What first started out in an anthology, was thought further as a journalistic article, later turned into ramblings on Facebook and a blog post, has now reached its final transformation: public historian Felix Zimmermann (who did most of the writing) and myself fleshed out the idea, that we need a better term than »Walking Simulator« to describe a fundamental aesthetic change in computer games. You can read our scientific article about the »Ambience Action Game« in the latest issue (Vol. 5, No. 2) of Press Play or download it right here:
When the ambience action game brings the player into a latent state of pause, it fills the emerging void with the action of the game world — the ambience act. For some players, this might seem like a humiliating idea, being less important than the world around them. But it mustn’t be.
Zimmermann, Felix; Huberts, Christian (2019) From Walking Simulator to Ambience Action Game: A Philosophical Approach to a Misunderstood Genre. In: Press Start, 2019, Band 5, Heft 2, 29 – 50
