Walking Simulator Design

[u/JupiterMaroon]

Hi everyone!
I barely post on reddit but I thought this would be a good place to post. For the past few years I’ve been working on a prototype for my walking sim. My goal fron the beginning was to create a gme where the point is to travel from one place to another on foot, but to make the walking the main mechanic that the player is engaging with. I wanted to create this because I loved the big open worlds of AAA games but felt like walking in them was not engaging enough in terms of interactivity, not just the graphics and art. So my game has a balance system, a body simulation system, and a cure system.
So my main inspirations were Gone Home, Metal Gear Solid (3 and 5) Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Project Zomboid, Death Stranding, and Baby Steps.
Right now I have a prototype with the player system, IK with animations, body sim, balnce sim, procedural trip hazards, procedural terrain, various mini-games (water drinking, stair climb, bandage apply), a weather/time+day system, cinematic system, save/load.

My big thing with this project is that all the systems are in place, but my lack of level design experience makes it hard to create an environment where this system feels natural, and more importantly, fun. How can I create a more fun system while also sticking to the original goal of making walking engaging?

For example, if im jogging in the game for a while, then the player runs low on stamina, which causes the “heavy exhertion” body sim moodle. So of course I press a button to sit down and recover, and once I recover the stamina, I stand up and keep walking. It does NOT feel fun to do this, but I am getting stuck finding a solution for it. Can anyone share some expertise?

[u/MarkM3200]

You're basically asking Reddit to come up with a game concept for you. It doesn't sound like you actually have a core concept, you just have a bunch of tedious filler content. Procedurally generated navigational challenges, tasks for drinking water, a stamina system designed to force the player to stop making progress. None of that is interesting in the slightest, and will actively guard any interesting content that you add later.

You need to answer the question of "why should someone want to play my game?" And that's something that you should come up with yourself. Reddit isn't very helpful at answering broad, conceptual questions, because it doesn't know your vision for your game. Go play around with the games that inspired you, and think about what makes you want to play them. I guarantee that it's not the procedural terrain or the stamina bars.

[u/Pallysilverstar → u/MarkM3200]

Agreed. I enjoy non combat games but everything that was listed just sounds annoying af and not fun.

[u/theStaircaseProject]

You have the toy so now it needs to serve a game.

My push is for a core experience, whether you want it to be a mystery scavenger hunt in a haunted woods at night or a building-stomping monster rager or something else. Your project needs an artistic lighthouse to make sense of everything.

Nicole Lazzaro’s 4 Keys 2 Fun is a great infographic that can help point your game in a consistent direction. Once you’ve identified which “fun” direction you want to take players, give them goals that require using their character’s mechanics to succeed.

I think leveraging how your sandbox currently works will help unify the game more. If the character has trouble turning and you haven’t gotten that fixed, maybe there’s an in-game reason for it and it becomes a quirky constraint.

How the mechanics get used though should relate directly to the goals of the core experience.

Why would the player want to invest time in your game? Will your game offer something unique?

[u/Frikitin]

Death Stranding. The game is not about managing a stamina bar, that is boring. It is about finding the best route from A to B, and stamina has to be a limiting factor, so that you are rewarded to find a good path. Pair that with you having to detour to get water, food etc and you have a solid base.

[u/scrollbreak]

I loved the big open worlds of AAA games but felt like walking in them was not engaging enough in terms of interactivity

What interaction were you imagining?

[u/Jaffiusjaffa]

Reminds me a bit of qwop aha

[u/PckMan]

Maybe don't try to do too much with the movement. It is your game of course but there needs to be a good balance between mechanics. Just off the top of my head let's examine some games that I consider to make traversal engaging.

The Long Dark. Traversal is difficult due to the environment. You can't walk forever because you need to manage your energy and temperature. If you move too fast or jump around you will get injured. It's very engaging but the movement itself is pretty much the classic walking sim wasd affair. So it comes down to managing your speed, picking your path and planning ahead because you can't just beeline it to wherever willy nilly. The movement itself is not complicated but it is a challenge.

RV there yet. Literally a game for going from A to B. The whole game hinges on good map design. The RV itself is very capable but the simple limitation of having to drive it in first person is enough of a challenge for most players. The whole map is designed to be hard to traverse for the RV, not the players. It's a short but fun game.

My summer car/My winter car and Junkyard Truck. Two great walking sims, genre defining even, and a "copycat" that manages to iterate on the formula in an interesting way. In My summer car the obstacle is not the world itself but rather your vehicle. The roads are mostly straightforward but the challenge is to actually get your car to work right and to control it. Junkyard Truck does the same but it also makes the map an obstacle as you have to haul loads around and improve your car's performance to get through certain sections.

Kerbal Space Program. A game all about going places. The challenge is both with the vehicle and the environment. These combine to make a challenge that you really have to think your way through and the feeling of satisfaction is immense.

Dark Souls. The classic risk vs reward system of "do I keep going to get more rewards or do I lock in gains but make it harder for my next run?"

All of these games have satisfying traversal, none of them are particularly complicated but know how to make a satisfying gameplay loop out of it. Your inspirations are all solid but you have to consider if you want to keep all mechanics.

In your example I would try to make resting more of a choice than a chore. Maybe there should be a risk vs reward aspect to when you choose to rest. Maybe you shouldn't be able to rest anywhere at any time. Maybe resting without food/water should not be very effective. Maybe carrying supplies so that you can replenish your energy also penalises you by making you heavier and more unstable. Maybe you can only rest at predetermined spots and the player can see the next rest station in the distance with two diverging paths to get there. Make them make a choice. How much should they pack? Which route to take. Should they rest on the next station or should they power through? Make them make a choice, make them make a plan, give them a reason to be proud for thinking their way out of a problem.

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[u/Aeris16]

My two sense (as a horror lover) is something is following you. You have to get from A-->B in a set time before it gets to you. as your stamina decreases so does your sanity, and vice versa. But as everyone else pointed out you have a mechanic and you're asking us for a game... and the mechanic of walking is very bland and tedious.

[u/Quantumtroll]

I like walking simulators that combine exploration and discovery with puzzle solving. The puzzles provide a reward and a reason to explore, and gives the player something to mull over while walking.

In your concept, the walking is the point. I don't think I'd play a game about walking around for no particular reason. Perhaps, the walking "puzzle" keeps the player occupied while exploring, and the game is actually about exploring an alien civilization/ancient ruin/ghost town.

[u/Mordomacar]

You need a design goal beyond "walking is engaging" and an intended player experience beyond "walking through the world". You don't have to give these up, but you need to add to them.

Even if the process of walking is engaging in and of itself, the player still needs a goal to walk towards or at least a reason to change position. An empty world to walk around with mechanics that make traversal realistically tedious would be a very niche game.

What kind of goals you choose and what sort of mood you want the game to have will inform how you tackle mechanical questions like the one about stamina. A game where you're walking through the woods because something is stalking or chasing you will handle stamina differently from a game where you're a hiker trying to reach a landmark or cabin while avoiding bad weather and unsafe grounds or one where you're just on a clear path and competing for a time trial.

Same goes for level design. You'll always want to signpost the intended path, place little hint for secrets etc, but the mood of the world design and the kind of challenges you build into the world (in your case based around traversal and stamina management etc.) depend on the experience you want the player to have with your game.

[u/JupiterMaroon]

Thanks for the responses! I will look into how to turn the scattered mechanics I have into an actual cohesive game. I guess I was kind of under the illusion of a game but I am now realizing I just have a bunch of systems that do stuff together and I haven't even figured out why the player should be motivated to even do them. I also have a story fleshed out for the game but I am focusing the prototype before applying anything to the story side of it. I might post again if I have an update on what I decided as my solution, I will probably go into more detail if it ends up fun :3

[u/zer0_state]

On the stamina example specifically: the sit-and-wait is boring because recovery is a dead stop with no choice in it. Two small changes might help. Let a slow walk recover stamina, so resting becomes a pacing decision you make while moving rather than a pause. And make spending it buy something, like sprinting to beat weather or cross a bad section of ground, so running low is the cost of a choice you made earlier instead of the game punishing you. Frikitin's Death Stranding point fits here too: the interesting part is route and terrain reading, with stamina only making that reading matter.