The Chinese Room Fires Almost Entire Staff- "We're done with doing walking sims and story stuff" - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52723662]SOMA was a fantastic walking simulator; so was Penumbra: The Black Plague and Pathologic and The Void. There's plenty out there that do just fine and deserve more praise than they receive.[/QUOTE] You mean Penumbra: Requiem (which as far as I know is more a puzzle game)? The Black Plague definitely isn't just a walking simulator. And I don't know about Pathologic, I've never been able to figure that game out but it seems to have enough mechanics to make it more of a detective, adventure kinda game than just a walking simulator?

[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52723662]SOMA was a fantastic walking simulator; so was Penumbra: The Black Plague and Pathologic and The Void. There's plenty out there that do just fine and deserve more praise than they receive.[/QUOTE] The first two Penumbra games are far from walking simulators considering you had to beat spiders to death with a pickaxe or solve a damn morse code.

[quote]The first two Penumbra games are far from walking simulators[/quote] The first Penumbra (Overture): Yes. The second Penumbra (Black Plague): No. Only the first game has a (intentionally excessively clunky and difficult to use) combat element. [QUOTE=MrJazzy;52723680]You mean Penumbra: Requiem (which as far as I know is more a puzzle game)? The Black Plague definitely isn't just a walking simulator. And I don't know about Pathologic, I've never been able to figure that game out but it seems to have enough mechanics to make it more of a detective, adventure kinda game than just a walking simulator?[/QUOTE] P:TBP: I could concede that it rubs shoulders with the Adventure genre (as do all Frictional Games titles) but it's far more walking sim than it is adventure game in my eye. I play a lot of Adventure Games and P:TBP just doesn't fit nicely into the Adventure genre. Pathologic: It's 90% walking from place to place. It's a pretty contemplative game where you're constantly trying to minimize the amount of time you spend getting from A to B - dodging encounters and whatnot - but you do that mainly through choosing where you walk. There are combat elements, talking elements, quest elements, and so forth - but ultimately the game is about walking and exploring the world. It is very slow and deliberate about itself - and that feeling of slow and creeping deliberation and desperation depends on the player's relatively slow movement speed through the world. Only the Bachelor of those characters available in Pathologic emphasizes the more combative elements of the game. Part of the reason why people have a hard time getting into it is that they go in expecting it to not be a walking simulator - they expect something much faster paced with many more gameplay elements. The marketing shows you fighting with knives in an alley but the game [I]punishes[/I] you for doing so. You can talk with everyone if you like, and everyone has lots of things to say like it were any old RPG, but the game [I]punishes[/I] you for wasting your time speaking to folks who aren't relevant (and even more harshly punishes you for spreading particular info to particular people) or exploring areas that aren't material to what you're there for. It's far more a game about observation, time management, creeping around, and navigation than an Adventure game. The puzzles in it are very simple and are mostly about mentally putting concepts together rather than 'needing to find a key to unlock a door', trying to find items to use on other things, and so on. The real puzzle is 'what's happening, why, and how to stop it in time'. I say all that because Pathologic is very much a Simulator. You could call it a Survival Horror Simulator/RPG I suppose but Walking Simulator with Horror Elements and strong world-building fits much better. IPL exclusively makes that sort of game (minus 'Cargo: The Quest for Gravity'). You could call 'The Void' a combat RPG but nobody who plays combat RPGs would recognize it; it's far more a Walking Simulator with a very occasional 'shoot a thing that took you most of the game to gather enough resource to really fire, meanwhile trying your best to avoid the enemies walking about the world map'. In the same way as Pathologic - it's about choosing when to use what limited resources you have and otherwise walking/running around the world. Knock, Knock is the same. All you do is move around a house while attempting to conserve your resources.

[QUOTE=postal;52723654]My only problem with the term is how overused it's becoming with some people. Like don't get me wrong some games literally are just straight up walking simulators (IE dear esther and... well that's basically the only one I've played i think lol), but the way people throw it around anytime a game has any emphasis on extended periods of exploration is just silly lol. That's not a new concept in a game, metroid prime did that shit years ago, and I don't buy that whole 'evolving genre' talk either because again this isn't something new and if it's not just walking then there's already other genres that apply. As far as an example goes, I wouldn't call [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/487720/Agony/]Agony[/url] a walking simulator like others seem to. It's got fighting, puzzles, interaction with the environment, that whole possession mechanic, bosses, ways to die, all the standard shit. That's just another adventure game to me. idk 'Walking Simulator' for [B][U]some[/U][/B] clearly ADHD people seems to just be the new buzzword to throw around whenever a game has any quiet moments to it lol.[/QUOTE] And yet somehow people can pinpoint exactly to games that are walking simulators, and games that are not. But it's a genre that's harder to define than just "you walk and you look around lol". You have to consider the amount of puzzle, of action, of difficulty, and the kind of player the game is meant for. It's a category of games that has been clearly defined now. [editline]27th September 2017[/editline] Even walking sims can have boss fights, it depends a lot on the way the player must accomplish them.

[QUOTE=Loadingue;52723788]And yet somehow people can pinpoint exactly to games that are walking simulators, and games that are not.[/quote] yeah kinda like I just did? I think you missed the "[U][b]some[/b][/U]" on my post. my point was just that some people are over-using the term for games that shouldn't remotely be considered just a walking simulator just as a lazy insult rather than the valid label it can be. [quote]But it's a genre that's harder to define than just "you walk and you look around lol". You have to consider the amount of puzzle, of action, of difficulty, and the kind of player the game is meant for. It's a category of games that has been clearly defined now. [editline]27th September 2017[/editline] Even walking sims can have boss fights, it depends a lot on the way the player must accomplish them.[/QUOTE] I hear what you're saying but if there's really puzzles and fighting and action then that just sounds like an adventure game to me lol. Adventure games can have exploration in them, doesn't mean the game is now suddenly a walking simulator. Just seems weird we suddenly need a new label for [B]some[/B] of these games like Agony. Again tho, sometimes it can be a totally fair label.

If there's a reason that I'd shy away from the term "walking simulator", it would be that it's [i]too[/i] specific. Papers, Please and other games like it fall under the same umbrella without any actual walking, I think something like "environmental storytelling" is a more general and accurate descriptor. This genre and "Soulslikes" are the ones I'm waiting for a definitive name for.

[QUOTE=postal;52723810]yeah kinda like I just did? I think you missed the "[U][b]some[/b][/U]" on my post. my point was just that some people are over-using the term for games that shouldn't remotely be considered just a walking simulator just as a lazy insult rather than the valid label it can be. I hear what you're saying but if there's really puzzles and fighting and action then that just sounds like an adventure game to me lol. Adventure games can have exploration in them, doesn't mean the game is now suddenly a walking simulator. Just seems weird we suddenly need a new label for [B]some[/B] of these games like Agony. Again tho, sometimes it can be a totally fair label.[/QUOTE] Well I said it depends. But yeah, generally if there's action, it's not a walking sim, but it depends. INFRA is a walking sim but it has some action scenes. I really can't say for Agony, I've not played or followed it closely enough to know.

[QUOTE=gk99;52723422]Overly high praise.[/QUOTE] So overly high praise for a game one doesn't think deserves it should result in shitflinging and general fuckery? People eat shit. That's a given, and if a game really is shit, then whatever. But the sheer amount of anger, vitriol and stupidity I see involving this.. 'genre' is absolutely retarded and senseless. Especially once people seem to somehow take a personal offense to the game's existence and harass the devs for it.

[QUOTE=Tunak Mk. II;52723819]If there's a reason that I'd shy away from the term "walking simulator", it would be that it's [i]too[/i] specific. Papers, Please and other games like it fall under the same umbrella without any actual walking, I think something like "environmental storytelling" is a more general and accurate descriptor. This genre and [B]"Soulslikes"[/B] are the ones I'm waiting for a definitive name for.[/QUOTE] I'm pushing Stamina Action Game. Make it a thing.

[QUOTE=Tunak Mk. II;52723819]If there's a reason that I'd shy away from the term "walking simulator", it would be that it's [i]too[/i] specific. Papers, Please and other games like it fall under the same umbrella without any actual walking, I think something like "environmental storytelling" is a more general and accurate descriptor. This genre and "Soulslikes" are the ones I'm waiting for a definitive name for.[/QUOTE] TBH I don't really seeing it happening at this point. Nethack and Angband basically created their own subgenres but they still get put under the same "roguelike" umbrella regardless of how much they deviate from Rogue.

The good thing these days is that we don't have to define games by categorizing them as a single genre. Games usually have some mechanical aspects of atleast two or more genres, and it can sometimes be hard to nail them down to a single genre or even two genres, so I wouldn't get too caught up in it all - though there are definitely games that can be considered pretty much purely walking simulators like Dear Esther and games that are mostly walking simulators but sometimes maybe goes past the line of being another genre like survival horror, say Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs.

Personally, i dont mind exploration, in fact i love being able to explore worlds and learn about them without it being forced on me, but i dont like it if thats [i]all[/i] i'm doing. Metroid Prime is a great example, i feel, where it has a shitload of lore that you can choose to experience, in a game where you're mostly wandering around, but also you fight shit and it can get pretty tense. Obviously thats not something every game can do, but still.

[QUOTE=gk99;52723422]Overly high praise.[/QUOTE] By overly high praise did you mean receiving torrents of hate and toxicity for making something that offended some people for just existing?

[QUOTE=Loth;52724764]By overly high praise did you mean receiving torrents of hate and toxicity for making something that offended some people for just existing?[/QUOTE] More like receiving well-deserved flak after being hyped as some kind of revolution by the most pretentious side of games media, and turning out to be a two hours long "walk around and find the five whatevers" where nothing else really happens but it somehow it costs twenty dollars.

[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52723754]The first Penumbra (Overture): Yes. The second Penumbra (Black Plague): No. Only the first game has a (intentionally excessively clunky and difficult to use) combat element. P:TBP: I could concede that it rubs shoulders with the Adventure genre (as do all Frictional Games titles) but it's far more walking sim than it is adventure game in my eye. I play a lot of Adventure Games and P:TBP just doesn't fit nicely into the Adventure genre.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Firgof Umbra;52723662]SOMA was a fantastic walking simulator; so was Penumbra: The Black Plague.[/QUOTE] so we are considering games with challenges, puzzles and objectives, and MANY failure states walking sims... why? In Penumbra: BP you are literally chased down by naked dudes for most of the game. That is as far from a walking sim as you can get. There are even many puzzles that require you to actively solve them [I]while being chased[/I] In Soma you have to actively solve the puzzles behind how a monsters mechanics work to avoid said monsters. if you took all of the puzzles and monsters, failure states away then yeah, it'd be a walking sim. You could at least argue 'A machine for pigs' was a walking sim since, the challenge was virtually non-existant and the puzzles were near non-present. It's still far from P:BP and Soma even then since a majority of the game is walking. Grouping Dear Esther, Gone Home, Firewatch with Soma, Penumbra: BP is pretty absurd to see. I have no idea why you're grouping them together but no, they aren't walking sims. I don't even know where 'adventure' is coming from because that's another genre. It's broadly defined as [I]survival horror[/I], and has closer relation to the likes of RE or Silent Hill than Gone Home.

[QUOTE=jimhowl33t;52724860]More like receiving well-deserved flak after being hyped as some kind of revolution by the most pretentious side of games media, and turning out to be a two hours long "walk around and find the five whatevers" where nothing else really happens but it somehow it costs twenty dollars.[/QUOTE] It's almost like you're not forced to buy it and could just move on your way Hard cover books can over $50. Do you scream at them because they're too linear.

I whant to kill enemies in games

The thing is, i don't even hate stuff like Dear Esther, but you could still have a similar concept without it being a game. Imagine instead of it being a game, it was a series of randomized videos on a website, and every time you visited, you would get a slightly different experience, with slightly different locations, narration, music, and length. It would be a neat experience. This is why i gravitate to things like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter or The Stanley Parable. At least they have puzzles or play with player choice.

I really liked dear ester for the mood all of the assets put together conveyed. I wish the writing style wasnt less overly complex but I really like the effort that went into environnemental storytelling. Really reminded me of some part of the coast on hl2, but with more attention put on the environnement art, being a way shorter game, and more immersive in general. It's more an art project in a game engine, inspired by Alan Poe style litterature and british isles landscapes than a game project and that's completely fine. Just like Vanishing of EC was heavily inspired by lovecraft and might be the game that represented lovecraftian ideas the best yet. "Just moving around" is pretty powerful if the environnement is designed to be very immersive and is tied to the story really well, instead of moving from platform A to platform B. Stuff like designing a village like it'd be a real small british town in EGTR is something few games ever do and on a artistic environnental design pov it's interesting on its own. Ideas explored by theses game and other games like gone home or thomas was alone are then picked up by studios that have a budget and team for fully fledged games. The beginning of Uncharted 4 had some Gone home vibes near the easter egg bit for instance, and that really contributed to fleshing out the characters. Havent played the other witchers, but the Witcher 3 had some really cool quests youd solve with environnemental storytelling, finding the answer to the story and the quest at the same time, with a short monologue by Geralt just like the narrator in thoses games. Wether you like it or not thoses games contributed to the language other devs will use when designing storytelling, just like the ideas of avant garde movies that are not as compelling as most mainstream movies are then picked up later by the mainstream (Christopher Nolan didn't invent non linear story progression for instance) Tldr thoses games aren't the pinnacle of gaming and never pretended to be, but make other games better by exploring new creative ideas, and you dont even have to buy or play them.

[QUOTE=J!NX;52724867]so we are considering games with challenges, puzzles and objectives, and MANY failure states walking sims... why? In Penumbra: BP you are literally chased down by naked dudes for most of the game. That is as far from a walking sim as you can get. There are even many puzzles that require you to actively solve them [I]while being chased[/I] In Soma you have to actively solve the puzzles behind how a monsters mechanics work to avoid said monsters. if you took all of the puzzles and monsters, failure states away then yeah, it'd be a walking sim. You could at least argue 'A machine for pigs' was a walking sim since, the challenge was virtually non-existant and the puzzles were near non-present. It's still far from P:BP and Soma even then since a majority of the game is walking. Grouping Dear Esther, Gone Home, Firewatch with Soma, Penumbra: BP is pretty absurd to see. I have no idea why you're grouping them together but no, they aren't walking sims. I don't even know where 'adventure' is coming from because that's another genre. It's broadly defined as [I]survival horror[/I], and has closer relation to the likes of RE or Silent Hill than Gone Home.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I'm not really okay with Penumbra being a walking sim. But SOMA... It's pretty close, it had a lot of uneventful walking. For most of the game, you aren't in active danger.

[QUOTE=Loadingue;52725432]Yeah, I'm not really okay with Penumbra being a walking sim. But SOMA... It's pretty close, it had a lot of uneventful walking. For most of the game, you aren't in active danger.[/QUOTE] Soma has puzzles. It's closer to the original amnesia, made by the same studio. Tbh the story of Soma by itself would be an amazing scifi novel, and the visual design is great. Being a "walking sim" or not doesnt mean much and doesnt tell you if the game is interesting or not. Better have simple puzzles than being over ambitious and creating super frustrating gameplay because they didn't have the ressources to flesh it out. Vanishing of EC was made by veteran environnement design directors and it shows. People just make stuff theyre interested in making/are good at.

[QUOTE=Loth;52725040]It's almost like you're not forced to buy it and could just move on your way Hard cover books can over $50. Do you scream at them because they're too linear.[/QUOTE] It's almost like you're not forced to buy a game to make your opinion on it. Especially if the whole thing is on Youtube and it's so linear and uninvolved that watching a video doesn't take [i]that[/i] much away from the ~experience~. And if I were to buy a $50 book that got praised to hell and back by critics that define it "the start of a new era" or something, and it turned out to be that short and bland, I'd feel more than a little gypped. [editline]28th September 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Loth;52725392]Tldr thoses games aren't the pinnacle of gaming and never pretended to be, but make other games better by exploring new creative ideas, and you dont even have to buy or play them.[/QUOTE] Eh. Putting new and creative ideas in a game is one thing. Having one creative idea and release it on its own as a paid game is what I'd call a gimmicky cash grab.

[QUOTE=jimhowl33t;52725468] And if I were to buy a $50 book that got praised to hell and back by critics that define it "the start of a new era" or something, and it turned out to be that short and bland, I'd feel more than a little gypped.[/QUOTE] So you hate thoses games because some people enjoyed them. That's a crazy lack of integrity and independant thinking. And lol cheak youtube for 5s, almost every youtubers and critics who covered their games blasted them, some with genuine critique, some with nothing interesting to add and just pure bile. There's not liking something and criticising it and then there's shitting on it like it fucking killed a puppy. It's a crazy mentality you see in gaming, "HOW DARE YOU ASK MONEY FOR YOUR PRODUCT". Just dont fucking buy it if it's too much to you. If you did see that it wasnt for you on youtube, why are you complaining? That's what critics and youtube is for. We live in an age where it'd hard to not know what's in a game, just move on if it's not for you lmao.

I'll admit that SOMA is not a walking sim but it's pretty close. So close in fact, that there's a simple [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=560988617"]mod[/URL] that makes it a walking sim by making its (few) enemies not attack you.

[QUOTE=jimhowl33t;52724860]More like receiving well-deserved flak after being hyped as some kind of revolution [B]by the most pretentious side of games media[/B][/QUOTE] Omg a journalist I don't like liked this game!! I must now hate it because I hate this journalist more than I care about having my own opinions about things, even if I didn't actually have to pay for the game. It doesn't make any sense to pay attention to what this journalist says if I hate him, but i'll do it anyway and call the devs greedy assholes and puppy killers for daring to make a game that journalist I don't like liked.

Way to put words in my mouth, mate. I dislike that genre of games because, to me, they feel like the developers had a nice idea but stopped caring halfway through. They got down the walking and the collectibles, slapped a price tag on it, and called it a day. Smells a bit like laziness. And where, pray tell, have I said that they have no rights to ask for money? Sure they could ask 5 or 10 bucks for something like Gone Home but 20? That's a joke. I've bought other games for that much and they lasted me hundreds of hours, and it was clear that they had A TON of effort put into them. Something I really don't see in walking sims. But hey, nice job misconstructing my argument, making me sound like a raving fucking lunatic, and then acting all snotty and superior like "oh wow why do you even have opinions, just don't buy it lmao lol". Wow, congrats, really swayed my views with that one.

You legit said the devs deserved all the vitriol and the shit they got because "pretentious media praised it", and called them greedy. I'm not twisting anything, you made your position clear. It's absolutely ridiculous to get this mad over a price tag. Soma took every days of 5 years to make yet you paint thoses devs are malicious and greedy. If you want real cash grabs, look at a few models sold for $5 on the creation club, not indies busting their ass for years making a game and then releasing it to receive a torrent of hate. $20 is nothing for 5 years of someone's life, and if it's too much for you, cool, but don't paint devs like assholes when all they are doing is create stuff and selling it.

[QUOTE=Loadingue;52725536]I'll admit that SOMA is not a walking sim but it's pretty close. So close in fact, that there's a simple [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=560988617"]mod[/URL] that makes it a walking sim by making its (few) enemies not attack you.[/QUOTE] what kind of argument is this. you can claim any game is a "Walking simulator' if you have the ability to stop enemies from attacking you or whatever via mods.

My main issue with walking Sims is that I just feel like I could get a similar experience in a more compact format just by watching an immersive movie. So much of the time spent in walking simulators is looking at nothing particularly important to "soak in the atmosphere". Pacing is important but I don't think having the player slowly walk through a forest is the right way to go about it. The best walking sims seem to understand this and cut the fluff.

@Loth, You got some stuff backwards. I don't dislike the game because it was praised by a journalist I dislike; I dislike those journos because they started rimming mediocre games in the name of "progress". Thereby encouraging lazy shits like Sunset and others. Now, where have I mentioned SOMA? Like you and others said it doesn't really fit the walking sim template, and I have literally nothing to say about it. But hey, there you go putting words in my mouth again. And, do you seriously think I'm the mad one about it? All I did was saying that GH and similar games' pricetags and media praise should have been dialed down a notch, and you went on various tangents about how I apparently called them a bunch of skull-fucking puppy-raping degenerate thieves. Mayhaps I'm not the one who should chill the fuck down a little, eh?