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Walking simulators aka "Notgame" Thread

Longshanks

Augur
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
897
Location
Australia.
Looked at couple of videos of Her Story. I think its a clever idea in a way, you give bunch of short interviews that you can build into one big story. I actually like such forms of storytelling and many movies/books/comics use similar technique to tell story out of order that finally clicks together in the end. And thats really the problem, you can do same stuff in other mediums perfectly so why even bother with "game" part*? As I understand it doesn't have any verbs like old text adventures ("go north" for example), its just that each video has tags and you input keywords that either return relevant video or don't. Thats really same as me using google when I'm searching for some information, only difference that I'm usually typing more complex things than "her story".

I think it actually makes this stuff worse. In movie or a book author can control the pace at which player receives information. Here you do it on your own (I read some comments that its possible to see last clips "too early" and ruin the experience) and you are likely to get "inferior" story than what author intended.

I think the game mechanic does improve on what Her Story would have been as a straight movie. It forces you to closely study the clips and to really think about what is happening. As with you, I think the idea has some real merit, though it is unfortunately not used well in Her Story. Early on I was taking notes, hoping that it would be left to the player to work out guilt/innocence based on evidence, but the game takes a different route and rather asks you to choose between ridiculous narrative (a) or ridiculous narrative (b) (having read more, one of these is far less ridiculous than the other but still hackneyed and very artificially created). A good movie would have been better than Her Story (even if it is a one room setting, eg. The Interview with Hugo Weaving), but if you have decent, at best, acting and the silly narrative offered it needs the game element to make it worth any while. I would not have watched this as an 80 minute movie.

Getting some of the end clips early (as I did) doesn't ruin the story. Those late revelations are not necessarily to be taken at face value. To work out the truth, or what you perceive it to be, you need to watch a decent portion of clips. This is the strength of the approach taken, any few clips you watch aren't going to be enough, if you really want to understand you need to compare a number of clips from each of the interviews.
 

Longshanks

Augur
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
897
Location
Australia.
I might be completely off on this since I haven't played any "not games", but looking from outside I think what matters is "intent". Adventure games are about puzzles. Sure, everyone likes Guybrush, but MI is remember because it had good puzzles, not because Guybrush was cool. If you look at some interviews and discussions about old adventure games then they'll usually focus on puzzle design, how to design good puzzles, how to pace them to not overload the player, should there be "walking dead" situations and so on. Nobody is really talking about how to write cool story. Story is usually brought up only to make a point how puzzles and story shouldn't go into separate directions.

What I see in "not games" is that developers are not really interested in puzzles. They want to tell some kinda story or show something cool. Interactive elements come after that and usually not because developer wants them to add but feels that it is required - otherwise he won't be making a "game", but a movie. So puzzles and interaction are there more to "push the story forward" instead of providing gameplay.
I think there's two things. One is that which you describe here, a philosophical approach to game design. The other is media which is literally not a game, where there is no interaction other than something akin to turning the pages of a book. "Dear Esther" would fit into this for me, "Her Story" would not, though they both may fit the notgame philosophy.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
Good points, but I don't feel like without playing Her Story I can contribute anything further.

A good movie would have been better than Her Story (even if it is a one room setting, eg. The Interview with Hugo Weaving), but if you have decent, at best, acting and the silly narrative offered it needs the game element to make it worth any while. I would not have watched this as an 80 minute movie.

Some time ago I thought that this was precisely the reason why these projects are being sold as games. If they were released as movies/animations/books then they would be grinded to dust by critics of specific field. By chopping them up and introducing some minimal interactivity they can be sold as games and receive critical acclaim for pushing gaming "forward".
 

Gambler

Augur
Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
767
"Virtual dioramas to contemplate ancient religious themes in real-time 3D, created by avant-garde indie studio Tale of Tales."

"We should all have works of art in our pockets or on our laptops, for when the mood strikes, or when we need a moment of calm and focus. On top of convenience, computer graphics running in realtime are not confined to 2D static images anymore. Now we can create scenes that are three-dimensional and alive (and still fit in your pocket and can be shared generously)!"


Ten years ago this would be a parody. Now it's a KickStarter campaign.

...

Like Almondblight said above, people have explored all these avenues when they first became technically viable. Adventure games (which is less of a genre and more of a huge bin for things that don't fit anywhere else) covered a lot of ground with varying levels of interactivity and different gameplay mechanics. Then we got things like interactive fiction and demoscene. There were other flavors of interactive media too, but some of them weren't interesting enough and died off.

The only new thing I see right now is a swelling of pseudo-intellectual gaming pundits who create a nourishing environment for pretentious half-baked crap. (That Gamasutra article is a wonderful example.)

Notgames? What we're talking about is simply low-interactivity games. Nothing special or inherently novel about them. You can make one that's good, but it has to be good because of something. Being weird and mostly static does not cut it.

A good parallel here would be low-resolution graphics. You can compose a beautiful picture in 320x200, but that doesn't exempt you from knowing how to draw and it doesn't magically make your game more visually engaging than titles with normal, modern graphics.

It's rather telling that people who rave about these low-interactivity games often focus on the presentation rather than the (supposed) underlying ideas. They speak as if lack of interactivity makes the final product more artistic. That's a retrograde attitude. Literally. Kind of like saying that black-and-white movies are better, and silent film is the apex or cinematography.
 
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AN4RCHID

Arcane
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
4,714
This thing is coming out tomorrow



:bounce:that art design. I think I'm going to break and give it a shot.
 

DosBuster

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
1,861
Location
God's Dumpster
Codex USB, 2014
So, I'm excited about the future of these games. At the moment they are often ridiculed for their lack of gameplay, which is true, but I don't think that is going to be the case for too much longer.

Over time, as new designers with new ideas come into the industry and start to develop more of these games we will see an evolution where we solve the design problems associated with including gameplay. It has been said that games do need to separate themselves from film in order to truly find it's way in the art world, this genre has that aim in mind and is trying to make ground on succeeding in that idea of being this unique form of art that can co-exist with the others and not simply be "Interactive Film". Granted, it is still early but I truly believe that eventually this will grow into something great.
 

AN4RCHID

Arcane
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
4,714
Well Firewatch is not very good. I downloaded it this evening after work and finished it three hours later.

The scenery looks nice. I wished the game would leave me alone for a few minutes to explore it. It's a case of never having a goal that isn't explicitly pointed out on the map and explained by master game designer, god forbid making your own goal or choosing the best way to approach a situation. There's nothing to do anyway except move to the next point of interest and trigger the next dialogue.

At least it has a kind of cool dialogue system: responses are on a timer and the longer the player character doesn't respond the more the radio girl will talk. Not choosing anything is always an option and you just leave her hanging. Not sure if cutting her off ever actually has an effect. Unfortunately, I got the impression it's TWD level of cosmetic reactivity to your dialogue choices. Anyway the writing didn't do it for me at all.

Overall, nice trees :2/5:

they really are nice looking

M2gdCIF.jpg


fC6Fhvu.jpg


GrJJBQp.jpg


odxzk5F.jpg
 
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AN4RCHID

Arcane
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
4,714
You can disable the goal notifications and the map marker
But radio girl still tells you where to go and it's still marked on the map, and there's still nothing to do except walk from point A to point B. I tried to explore in random directions a few times but it's a small map and areas are locked off until the story sends you there. I might play it again just to try sequence breaking and test reactivity, but I'm not expecting much.
 

Jackalope

Arcane
Joined
Mar 11, 2011
Messages
531
Location
inside a giant mech suit
Firewatch seems fine so far. It's not really a game, but it's perfect if you just want to relax after work for a hour or so. It's pretty and the dialogs with radio girl are great.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
Despite of being atheists, we can’t help being intensely moved by some of the religious art made during the Gothic and Renaissance period. These experiences can’t convert us to Christianity but they do make us think about universal themes as kindness, self-sacrifice, patience, empathy, love, and so on. We feel they make us better people. These experiences are intense and often accompanied by tears. And they last! They stay with us, become part of us, tremendously improve our lives on this planet.

I'm sorry but... :what::what::what:
What's wrong? You don't like cathedrals and stuff?
 

1451

Seeker
In My Safe Space
Joined
Jan 1, 2011
Messages
1,368
Firewatch is decent for what it is, like Soma but less scary. The trailer was misleading, it made me think it would be a horror game.
My major complaint are the samey environments which, combined with the horrid map made me go to the wrong direction often.
The level from which consists the entire game is designed that way to increase completion time and make you think the game is bigger.

Some gameplay elements missing like swimming or climbing surfaces other than the designated for the story's progression become glaring when you hit a dead end such as a
certain fence and a lake
.
 

agentorange

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
5,256
Location
rpghq (cant read codex pms cuz of fag 2fa)
Codex 2012
watched someone play the entire thing on a stream. took 3 hours. shit looked gay as fuck.

these idiots go out of their way to make these mundane stories in order to prove how adult video games can be; but, at the end of the day, it is just an uninspired story told with nothing to set it apart from the hundreds of other stories like it.
 

Jackalope

Arcane
Joined
Mar 11, 2011
Messages
531
Location
inside a giant mech suit
Finished the game. Wasn't what I was expected. Too short and a bit too "serious" for me. I honestly don't mind all the walking, the game is real pretty, the voicework is stellar, but the story and the lack of any challenge kinda ruined it for me. Aslo, not really worth 20€, should be more like 5€.
 

AN4RCHID

Arcane
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
4,714
It could have used more walking tbh. For a game set in the wilds of Wyoming, the explorable land feels pathetically small and linear. With more open wilderness between objectives they could have made better use of the map and compass, showed off more of the environmental art, and mitigated the feeling that the game was so rushed and stingy.
 

Villagkouras

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2014
Messages
1,022
Location
Greece
Art was fine, dialogues were very good (you can queue things to say to Delilah and this makes the dialogue flowing), but the ending was anticlimactic for me and generally speaking the first couple of hours are better than the last, so it didn't satisfy me much. The intro was cool too. Definitely not worthy for its price, if you are not into pirating, wait for a sale.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
27,049
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Better yet, watch the dozen or so YouTubers that are currently playing it on their channels. But be prepared to yell at your monitor at mouthbreathers that can't find their way around even with a map AND a compass.

I did that (plus the yelling) and I felt like I had been watching a slow-paced film. From a gaming perspective it only did ONE thing that I found interesting, and that's the camera that's found in the game. The player can take photos of whatever he wants (until he runs out of film) and then at the end of the game the film gets developed and you can see all the photos you took in a montage during the credits...plus the handful of photos that have already been taken. If the game took that one step further and then saved those photos as images to your hard drive...that would be really cool.
 

jpbushi

Barely Literate
Joined
Dec 11, 2015
Messages
2
There is no real deconstruction going on, for that presumes a degree of critical thought and self-critique completely nonexistent in the typical developers of such pieces of shit. It's just hipsters being hipsters, metaphorically taking a dump on a Game Maker utility and labeling it art in a circlejerk with their fellow cultists of the churches of "progressives". It's not even gaming itself, but their fake, pretentious "notgames are art" that is in a serious need of being deconstructed, ridiculed and satirized without mercy until they crawl back to their "safe spaces", only leaving to flip burgers in a fast food joint for a living, and never go beyond their tiny cliques again.

*Edit:

I see where the AAA publishers are looking at: no gameplay equals near zero risk in game development and much smaller budgets outside of hype. Just marketing, bribery for the usual shills and it's a guaranteed success given the malleable masses can be manipulated to believe such postmodernist design is the "next-gen of gaming".
you seem really mad, friend. have you forgot to take your pills?
 

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