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Wandering Games
An analysis of wandering within different game worlds, viewed through the lenses of work, colonialism, gender, and death.
Wandering in games can be a theme, a formal mode, an aesthetic metaphor, or a player action. It can mean walking, escaping, traversing, meandering, or returning. In this book, game studies scholar Melissa Kagen introduces the concept of “wandering games,” exploring the uses of wandering in a variety of game worlds. She shows how the much-derided Walking Simulator—a term that began as an insult, a denigration of games that are less violent, less task-oriented, or less difficult to complete—semi-accidentally tapped into something the vast heritage and intellectual history of the concept of walking in fiction, philosophy, pilgrimage, performance, and protest.
Kagen examines wandering in a series of games that vary widely in terms of genre, mechanics, themes, player base, studio size, and funding, giving close readings to Return of the Obra Dinn , Eastshade , Ritual of the Moon , 80 Days , Heaven’s Vault , Death Stranding , and The Last of Us Part II . Exploring the connotations of wandering within these different game worlds, she considers how ideologies of work, gender, colonialism, and death inflect the ways we wander through digital spaces. Overlapping and intersecting, each provides a multifaceted lens through which to understand what wandering does, lacks, implies, and offers. Kagen’s account will attune game designers, players, and scholars to the myriad possibilities of the wandering ludic body.
Wandering in games can be a theme, a formal mode, an aesthetic metaphor, or a player action. It can mean walking, escaping, traversing, meandering, or returning. In this book, game studies scholar Melissa Kagen introduces the concept of “wandering games,” exploring the uses of wandering in a variety of game worlds. She shows how the much-derided Walking Simulator—a term that began as an insult, a denigration of games that are less violent, less task-oriented, or less difficult to complete—semi-accidentally tapped into something the vast heritage and intellectual history of the concept of walking in fiction, philosophy, pilgrimage, performance, and protest.
Kagen examines wandering in a series of games that vary widely in terms of genre, mechanics, themes, player base, studio size, and funding, giving close readings to Return of the Obra Dinn , Eastshade , Ritual of the Moon , 80 Days , Heaven’s Vault , Death Stranding , and The Last of Us Part II . Exploring the connotations of wandering within these different game worlds, she considers how ideologies of work, gender, colonialism, and death inflect the ways we wander through digital spaces. Overlapping and intersecting, each provides a multifaceted lens through which to understand what wandering does, lacks, implies, and offers. Kagen’s account will attune game designers, players, and scholars to the myriad possibilities of the wandering ludic body.
216 pages, Paperback
Published October 11, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 28, 2023
WanderingWalking is rad 🤟
November 5, 2022
Un excellent essai sur les "Wandering Games" nom dépréciatif donné à des genres de jeu de marche, d'exploration, d'errance où la contemplation et la narration est plus importante que d'autres dynamiques généralement imaginées par les jeux vidéos.
En analysant ce genre de jeu, l'autrice aborde des questions de design et d'impact sur le jeu, mais aborde aussi des questions de performance et de travail au sein du vidéoludisme dans un monde capitaliste et comment ce genre de jeu peut offrir un espace de résistance. Kagen explore aussi des questions de genres, de sexisme, de colonialisme, de capitalisme, de handicap à travers l'analyse de quelques jeux (80 Days, Death Stranding, Heaven's Vault, Return of the Obra Dinn, Ritual of the Moon, The Legend of Zelda, etc. ; on mentionne aussi quelques jeux de table dont un très intéressant développement sur le jeu de l'oie) et de prise en compte historique du concept de l'errance et du flâneur (et de son pendant féminin) à travers un large bagage théorique et érudit.
L'essai reste, sans perdre jamais son rythme à un chapitre ou à un autre, un ouvrage extrêmement bien vulgarisé qui tire toujours de nouveaux éléments de ses analyses pointues des jeux explorées, mais tout en gardant toujours en tête l'édifice théorique sur les "Wandering Games" qui poursuit son élaboration tout au long de l'essai. Un petit bijou dans les livres de théorie vidéoludique, l'autrice peut être vraiment fière du travail accompli ici.
En analysant ce genre de jeu, l'autrice aborde des questions de design et d'impact sur le jeu, mais aborde aussi des questions de performance et de travail au sein du vidéoludisme dans un monde capitaliste et comment ce genre de jeu peut offrir un espace de résistance. Kagen explore aussi des questions de genres, de sexisme, de colonialisme, de capitalisme, de handicap à travers l'analyse de quelques jeux (80 Days, Death Stranding, Heaven's Vault, Return of the Obra Dinn, Ritual of the Moon, The Legend of Zelda, etc. ; on mentionne aussi quelques jeux de table dont un très intéressant développement sur le jeu de l'oie) et de prise en compte historique du concept de l'errance et du flâneur (et de son pendant féminin) à travers un large bagage théorique et érudit.
L'essai reste, sans perdre jamais son rythme à un chapitre ou à un autre, un ouvrage extrêmement bien vulgarisé qui tire toujours de nouveaux éléments de ses analyses pointues des jeux explorées, mais tout en gardant toujours en tête l'édifice théorique sur les "Wandering Games" qui poursuit son élaboration tout au long de l'essai. Un petit bijou dans les livres de théorie vidéoludique, l'autrice peut être vraiment fière du travail accompli ici.
February 17, 2025
Wandering Games by Melissa Kagen is an academic exploration of the ways wandering in games reflect societal concerns, such as work, gender, colonialism, and death. Initially inspired by “walking sim” games, such as What Remains of Edith Finch and Firewatch, in which the player explores a space, discovering the story through the world design and ephemera (letters, notes, journals), the book stretches beyond that original concept to consider other types of wandering in games beyond the walking sim, including Ritual of the Moon, 80 Days, Death Stranding, and The Last of Us II, among others. I really appreciated Kagen’s perspective, and I’m interested to return to some of these chapters after playing (or replaying) some of these games.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews