In defense of walking simulators

Are walking simulators really that bad? They seem to me like a modernization of adventure games.
Isn't Ace Attorney basically a walking simulator? You pick up items, and talk to people, there's rarely any puzzles where you actually combine items.

There's nothing wrong with walking simulators and a few of them are even enjoyable.

walking sims are called that because you basically only move forward and ocassionally read or listen to some inane boring shit being babbled without having any meaningful interaction included within the game world

contrast that with Ace Attorney, where you need to pay attention to what is said and use the right items (evidence) at the appropriate moment to succesfully solve a case. This is a puzzle element where you need to think and match. There is also a fail condition, which most walking sims don't even have

to put it simply; walking sims have no to little game elements in them

One of the biggest criticisms of walking simulators is they have no fail or lose state.
PW definitely has that.

You need to present the right items to the right person at the right moments in AA

I think the overly high praise from critics is what pisses most people off.

just enjoy the walk nerd

>when critics rate something negatively because they're liberal cucks
that's worse

There's nothing wrong with them if they're marketed as such.

Many are falsely advertised, which is why people get the shits.

Jog on, lad

The modernization of adventure games are Infra or Obduction to name two.
They have gameplay and puzzles, if you fail to solve them you can't advance or die and have to try again.

Good walking sim
>Stanley parable
has a variety of endings, some secrets to be found, isn't super serious

Bad walking sim
>gone homo
bland, nothing interesting, 90's nostalgia with lesbians.

I wouldn't mind walking simulators as much if player actions actually effected the outcome of the story, especially since the stories these games have to tell aren't THAT good.

>no gameplay outside of picking up items
>no challenging puzzles
>player choices have no effect on the outcome of the story
>usually really short 2-3 hour games that cost 20 bucks or more

I gave Firewatch a try and left with nothing but disappointment, indie developers don't want to make fun games, they just want to force people to walk through their shitty fanfic tier novel under the guise of it being a game.

>good walking sim
QWOP
>bad walking sim
everything else

That's during the court battles
During investigation, there's not really puzzles, just talking to people

Didn't you enjoy the ending?
Where nothing fucking happened

The main issue people seem to have with "walking simulators" comes down to semantics. People don't think it's fair to label an interactive experience as a "game" if it doesn't have an explicit fail condition, or if the win condition appears to be effortless progression.

Which kinda makes a sense, but also seems like something that isn't worth getting too bent out of shape over. Walking sims are still far closer to video games than they are to film or literature, since they require the audience to interact directly with the narrative to reach a conclusion.

I'd agree with OP that they're essentially easy mode adventure games. Which can still be fantastic experiences.

>Are walking simulators really that bad?
yes

Infra was wonderful in its execution, do you recommend obduction?

Yeah, I especially loved how the father-son story completely hijacks the main narrative in the last third of the game.

absolutely brilliant

...

Its a genre that's pretty polarizing

I'll admit its being pushed to the forefront by some pretty bad games but there's nothing wrong with the genre itself and I continue to find games in it that I enjoy.

>Just talking to people
>No walking involved
>"walking simulator"

>call digital exhibits "walking simulators"
>not one has dealt with managing systems like fatigue, hydration, terrain navigation, rashes, or foot conditions

The problem with puzzles are, a lot of the time they can be completely unenjoyable, and makes it seem like the game is punishing you. I didn't play grim fandango to get stuck at a lock puzzle for 30 minutes. Puzzles in a lot of adventure games can be filler

Ace attonery is more like a lighter visual novel than a walking sim. Walking sims dont usually have much text.s ometimes not even story they have.

The problem is that there are quite too many pretentious walking sims coming out recently

Rock N Roll Climber

Naisancee had breath control

Walking simulators are a valid genre
Your subjective taste dictates whether you can enjoy the experience or desire something mechanically more complex

>trying to leave Sup Forums.webm

This.

If Steam refunds were a thing back when Gone Home launched there wouldn't be such a huge backlash.

People thought they were buying some horror game and got duped.

I nearly was brought to tears when it was revealed that anything interesting happening was all a hobo prank
Bravo

The finest Sup Forums thread I've been in in recent memory was a walking simulator thread.

People discussed their favourites, did suggestions, brought up some pretty obscure shit even, delivered nuanced criticism, respected each others' opinions, and mostly ignored the surprisingly rare "hurr not a gaem" fags.

Is this the problem with walking simulators?
They make it look like stuff will happen in the marketing material and trailers, and then it's just
>dude, emotions, lmao

That's nice, sweetheart

>dude, lesbians, lmao

So? Let yourself be pleasantly surprised. Something not being what you expected doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if it is intentionally playing off those expectations.

that's what I said

It really was.

You are right so a degree, but there was no consumer protection in place for those who actually felt duped. Instead it was a case of people dropping $20 USD on a game they thought was something else.

There is of course something of a sliding scale on how much money is an acceptable gamble on games like this. If it had only been like $5 I'm sure not as many people would care, but considering the range of stuff you can get for $20 USD on Steam it was certainly a rip-off if you weren't in it for emotional homophobic fears walking simulator.

If you liked Myst and Riven, yes.

Instead of exploring alien spaceships or hells, walking simulators allow you to explore absolutely normal house.
Genre with the most wasted potential desu

Exactly.
If Bioshock Infinite was a walking simulator, the genre would have a champion to herald.
Instead of lesbians and hobos

I think creators should make whatever they feel like. If that's walking simulators, then that's fine. There's nothing really wrong with that, at times I feel that a lot of people want all or most games to align to their taste.

There's lots of potential in something as common as a regular house. Depends on what sort of story you want to tell or what sort of interactions you want.

Not every game has to be some supernatural or extraterrestrial shit.

In the end, a video game is really just an interactive experience. I'll occasionally drop down some money to see a weird art house movie, or put one on netflix, so I don't have a problem with occasionally dropping some money on an arthouse game. The problem is, most of these walking simulators are...boring. Unimmersive.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was one of the better ones if only for how much it was able to immerse me through a nice, smooth narrator and some really stunningly good depiction of New England Nowhere. You did have to put some manner of work in with the puzzles, there were failure conditions, and you had to look at context clues to figure out how to organize a memory at the end into a cohesive narrative and continue onwards. All while being nonlinear and letting you explore at your own pace.

And even though I'd call it the best of the walking simulators I'd played, I'd still rate it as a mediocre narrative and experience. It was fairly short, barely enough time or material to really get a hang on the characters, especially with the lame twist at the end.

The subgenre isn't something that should just be dismissed out of hand but it's still something that needs some actual solid hits that we'll remember in a few decades.

Also Myst isn't a walking simulator.

There is something to be said about using a house as a setting
Silent Hill 4 did it really well
The progression of The Room especially, which I won't spoil

There's a gulf between what critics want in a game and what the average consumer wants.
The critic wants a SHORT experience first and foremost. Sounds shitty, but they typically have an enormous pile of games to get through, and rushing through longer games saps the enjoyment out of them. Shorter games can still be "full" experiences if you get through them quickly, so critics generally seem to gravitate towards them.
The average consumer wants some bang for their buck. Instead of having a huge pile of games they NEED to get through by a deadline, they want to make a smart purchase and be able to play a game for a long time if they're going to give up some cash for it.

You should push the fact that reviewers enjoy short games because they're not actually paying for them

That's part of it, but not the whole picture.
It's not as if consumers would continue playing a game after they get bored with it typically, it's more that reviewers get bored a LOT more quickly than other people.
I've been hearing a lot about how games should end after they've "made their point" like that statement means anything, but my theory is that it's just purely a symptom of being forced to finish a game you're mentally done with.

I dunno, I felt that way about Super Hot.
After the elevator sequence I was done with it

> modernization

wilking sims have been around forever especially in japan. Hell even clock tower could be considered one

Japan has been ahead of the curve in a lot of areas.

Japanese people live empty lives. Devs could experiment more there because the economy was in a tailspin and people would buy anything they shat out to escape their miserable lives.
Now it's just a bunch of moeshit.

For more evidence of japanese people being miserable, compare american and japanese reactions to jewwario's suicide. Americans were broken hearted, japanese didn't give a fuck. Suicide is so normal there the government designated a forest just for people to kill themselves. Look up seppuku, suicide is a big part of japanese culture because they've been beta male faggots since the dawn of time.