By Jim Rossignol on May 9th, 2012 at 10:30 pm.
It’s not often that anyone gets to ask “What would Thoreau’s Walden look like as a game?” without it being a rambling speculative conversation in a pub. Indeed, you have to be in a certain sort of position – say a group of academics at a Californian University – for anyone to take that seriously, much less provide a $40,000 grant to make it happen. Fortunately, that’s precisely what has come to pass, via a National Endowment For The Arts project. And so we are to get Philosophical Writer Living In the Woods Simulator or Walden, A Game. One of the speculative few, USC Associate Professor Tracy Fullerton, has been quoted as saying: “We anticipate a rich simulation of the woods, filled with the kind of detail that Thoreau so carefully noted in his writings.” So we look forward to that. We can also check out the trailer, which is below.
(Thanks to everyone who sent this in with a note saying “Jim, this seems like your sort of thing”, and made me worry I am becoming a caricature of myself…)
09/05/2012 at 22:36 wcanyon says:
The amazing thing here is that Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me beat you to this story. How did *that* happen? Magnets, probably.
09/05/2012 at 22:40 circadianwolf says:
Wouldn’t this basically be Minecraft in peaceful mode?
Curious what they come up with.
09/05/2012 at 23:34 municipalis says:
That’s what I was thinking. Except I imagine in this case it looks like the world is pretty tiny, the geography is more-or-less the same, movement is entirely horizontal, and your character can’t go any faster than a slow plod.
As interesting as the concept is, I have trouble seeing this as anything more than an “Art Game”. Even if it had a dynamic wildlife, weather, seasonal and personal-needs simulations, actual excitement will be pretty limited. What I’m guessing this will actually be is more around the level of a static world with some mini-games (fishing, berry-picking, pooping in the woods) and as you explorer around and complete these inane objectives a narrator will read out various passages of Walden.
10/05/2012 at 04:38 mixnsyv says:
Give-You-a-Surprise Wooden Box (Practical Joke,) to scare him! Ha ha! http://vo.to/61xz5
09/05/2012 at 22:42 asshibbitty says:
omg omg. Hope they keep all the extraneous punctuation too.
09/05/2012 at 22:46 shinyshez says:
Awesome I guess. I got to visit Walden last summer, not as peaceful anymore…
09/05/2012 at 22:55 Smashbox says:
When I got out of my car in the parking lot at Walden Pond, “Thoreau” sidled up and asked from whence I came. His house was in the middle of a parking lot.
10/05/2012 at 01:07 Dances to Podcasts says:
Imagine how he feels about it.
10/05/2012 at 01:16 jaundiceclosure says:
“Thoreau ” or Thoreau ?
10/05/2012 at 02:51 rama says:
he’s dead. So he feels dead right now….
10/05/2012 at 02:51 rama says:
That’s actually a replica house not built on the original. His house is far off in the woods far aways from the public swimming area
10/05/2012 at 04:26 miuyabz says:
Only someone wasting their time on gaming and work can come up with such an absurd comment.
http://gameinternals.com/post/3364162387/straightening-out-final-fantasy-xs-sphere-grid
10/05/2012 at 09:34 pipman3000 says:
what’s with the link you posted i clicked on it because i really wanted to straighten out ffx’s sphere grid and it took me to some store page for a camera
10/05/2012 at 11:45 Peco says:
Obviously you need a Waterproof Digital Camcorder to straighten out the sphere grid
09/05/2012 at 22:50 a_hat says:
Will it let me eat poisonous berries? I need to know if I can die really ingloriously, over and over, at Walden Pond.
09/05/2012 at 23:02 Hoaxfish says:
Is that like blinking manually?
09/05/2012 at 23:23 BatmanBaggins says:
Probably more like breathing manually
09/05/2012 at 23:17 BobbleHat says:
If ever there was an introspective contemplation sim to utilize the beauty of the Frostbite 3 or Cryengine, it should have probably been this one.
09/05/2012 at 23:20 BatmanBaggins says:
Er, ok. Not sure that a game is the appropriate medium to translate Walden (of all things) into, but good for them.
09/05/2012 at 23:25 yhancik says:
But that’s how you capture the attention of the newer generations!
09/05/2012 at 23:36 Freud says:
I want the “Into the Wild” achievement.
10/05/2012 at 00:14 maninahat says:
Should I be ashamed of not having the slightest clue what this Walden thing is? I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.
10/05/2012 at 00:50 rivalin says:
In short; if you’re an American, yes, you should know what it is, if not, less so. If you’re a continental European, you can make some witty remark about the derivative nature of American romanticism, and if you”re Scottish you can just call Thoreau a self-indulgent c**t.
10/05/2012 at 03:56 pipman3000 says:
it’s those books where you got to find the find the guy in the red-white striped shirt
10/05/2012 at 07:33 Toberoth says:
I like this.
10/05/2012 at 12:34 yhancik says:
Oh RPS, you never disappoint <3
10/05/2012 at 00:27 avp77 says:
Is his virtual mother going to come by and take care of his laundry?
(I actually liked the book and Thoreau himself, but the reality isn’t as romantic)
10/05/2012 at 00:40 InternetBatman says:
I can’t think of a less worthy book to translate into a new genre than Walden pond. Thoreau lived on the charity of friends, and then wrote that he was better than them because he had time to read philosophy.
10/05/2012 at 00:53 Peco says:
Only someone wasting their time on gaming and work can come up with such an absurd comment.
10/05/2012 at 01:11 Dances to Podcasts says:
Except for the man who thought the Sarphatistreet was the prettiest street in Europe, I have never known a more wonderful fellow than the scrounger.
10/05/2012 at 12:25 Peco says:
At least Thoreau read and wrote philosophy and didnt sit staring at the sea all day!
10/05/2012 at 00:47 MadTinkerer says:
So it’s an FPS, then.
Well, were we expecting any different?
EDIT: Ooooh, if this is Source, we can put the map in Garry’s Mod and live quite deliberately indeed.
EDIT 2: Dear David,
I finally escaped that damn island where nothing makes sense, only to find myself stuck here. I still can’t find Ester, though I did manage to find your cabin and your food supplies. Tomorrow I plan to pack up every useful item I can find and head off East, or at least sunrise-ward. If I make it home, call me and I’ll pay you back for the stuff I’ve taken. But knowing my luck I’ll end up in some other strange place.
As long as it’s not that castle with the invisible monsters again, I should be fine.
Your truly,
E. D.
10/05/2012 at 10:32 absolofdoom says:
Yes, you shoot fish with guns.
WTF, man, it’s not an fps.
10/05/2012 at 01:24 jaundiceclosure says:
Wow, I played this game already. I’m sure Walden doesn’t have the budget to include the bustling city which was near his home, but I got to recreate the whole experience in Battlefield 3.
I was lured by the swaying trees and the rays of sunlight breaking through the canopy. I couldn’t resist walking away from the beaten path of booming tanks and burning jeeps and into the idle pastures. So bored of its multiplayer, I had to make it new. I found a cold river and contemplated life and the cosmos and maybe coming back here sometime with a tank in order to sit in its shade and enjoy this sunny scenery with an extended life expectancy. Alas I kissed the river goodbye and that was the end of Walden, a Game in BF3.
10/05/2012 at 01:35 marcusfell says:
That shaky camera looks more like a mech than a human. Did Walden have two prosthetic legs?
10/05/2012 at 08:02 JB says:
I agree. It was like a Robocop first-person forest-explore-em-up. Or maybe some sort of AT-ST picnic sim.
10/05/2012 at 05:16 Muzman says:
Dear Hunter?
10/05/2012 at 09:21 Ragabhava says:
We in Germany have already “Hermit Simulator1″ and 2. A game in which you are to live in absolute reclusion with minimal interaction with the outside world.
I am actually looking forward to “Isolation Tank” simulator for absolute sensory deprivation during my gaming hours!
10/05/2012 at 10:43 frightlever says:
Thirty bucks would have got them a copy of Skyrim.
10/05/2012 at 18:37 sanchox says:
will stick to my UnReal World, but thanks for the offer. http://www.jmp.fi/~smaarane/urw.html
10/05/2012 at 19:40 dogsolitude_uk says:
I’ll hold out for the sequel: “On Civil Disobedience”, where it’s your duty to cease co-operation with a corrupt Government and, erm, I dunno, stop paying your council tax and generally go round breaking unjust laws or something.
10/05/2012 at 20:26 Cryo says:
So it’s a computer simulation of a simple life unencumbered by technology. Somehow this affair strikes me as a bit insincere.
12/05/2012 at 06:15 Chubzdoomer says:
A Walk Through A Forest: The Game
19/05/2012 at 02:35 Josh W says:
If they put some real work into making this function, it could have some good ideas in it for other simulative games, although in itself it seems like it could be a pretty steep challenge.