomous walking.
If it had atmosphere, well so dogs the metroid games and bioshock, but those two had more than just walking.
If it has exploration, well again metroid, bioshock, let's also add Shadow of the Colossus to the mix. But again they have more than just exploration.
Atmosphere... I sure how every game had atmosphere, without that a game is pretty lifeless and void. And most games offer more than just that.
So as you can see, you can have a game with story, exploration and atmosphere, but if that's all it had to offer, what's the point?
Games let you make choices and let you interact with the world. If the only interaction I get is to look at pretty things and walk around, that's not stimulating, that's not fun, it's boring and samey.
And hey, maybe you like that stuff, just like some people like bad movies and books unironically. But that doesn't make them good. It just makes them phoned in games with the bare minimum to be qualified as such. Nothing more nothing less.
So no, they deserve nothing more than the generous title of walking simulator, because they are minimal effort piles of trash.
I'll take SotC and Metroid over these any day of the week, because they are objectively superior products. And I demand more from my media than minimal effort because I want to see games improve.
Asthmere Sivolisk i do enjoy story games like LIS, but the difference is you can interact with characters and make choices which affect the game
I think I'd like to see some main series game and TV properties adopt some of this style into a game. I love just exploring the Pokemon world for example and if I could more realistically interact outside the RPG norms that'd be cool. I'd love to just walk around and explore some cartoon worlds I've seen as well, the town of Gravity Falls being at the top of that list
+Randy Johnson (MetaSceptile) Same here, absolutely!
Arlo I haven't played this type of game really, the closest to it I've played is probably Minecraft any suggestions? I don't really have steam though
+Randy Johnson (MetaSceptile) Verde Station is a pretty good representation of what the genre has to offer. It's mostly passive and story-driven, and about an hour long. If you don't enjoy that one I'd say you probably won't like many others, but who knows?
Arlo idk I just really like the idea if exploring a world with no real limits, just seems like there are a lot of fictional worlds that would work well with the concept
+Randy Johnson (MetaSceptile) I think Pokemon Snap is kiiiiinda like that, even if it's on rails. It's probably the closest we've gotten.
as i was watching, i thought i'd write "ugh yeah, i thought Walking Simulator was a term to poke fun at the genre, but i was UNpleasantly surprised to see it actually used in Steam tags!!: ( " but then you covered it at 2:58 x )
i don't mind it as much, but to me, it seems like when people see "walking simulator" in one of the tags, it means it's like... "lesser of a game" or "not really a game" and it riles me up a little inside!!
I hate that myself, when dumb internet memes or sayings suddenly become the official thing we all can't escape and can't change. Really makes me realize how majority of ignorance always manages to get the most attention and have their needs satiated over the reasonable people.
My biggest issue with said games are, more often than not, many of these games can achieve the same result by being a movie. On top of that is how, once you get past the initial "wow" factor, few of them have anything of substance beyond the surface. It's usually pretentious farthuffing (see: Dear Ester), obnoxious identity politics (see:Gone Home), or done a thousand times (see: the millions of 'survival' games).
I don't mind the idea of exploring a world, but you need to give me something else to do. Plopping me into a world where I can't touch much of anything and can only look at all the pretty imagery amounts of walking a museum. If only there was a time of *game* that let me *play* a *role* in the world... hmmm... what's that called again?
That's really what it boils down to, frankly. Many RPGs do what most "walking sims" do a heck of a lot better. RPGs will usually simplify the combat, boiling it down to the basics to allow for more world exploration. You can enjoy them all you want. For me, however, walking sims don't do anything RPGs already do.
+TheTundraTerror This best describes what I wanted to say. I don't want be elitist but as a gamer I kind of like going beyond visuals and storytelling. Otherwise I really am just watching a movie.
Wait, but what about “top ten Pokémon who look like butts”?
Sounds like you're conflating walking simulators with adventure games. People who hate walking simulators aren't hating on Myst, Broken Sword, King's Quest, etc. They're hating on games like Dear Esther and Gone Home, which legitimately have zero challenge. There are no puzzles and there is no clever thinking and problem solving. You're literally just walking. There's not even exploration in these games because exploring needs to have some defined purpose or else there's no reason to do it. How much of Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time got explored once players knew it contained nothing? I can only remember about 2 Heart Pieces and 2 Gold Skulltulas in Hyrule Field. It was mostly pointless. I would call Metroid Prime and The Elder Scrolls a First Person Exploration over any walking simulator.
Have you played King's Quest or any old adventure game title? They're ridiculously brutal at times and sometimes you need to be in the developer's head to solve some puzzles. King's Quest is notorious for being brutal, as are many old Sierra games. Hell, they even went as far to enable the player to create a no-win situation for themselves where the player would have to start over to finish the game.
Also, walking simulators typically get derided because their developers and their fans tend to have a vendetta against other genres and treat their non-fans as if they're unenlightened idiots for not enjoying their boring games. I think the general consensus among the gaming community is that these people are gaming's equivalent of "modern" artists. Just like the painters who tell you random splotches of paint is high art or the film creator who says TV static for 90 minutes is art, these people think that not enjoying their bullshit makes you a neanderthal who plays games wrong. Let's not forget that websites like Polygon and Giant Bomb gave a walking simulator like Gone Home a perfect score, but they'll easily dock points off other titles, like Dynasty Warriors, just for being repetitive, or Bayonetta, for being "misogynistic". The defenders of walking simulators are the pinnacle of hypocrites in the gaming community.
I need a 'top 10 Nintendo characters that look like butts'.
Whenever these games come up or whenever someone talks about story as if it's the most crucial part of a good video game i think of what the devs of DOOM once said, that story in a game is like story in a porno, it's ok if it's there, but it's not necessary.
They aren't games, they are interactive story telling programs. At least with "Point-and-Win" those are actually games that has legit game-loop with skill involved. What does walking-simulator have? Go to a place and press a button, no challenge in the middle like a platformer, no mastery of gameplay mechanics other than move to a point and press the use-key.
It's walking simulator, because that's pretty much what you do in these "games". About 7 years already, it's still "Walking Simulator". Live with it.
Aren't videogames interactive story telling programs already?
No Man's Sky is a great FPE
+Aaron Luedemann Some Man's Lie*
good joke m8
All I want is a VR game that allows me to walk around a pretty well detailed city. Like tall skyscrapers, people walking by, cars whizzing past me, bright blue skies and the flashy stores and buildings I walk by...
I like FPEG, since I can just pronounce it "F-peg", sort of like jpeg.
There is a simple solution: look at which verb best describes what you do. Do you primarily *observe* the environment (either on a linear or a non-linear path), or do you primarily *play* in the environment. Observation = walking sim. Play = adventure (or lifestyle sim) game. This definition would move a lot of so-called FPE games into the adventure genre, but would mean that we rightly classify the likes of Animal Crossing or Tomodachi Life as distinct from the likes of Dear Esther.
For me, honestly, It varies. One the one hand, Myst, The Journeyman games, and their sequels strike me as examples of this kind of game done right, because there is real story and gameplay and challenging puzzles along with all the "simulated walking." They nail a unique atmosphere too.
On the other hand, the genre is a magnet for laziness, and the current gaming climate pumps out some really crappy, low effort games that people demand be hailed like the second coming of Mario.
Like you said, a lot of it boils down to preference. Personally, I never thought of Myst as a "walking-simulator" until I saw it in that list of games you found with the tag. When I use the term, I'm usually thinking of a game where it's literally just walking from point A to point B, with maybe a little reading thrown in. I'm against this kind of game, because I can get the exact same experience from watching it played. I'm not actually influencing anything. I'm less of a player and more of an observer. If I wanted that, I'd go watch a movie.
At any rate, Kudos for making me really analyze my own thoughts on this genre and see what makes my opinion tick.
4 months later and "Walking Simulator" is still a tag on Steam with new releases being added to it all the time.
I don't think this term is going away any time soon, in the same way that it took almost a decade for the term "first person shooter" to take the place of "Doom clone".
So yeah, for the time being, these non-games will continue to be classified with this label.
point and win is actually funny. I'm not a fan of shooters though... come up with one for RPGs and RTSs!
RPGs and RTSs already have great names.
RPG = Role playing Game
RTS = Real Time Strategy
The Ace Attorney ya but a derogatory name
RPGs would be Vicarious Growth Simulation. Instead of you getting better at something, you just watch somebody else get better stats.
I'm not as familiar with them, but RTS would be Genocide. Because that seems to be the most common win state.
01100101011100100111 Genocide is actually funny.
The Great Gawain Genocide is the First Person Shooter genre!
"AHH IT MOVED! FIRE THE WARHEAD!" That ALWAYS ended badly.
As a narrative designer, I'm a huge fan of First-Person Exploration games. Thank you for championing this term, Arlo. I'll do my part to spread it to other NDs and developers as well.
Gone Home wasn't very good. People only praised it because it pushed their "we gotta support the gays!" buttons. But one extremely prominent example of a genre being bad doesn't damn the whole genre any more than 3D platformers would be a terrible genre if Bubsy 3D was somehow the _only_ famous one.
+Nathan Karr You make a good argument there, I hadn't thought of it that way. Gone Home sucked, sure, but maybe I should give this idea more credit. I did like Proteus after all, though I didn't realize it counted as one of these games because it has no storytelling at all. :B
"Walking simulator" is the best term for genre, it describes best what do you do in these type of games. It does poke a little fun at the game, but so do other "cute names" for genres, like:
2spoopy4me - horror games
murder simulator - ultraviolence action games
nade simulator - call of duty 4
and so on.
If you feel bad that other people are making fun of you for enjoying these type of games, that reminded me of a story about a little boy in our school. That boy was called Valdemars and he had cancer. We were little, about 4th, 5th grade and some kids made fun of him. Our teacher had noticed that so she gathered us in the classroom and explained that cancer is a serious illness, that can only be passed through genes, and you can't get it. So we all understood what was wrong with Voldemars and some classmates became his best buds. After a year or so he died.
This video reminded me about Voldemars and that we shouldn't judge others on their preferences and personalities.
It also reminded that our teacher was wrong, I did get cancer.
From this video.
"Call of Shooty"
Gg Arlo
I think modern adventure game could work too. modern fps are dumb down version of fps so modern-adventure makes a good name.
Have you ever tried Gardenarium? It's not very long and the last part of it is a little out of left field but it has really nice art and animation and is just a nice trip to play when you want to be in a good mood, kinda like proteus which I love. :D
Hey, look, don't get me wrong. I absolutely love games like Yume Nikki, .flow, flower, or Journey. The two former because it emphasizes narratives that are never outright told to you that you discover through interpretation and because they're good horror games. I like the later two because flower and Journey touched upon an emotional connection for me while also looking visually stunning. So, I can enjoy a game that focuses more on the world around it than any actual gameplay.
Some of these games get it right, but a lot don't. Gone Home was sold for 20 dollars and could be finished in seconds if you knew what you were doing, but was lavishly praised for reasons that were mostly outside of the game itself and/or its mechanics. Does that make for a "good game?" No, not in my opinion, and deserves the so called 'walking simulator' moniker it has been given over the years.
EverDownward gdpdh
I like the genre, the problem is that a lot game in it tend to get very... Political, so I've become wary of them.
Every game is political.
Interactive wallpapers.
Im so Glad I discovered your Channel your funny and you present your arguments intelligently Keep up the good Work
I clicked on this because I thought the title referred to the genre, not the label.
Just found your channel this weekish. Sub'd. Patron'd. And now my harsh views on walking sims have been rattled. GG ya muppety thing.
When I read the title, I thought this video was about QWOP
ikr
recently discovered this channel, really glad to see someone else making videos about this subject, since i also feel strongly about it! subbed.
But it is a walking simulator. What else would you call it? There is no game play in these games. Looking at pretty things picking up items and that's it. There is nothing to them.
But what if I am able to play the games even though you don't like them, or think they can't be played? There should be a name for them that comes from a place of love instead of annoyance. It just makes sense.
+Alex Franklin it doesn't matter whether people like it or not. The name already fits perfectly to describe the genre.
ed R It only "perfectly describes" it if you don't like it. To someone who sees why they are good games, it's a really poor and vague description that tells you nothing about what makes them special.
Alex Franklin It doesn't describe it if someone doesn't like it. The name reflects what you do in these types of games, walking across a map as the story railroads you to minor interactive sequences.
Other story focused games cant be described by "walking simulator" like Ace Attorney, or the TellTale Walking Dead game because you cant walk in those games and they fall more under a Visual Novel categorization.
ed R There are millions of games where you can walk as one of the activities. Mario wouldn't be a walking simulator. Should we call visual novels "options menu simulators"? It's what you do in them.
First person adventure. That's what Nintendo Power always called the Genre.
The reason people are annoyed by walking simulators is because the gaming media praises them as innovative even though they do nothing that games before haven't done better - games like Deus Ex, Morrowind or Myst had all of those elements AND also had challenge, deep mechanics and customization.
I guess you could say that the appeal of these is the minimalism and that less is more in this case, but some people understandably disagree that this is the direction video games should go into, and so the mockery makes sense.
Also, the term "FPE" is booooooooooring and will never catch on. You're better off just accepting the existing term, kind of like fans of 3D platformers accepted the derisive name "collectathon".
If that the case then the game MYST was the first "Walking Simulator" game.
BTW LOVE MYST game still have it for PC, Mac and even Jaguar CD. Yeah thats how much I love it.
point and win = point and click
"Walking simulator" is the best description for games that do nothing but that. Others have already said this. Some walking simulators aren't even games and yes I really put my foot down calling some of these simulations, not games. Gone home has no way of losing/winning/rules or anything other than reading a mediocre story about a random lesbian and yet it was championed as the best game for months. Tells you a lot about the awful state of the video game industry.
I will never stop using the term Walking Simulator, I'm sorry but it's just too much fun.
You are right. In future I will use "first person exploration" and "point and win"!
I don't think you know this, but shooters actually started with a joke-name, which was "Doomclone". Well, it wasn't really a joke as much as it was pointing the fact that developers tried really hard to copy Doom's success.
So first of all, these games don't focus on anything in particular. Game genres are most often defined by their gameplay elements, and since "Walking Simulators" often lack gameplay elements in general, they're hard to fit anywhere, even into games at all.
You cannot say Walking Simulators focus on delivering a story, because a ton of games have stories and most of them use gameplay elements to enhance their stories, a feature that far surpasses games in which you walk around and listen to audio cues. Same can be said for atmosphere. You cannot say they focus on exploration, since that's a term for sandbox games and, again, they surpass Walking Simulators by having these explorable elements have actual impact on your gameplay.
Finally, you cannot say they focus on puzzles, because, simply speaking, they don't. If they do, then they're puzzle games.
Your video assumes that these games focus on having great stories that require patience, but the most prominent of it's representatives actually have quite bad and pretentious stories that wouldn't fly in any storytelling medium, like books or movies. They also cannot require patience, if often they last just a couple of hours tops. Walking Simulators are not a new genre, that explores the boundaries of games. It's a genre that purposefully limits itself and the options that games can provide. It's not a "like or dislike" thing, because they're just a straight-up failure of design, like a painting without images, or book filled with gibberish. Some might gather around to praise it's "newness", but most do realize it as a cheap cop-out from making something better.
+Yagi Let's agree to disagree! Thanks for chiming in though, I love to hear different opinions. And I didn't know about the "Doomclone" thing, that's interesting.
+Arlo "Well fuck, can't counter that. Let me find a five dollar word to get outta here..."
+Patrick Bateman There's no point in countering when you simply disagree. We're taking the same information and coming to different conclusions about it, and when those conclusions are so vastly different there's little point in trying to change each others' minds. But I do enjoy seeing both sides!
Arlo I dare to say that the whole point of counter-arguments is rooted in disagreement. I also dare to say that there's no "different conclusions" - there can be different views and less or more educated opinions, but a conclusion is always singular.
+Yagi Fair points! It might be more accurate to say that a differing opinion doesn't bother me so much that I feel I need to change it. In an individual conversation such a debate can be fun, but if I were to counter every point of every commentor on my videos I would spend my whole life arguing with people on the internet. I would rather just accept that we have different tastes and viewpoints.
they are not games, all those characteristics listed at 1:47 can be present on a regular game, though are not necesary, like condiments on food, they made the dish more enjoyable though its not food just by itself and the dish can be eat with out them, now try eating only condiments, thats playing these walking simulators.
Can you really call a piece of media with zero challenge, puzzles, or fail state a "game?"
+HiveDes Yeah, because technically speaking, aren't you playing it?
+Duskool Meh...a game where the only interaction is to trigger dialogue/text and walk around is more "interactive story" than "game" imo
HiveDes it's still a game, because some of them actually have some consequenses based on your decisions
Kinda reminds me of those encarta visual tours
Plenty of games lack a win state. There's no win state in Half-Life or Halo. Furthermore, plenty of games lack a lose state. Animal Crossing, Harvestt Moon, The Sim, Kirby's Epic Yarn and plenty of simulation games lack a lose state."Challenge" doesn't hold up because, if we want to be technical, interaction itself is the challenenge in many games, such as rhythm games and it furthmore also neglects the notion of self-imposed challenge, such as in the aforementioned Sims series and Animal Crossing. "Puzzles" is too vague to mean anything. Is figuring how to light a bunch of torches to open a door in TLOZ a puzzle? Well most would say yes. Is finding out a boss' attack pattern in the same game a puzzle? Some would say so. In fact I've known quite a few developers who refer to the stealth genre as a puzzle genre because it shares the same fundamentals.
So thats what they are called. I saw a video in DashieGames and I think it was something people liked, but omg I literally could not stay awake trying to figure out if there was something I was missing that made it interesting. Of course, it was this morning, and I stayed awake all night until 12 the next day, but still, I literally could not stay awake. I only stayed awake because I was laying in bed and accidentally (being sleepy) hit my phone on my head that clicked somewhere to load a new page. I then did something else.
Walking Simulator kind of nails it. If the name would change, I would only remove the "simulator" part.
I don't like how the term "game" has been used for literally anything mildly interactive. A game by default does not require a story but it does require a gameplay element which in itself requires input from the user, hence making it interactive, but requires more than just pushing the stick or playing QTEs all the time.
There is nothing we can do to not call these games "games" because it is simply easier that way rather than having to explain your new naming convention, kind of how walking simulators are called walking simulators. A name that stemmed from a joke that just turned out to be the easiest to explain the game in a brief
That one-two punch at the end of the video made me laugh. "That may or may not represent cancer" and "the top 10 Mario enemies that look like butts". Classic!
rpg = menu simulator
Top 10 Pokémon That Look Like Butts #10: Arlo's Tongue
Everything you listed is what makes a good book. A videogame should never be a vessel to tell a story and just tell a story alone. Telling a story in a game is fine, but gameplay should be first and for most in any game. I'd say that these games are more like the evolution of text based adventures.
Stuff like "Story, Atmosphere, &Exploration," is incredibly well done in games like Metroid prime and The Last of us. Even games like Bioshock, and sillier stuff like No more heroes get this stuff right. Yet all of them place gameplay ahead of story.
Books don't have graphics or puzzles or first-person immersion.
"...or first-person immersion."
You don't read much, do you?
+OuroborosChoked Ok, you know what I mean. Even a novel in first-person doesn't have you making the decisions, unless it's like a choose-your-own-adventure. In a game like The Stanley Parable or Gone Home I have some level of choice, but this is not true in (the vast majority of) novels. I find the element of choice to be significantly more immersive, which is why I phrased that like I did. I probably should have said 'books don't have the same level of first person immersion,' or something along those lines.
And I do read actually, not as much as I'd like to, but I think that's true for a lot of people, haha!
That's "second person" not first. Writing in the first person is when the story is being told from the view of a character. Third is a narrator. Second is "You". As in "Then I end to the store" (first) "Then they went to the store" (third) Then YOU went to the store" (second)
You should read more often.
+David Garcia Yes, yes, I know all this. I've taken College English classes and read many, many novels. I was describing (or trying to describe) why first person perspective in a video game and first person writing are not at the same level of immersion (because of what the other guy said about what I said about books not having first person immersion). Perhaps I'm the one that's confused here, and if I am I'll gladly eat my shame, but I'm like 95% sure I'm in complete understanding of this thread.
I think Walking Simulator (I'll call it WS) is a fine name for the genre, and I do mean that in at least a slightly derogatory way. When it comes down to it, the genre is a stripped down version of my favorite genre - open world, or western, RPGs (Elder Scrolls, Fallout). The world you explore in a WS is always like a smaller, less interactive version of these games. These games are full of mystery, narrative, emotion, etc. but they feel less sterile. My love of these games comes almost exclusively from the exploration, but the combat, even decreased by 95% or made impossibly easy, adds some element of life and simulated danger. A game like Morrowind has has the story elements of 100 walking simulators within quests, all within a world that feels organic, like it wasn't engineered as a rat maze (a big problem I have with the WS). Survival Horror games also consistently do a better job of story, atmosphere and exploration while keeping the bite of urgency. The pretension is most WS games is also very real, and has been very apparent in almost every one I've played. It's story telling potential is dwarfed by this in comparison toe the point-and-clicks of old.
In the end, the WS title I feel is deserved for being a lesser version of existing games genres, but still being distinct enough in medium to not just be a book.
"no, you just dont get it"
No, i get it. Walking simulators are walking simulators.
This video was awesome, Arlo. I know I'm late to the party by a year but I wanted to say I agree with you! I don't play many of these types of games but that doesn't invalidate them as games. First Person Exploration is a great term given their substance! I feel like the gaming community, online in particular, has become far too critical. We judge every game by the exact same merits and when there's a diversity of taste and preference that never works out; to me, it's like watching someone complain about a drama movie because it isn't an action movie! Not all movies are made for the action-lovers crowd. Likewise, not all videogames are made for the First Person Shooter crowd!
Keep on keepin' on, Arlo! I'm gonna tear through your vids because they're awesome, I'm glad i stumbled upon your channel!
Walking Simulators are little more than pretentious artsy pieces of crap. They're the equivelent of Modern Art; absolute crap that people say is good because they are told it's "deep" and that people who dislike it just don't "get it".
I don't think that's true at all. The reason why I like these types of games and think they're good is because they either have an interesting narrative or offer an atmosphere or an experience I can't find in other games. There might be some games where the developer is trying to create something that is "deep" but more often than not I think they're just trying to create an experience where they're focused on the narrative elements or the atmosphere rather than some gameplay mechanic. If I want to provide an interactive narrative or atmosphere why do I have to have platforming or combat that would get in the way of the experience I'm trying to create.
I saw "walking simulator" and thought about QWOP, a rare occasion of an actual walking simulator 😂
I'm fine with "walking simulators" my favorite game is Morrowind, but there needs to be a game somewhere in there. Firewatch is literally listening to a radio and occasionally climbing a ladder.
Gone Home is just you pick up and turning objects while narration plays. This needs to stop
Not everyone has the same definition of "game" as you. Traditional gameplay mechanics like puzzles, action sequences, etc. don't necessarily have to be the end-all-be-all definition of "game". To me and some others, "gameplay" can mean learning about story and enjoying an atmosphere, not necessarily shooting enemies or matching blocks. Games, like all forms of art, are subjective, and saying one genre has to stop just because you don't agree with it isn't logical.
I would honestly love to sit down and just chat about games for a while with Arlo
Then im just gonna make a play with just dialogues, the story is there and characters too, but not what makes it a play
Thats why "walking simulators" cant be called games
There do exist plays that are just people sitting down and talking. There are full movies like that too.
A game is interactive, and walking simulators are. So what do you consider Walking Simulators as lacking that makes them a game?
Interactivity alone is not the threshold for what can and cannot be considered a game. If that were the case, every DVD, VHS, and RUclips is a game. After all, you started the experience by interacting with a controller, didn't you?
The need for skillful execution and the existence of a fail states are what define games.
OuroborosChoked What's the fail state of Animal Crossing? The Sims? SimCity? Myst? Some older LucasArts adventure games don't let the player die, so are they not games?
Also, if I play a game on a very easy mode, is it no longer a game? Beccause it doesn't require skillful execution?
The correct term for walking simulator is interactive movie.
It's nice to see for the first time a RUclipsr that doesn't drag the video to ten minutes to put ads in
This is great! Love your channel. I really like the term First-Person Exploration, I'm currently playing Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and I was just thinking about that, the game is about exploring and revealing a very profound story. :)
I think the biggest complaint/criticism I hate thrown on 'walking simulators' is when people say "You don't need to play it, you can just watch someone play it and get the same experience". To me that's just... so clearly untrue. I don't think people put enough stock in controlling the character yourself. When you are the one controlling the movement and action you get a lot more immersed than you would just watching it.
However, I will say that if you DO watch a let's play of a 'walking simulator' game there is not as much of a point playing through yourself, since most of the fun is discovering the story. But playing through the game yourself the first time will always be the superior experience imo, and I think that experience has value
1st Person Exploration Sounds Really Cool
When I see the phrase "walking simulator", what comes to my mind is a game that simulates walking through a neighborhood, or anywhere, with a counter in the corner that records the distance you've traveled. So it's like showing you how to burn calories! ...When you could just be out there actually walking.
The only problem with this new term is, well... they don't have to be first-person... or even exploration-based, at that... so the term "First-Person Exploration" kind of works to limit the genre to those things when it doesn't have to.
To be honest, the term 'walking simulator' kind of makes me smile with its tongue-in-cheekness too, I don't find myself bothered by it at all, and kind of entertained by it really. It just doesn't strike me as particularly disrespectful, just playful- it it were something as derogatory as "Point to Win" I'd TOTALLY be agreeing with you though! That is absolutely a fair point, I just find the existing term a bit of harmless fun, personally.
I so agree with this video!
I do have one question about what games qualify as "First Person Explorer"
Would Bendy and The Ink Machine count as part of that group?
walking simulator is cooler because making fun of something u like, means that the critique is not entirely valid...plus its funnier
I don't think "walking simulator" is a derogatory term and have never thought of it like that, it was an honest search term used to find games like DAYZ in it's earliest states and completed games like dear ester and even firewatch, I don't hate those "games" but hey I'm also the guy who has a definition of a game, many of these studios aren't even using the term "game" themselves and why do they have to be?
What Remains of Edith Finch & That Dragon Cancer both belong to this catagory & are yet both amazing games. I think the term itself was made because it's alot easier to say rather then saying a whole mouth full of words.