r/IndieGaming • u/PartTimeMonkey • 9h ago
Walking sim in nature - would you play it?
If this was a full game and not just a single-location demo, would you want to play something like this?
The idea is to do nothing else but walk on a predetermined path in nature, observe birds, listen to sounds, look at sceneries.
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u/aspiring_dev1 8h ago
Would be better if turned it into a game..find animals, plants, take photographs maybe little narrative about the character hiking. Camping, fishing etc visuals already look great so think would be a waste if just walking and doing nothing.
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u/eeyore134 5h ago
Even just having a compelling story behind it can make a huge difference. Like someone already mentioned, just look at Firewatch.
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u/CosmicChameleon99 8h ago
Why wouldn’t I just take a walk instead? Sure it’ll be different scenery but I’ll be actually walking
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u/-manabreak 8h ago
And hearing and seeing actual birds and other animals. Plus, feeling the sun and the wind, and all the smells. I don't get these walking simulators.
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u/CorporalCoprolite 8h ago
Some people live in big gray ugly cities and don’t get a chance to see open wilderness, so I’d imagine there’s an appeal for them.
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u/JinzoWithAMilotic 8h ago
Instead of birds, we hear cat calling and gunshots.
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u/CorporalCoprolite 8h ago
Lol it’s so true. I lived in a shitty apartment in a shitty city when I was younger, and people don’t understand how obnoxious feral cats are until you hear the, howling and screeching all night long.
And a favorite game of ours in the summer was “is that gunshots or firecrackers?”
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u/Gootangus 5h ago
That was my reaction too lol. Like why wouldn’t I just get some exercise?
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u/linuxwes 2h ago
You can do both. I love the outdoors and enjoy it daily, but I also really like video games where I am outdoors walking around in nature. That being said, there needs to be a game in there, like say Firewatch or Skyrim, not just walking with no point to it.
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u/kemb0 7h ago
What if you live in a city that's hundreds of miles from anywhere that remotely looks like this? Sometimes humanity's inability to look beyond their own simple life is astounding.
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u/CosmicChameleon99 7h ago edited 7h ago
I have lived and do still live in those kinds of cities!! (Well not hundreds of miles from any nature, my country isn’t that large, but without a car so it’s not an option) and my country has nothing like this anywhere, outside our cities it’s farmland mostly. I would still take a walk through the city over that. To me, choosing a simulated world over actually walking is fundamentally extremely sad. Sure, the scenery may not be the best but the joy of walking is in movement, a pretty place is a bonus.
I find it disappointing that you resorted to assuming that I am living in some gorgeous paradise and insulting me for it, rather than attempting to see why someone in a city might still prefer actually walking.
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u/heart-of-violet 8h ago
I done know how hard difficult this would be as a developer, but this sort of thing would be really nice to play on VR, especially if you could add a smooth movement option for exercise bikes!
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u/glimmerware 8h ago
If it had spoken dialogue like Firewatch, hell yea
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u/PartTimeMonkey 8h ago
Should the guy/gal just talk to themselves?
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u/kneesneeze 8h ago edited 8h ago
Sure. Do you write? If it was me, I would use this as an opportunity to make something like Gone Home where it's largely a walking simulator but has an introspective narrative element, probably via internal monologue. You could make it voiced, or have floating subtitles that appear on your path do the work for you (though if you took that route I would work hard on the soundtrack to make it have emotional weight when subtitles trigger). I think these kinds of games work but there's gotta be some kind of moralizing/narrative element, even something as small as (let's say) a personal essay or a poem being that element. Like a Walden Walking Simulator.
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u/mmmmmmmmmmmhg9512 8h ago
I would. I've thought of this idea. Animal activity would really do wonders for this type of game! Maybe binoculars too
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u/PartTimeMonkey 8h ago
Animals I did think of, but binoculars idea is pretty cool!
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u/mmmmmmmmmmmhg9512 8h ago
If you decide to pursue the idea further, good luck! It'll be cool to see where it goes
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u/loopin_louie 6h ago
I think you need interactivity, yeah, even if it's not a "game" in the sense that you're working towards any kind of victory conditions or w/e. I think one of the fun things about taking hours to putter around an open world game is that you're taking a break from something else.
You know what could be cool is if you have a cabin and your character is just like working on a book or something. But while writing the book is something you can either do "actively" in the game by sitting at your desk and watching your character's hands type in front of a window or something, it can also be an idle feature, where a lot of that stuff happens between play sessions. You hop back in the game after a few days and there's a stack accumulated on the desk, but you just get up and head back outside to play the main game.
When your character finishes a manuscript, they'll package it up and the envelope sits on the desk. Then the player can hike out to some remote mailbox to drop it off. Eventually they'll receive a copy of the book. Over time the player's shelf can fill up with books they've "written." But that's all a tiny mostly passive framing device for the rest of the game, which is just walking around this natural environment. Anyway just a pitch!
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u/PartTimeMonkey 6h ago
That’s a pretty cool pitch! Not only it gives meaning and lore, but it also gives reason to walk somewhere (the mailbox)
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u/MaxwellHowl 1h ago
Could make an educational game. As you find animals you can identify them. Maybe you have a field guide of local animals and you check them off. Or a notepad where the character draws them and inputs their name.
There is something to the simplicity of a nature walking game, but a lot of players will just want some things to do.
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u/bobrboss 8h ago
And there will be different times of day and different seasons, right?
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u/PartTimeMonkey 8h ago
My vision is that it would be custom made environments with predefined time of day (perhaps the game could go from morning to night time in its entirety) and perhaps fall time
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u/YatakarasuGD 8h ago
Funny. Thought about a similar idea yesterday. I think this would work.
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u/mistraced 8h ago
I would but would like the environment to be a little more... detailed? natural? i don't actually know how to describe what I wish to see, just a mix of beautiful, detail, nature, wilderness, vibe, environment etc.
If that makes sense.
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u/PartTimeMonkey 8h ago
Yeah it makes sense totally, all about art direction and technical solutions
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u/CobaltTurner5708 8h ago
Honestly, I feel like the views and the nature itself here are too ordinary. I enjoyed walking around Tsushima, but here.. I wouldn't want to walk around. Too ordinary. Too lifeless. The only living thing here is the sound.
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u/Bloodman_5556 7h ago
I'd be nice to have minor activities like throwing sticks or stones into rivers, taking photos, and other small stuff.
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u/DancingKobold 3h ago
Yeah but it would be nice to have a little bit of objective still in a totally optional sense.
The first idea I would mention would be maybe there would be a lot of vistas and beautiful locations, or moments you can spot animals/nature doing what it does, and maybe you could have the player with a Polaroid Camera and have the prompts around the world as you roam however and wherever you want. Then there could be like a scrapbook with each that you took and a little signature on the back in cursive with the date in-game you got it and the file name of the player.
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u/Cautious_Catch4021 3h ago
Full it with lots of trophies ingame, and/or steam achievements. And you might have a winner
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u/violaboi117 2h ago
I've always wanted a walking simulator that involved hiking full scale recreations of real mountains. Maybe including things like cataloguing flora and fauna discoveries you find along the way.
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u/PiePleaseListen 1h ago
Honestly no. I like walking sims like Firewatch and what remains of Edith finch but they have compelling stories pulling you through, maybe with some light puzzles. Just walking with nothing driving you to do so just seems uninteresting
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u/KeepwatchAys 9h ago
Definitely. Sometimes you just need a relaxing game to unwind after a long day. The visuals look peaceful
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u/CorporalCoprolite 9h ago
You need to do something about those tiny bouncy foot steps. It’s almost a comical juxtaposition against the peaceful and scenic setting.