Games in which you walk (and get immersed) - Piotr Migdał Games in which you walk (and get immersed)<br>27 Jun 2019 | by Piotr Migdał<br>originally published on Medium

I don’t care if something is a “true game” or a non-game interactive experience. I do care if I got immersed with awe, curiosity or dread. Some time ago I wrote:

(On finding your personal, traumatic wolf)

Will you head to a beacon to your own end

Or drink a poison so you can live again?

Will you watch your maker gasping his last breath

Or wake in the depths years after your death?

Will you sacrifice your love, childhood’s friend

Or flirt with a stranger amidst the fiery end?

Each line is from a game. To reduce the spoiler potential, here are these, in alphabetic order (with one extra): Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Dear Esther, Firewatch, Life Is Strange, The Path, SOMA, The Stanley Parable, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Games below take from a few hours to 2–3 days, and won’t ruin your schedule. Unless you start playing a day before a deadline and get immersed.

Games I recommend

The Path

Play<br>An oniric (and occasionally nightmarish) game on a girl’s journey.

As in the Red Little Riding Hood, you need to reach to your grandmother’s house. The path is straight. But… the dark forest is much more interesting. There is a wolf. Your wolf.

Not a game, but certainly an unsettling psychological exploration.<br>Story? Interpretation?<br>Coming to age? Rites of passage? Irreversible trauma?<br>Well, it’s up to you.

One of the first games in that genre (2009).

Recommend if : You like exploring emotions. Like a forest. You are here to experience rather than achieve.

It takes : 3–6 h. It took me around a day, not in one sitting, as it is a bit open-ended.

Life is Strange

Play<br>It covers various social issues of socializing in college with its all shady parts (including a very realistic depiction of bullying, which moved me the most), in a mildly supernatural setting (but characters and social interactions feel very real ).

Episode 1 is free and takes ~3h. You can safely play it this Sunday, and yes, totally do so especially if you are not a gamer (many, many non-gamer friends of mine love it). No excuses! 4–5 aren’t free but are worth any price!

(There is a prequel Before the Storm and another story LiS 2 , but more or less there is a consensus that there are not nearly as good as the original one.)

Recommend if : just recommend. No ifs!

It takes: 14–18 h. It took me 2 days (“while playing episode one let’s just download others…”); missed a deadline but don’t regret it any tiny bit!

Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Play

“The Sleeper must not Sleep!”

There are puzzles. The game puzzles are simple. The story, as a puzzle.

It does not scare you, as SOMA or Amnesia . But… I liked the story unfold, with pieces coming together, and more and more things making sense in the retrospect (a bit in the spirit (no pun intended!) of The Sixth Sense ).

Recommend if : you like Lovecraftian stories, Amnesia, The Sixth Sense or just looking at the gorgeous autumn sunset.

It takes : 4 h, apparently. It took me something like 1.5 days (I was wandering a bit).

Dear Esther

Play

“I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom; I will fly to the moon in it. I have been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life. Now, you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me; I can see your traces in the ink that soaks through the fibre, the pulped vegetation. When we become waterlogged, and the cage disintegrates, we will intermingle. When this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together.”

The least a game of a game. You walk, through a path, no crossroads. Short, sad, and visually stunning (and poetic).

Recommend if : are easily moved by visual scenery, appreciate sad poetry.

It takes : 1.5 h.

SOMA

Play

“I mean if we are able to save even a small piece of ourselves … why wouldn’t we do that?”

Something close to Amnesia (survival horror, scary because of atmosphere/story, not — gore) and a bit — to Bioshock (not only superficially (underwater base), but in being densely story-driven and mocking some utopia).

X-risk, mind uploading, gray goo — nerd’s paradise. And while I am skeptical of “games asking philosophical questions” (because they tend to be shallow, pretentious) or patronizing) this time I felt the questions I had been thinking about.

Also, kept getting flashbacks for the next few months or so. A really good bad trip.

Oh, some people recommend playing it without monster: SOMA Mod Stops Monsters From Attacking, Improves The Game. I think it is a good piece of advice — while there is some challenge in avoiding monsters (and the death screen is interesting on its own), it is a story, and hide-and-seek with monsters is a distraction.

Recommend if : like Amnesia or are a transhumanist (especially one too optimistic about mind uploading). Can appreciate (and handle) a...