I played a walking simulator called Babbdi, developed by Sirius and Léonard Lemaitre and published by Lemaitre Bro. I downloaded it off Steam to play on my Mac, but it runs on a variety of PC operating systems. I would say the target audience might be 14+, since there does not seem to be any clear violence from what I experienced, but there are definitely unsettling undertones and the feeling that something violent could occur.
I spent the first minute simply exploring the mechanics of moving around. I did not have a mouse, so it was definitely a bit challenging to turn to face the correct direction in which I wanted to move. Also, pressing the same buttons seems to accomplish overlapping functions. For example, you can press “E” to pick up an object, drop that object, or talk to a person. You can right click to advance to the next dialogue or use an object. This can lead to some confusing situations, when, for example, I want to advance the dialogue but not use an object. At the very beginning of the game, I almost hit Asker with a baseball bat I picked up when instead I just wanted to advance the dialogue. However, this did not seem to actually do anything to him. I tested this later in the game as well, and hitting people with objects does not seem to hurt them or do anything to them. Therefore, it seems like Babbdi does not facilitate violence at all. Since people have no reaction whatsoever to being hit with objects, this provides no incentive at all for players to engage in violent activities.
I tried to explore the world as much as I could. My objective was to “get out of babbdi” and find the train station. I ended up finding the train station, but did not know how to get the train ticket, and spent most of my time doing that. One of the people I talked to instructed me to visit the information table near the canal. However, I did not know where or what the canal was. I think perhaps more labels or a map that I could open would help me have a bit more direction of where to go instead of wandering seemingly aimlessly. The only landmark that was labelled was the train station itself.
I enjoyed the artwork itself. It made for a very cohesive experience, and definitely amplified the creepy vibe. I also really enjoyed the music. It was very uneasy. The music would swell and calm down depending on what I was doing in the game, which helped me understand which interactions or explorations might be significant compared to others.
Babbdi itself seemed to me like a barren, polluted wasteland. There are people there, but all of them seem depressed and ill. Several of the people referenced different illnesses, either their own or other people’s. While at first, I was unsettled, eventually as I talked to more and more NPCs, I felt the urge of wanting to help them escape Babbdi as well. Even though there was no clear violence, there was definitely suffering. Therefore, the main ethical issue I saw is that many of the people seem to be living in poverty and illness, but the game does not provide any real way to intervene or support them. I am not sure if the game should encourage me (the player) to escape even when others cannot. Overall, I definitely enjoyed the aspect of exploring the backstory behind what happened in Babbdi, but the goal of the player to escape Babbdi was a bit more difficult to grapple with.
