Target audience: Anyone looking for a calm game with not much violence, Age 9+
Name of the game: Walk Master
Game’s Creator: Two Men and a Dogs Game
Platform of the game: iOS, Android
Initially when I saw this question, I was a bit confused at first because when I think of walking I just think of it as a human function that is necessary to perform to get from one place to another. So with that in mind, I was confused as to how walking could tell a story. This was until I played the walking similar game called The Walk Master on my iPhone and was able to see similarities and relevant metaphors to my own personal everyday life.
In the Walk Master simulation, the player is navigating through the land using stilts. This means that the player must maintain balance on each stilt as it makes its way to the end of the play field. I found the concept of this super interesting because it reminds me of the idea of walking through theobstacles of life due to the balancing component. I personally f
eel like I relate to this because I’m always pretty busy due to my outside involvements, making me feel like I’m juggling to balance all my time to get everything I need to get done . I also feel like the objective of reaching the end of the land reminds me of how it feels to break through obstacles since we make it to the finish line while on stilts which are representative of the unpredictability of life.
Ethics Question Response:
When playing violent games in the most recent section, I found it to be very interesting the levels of creative freedom that players had. Due to the fact that the game was based on roleplay, it made violence a factor of no limitation and of complete freedom. I found this to be a very interesting experience considering I have not played role playing games before and found it fun to have this much freedom in the choices that are made. Unlike The Walk Master, the violence in the games that were played in section were
done more with intent; however, the walking simulation has unintentional violence because the main objective is to stay on the stilts until you get to the finish
line and if you fall, you get injured which can be seen as a violent component. However, in this case, the violence is not planned while in the game I played during section murder was the main objective of winning the game. Therefore, there was definitely more violence present in the section roleplaying games than there was in the walking simulator especially since the walking simulator’s violence is based on natural means since a human falling while walking is a normal occurrence of violence.
From the game played in the section, I definitely learned how violent elements can play a big role in telling a game’s story. In the specific game that was picked for my team, the overall story/objective of the game was to kill murder which shows how violence was the main premise of the game. Unlike the walking simulator, it doesn’t use any violent elements as the main component of the game but rather as a potential consequence.
