Walden, a game

I've asked for my money back. This is not even worth the 3.60 I paid for it. Very slow in movement/lagging. The graphics are very poor and so is the movements. The game play is pretty much clicking or click and drag. You have to go though the story, doesn't matter if you are in the middle of something it will just end the day for you. A little boy ran past me on one of the first tasks and it looked like a road blocks avatar. I really don't get how people are raving about this game. The is no inventory, no collecting. It's click to pick food now you are full. Click and drag to hit this nail, you've built a house. If this was back on windows 95 I would say this is amazing but it came out in 2019. I've played student free demos that are better than this in every way. Don't get this, find something else

This Land is your Land, This Land is my Land... I love already the name "Walden, a game" with those low key letters. Walden is more an experimental project than an actual game. It does not hold much on its surface but under it is a great philosophic message about living freely and what actual freedom and strength is and boy - even the protagonist is voiced by Emile Hirch, the actor who starred in Into the Wild. Among him the other voice talents (including Jim Cummings) breath life to this well crafted title, which is also said to be used in education and why not there is quite much topics from history of US and also things which touch globally everyone. I lived as a hermit throughout the game and I say it was interesting, but grindy progress that was boring but somewhat unforgettable. Walden was made for you and me.

The image looks very grainy and blurry which makes me dizzy. The game does not register slow mouse movement at all, and generally it is very hard to look around due to mouse smoothing. It is impossible for me to enjoy playing the game due to the mentioned problems.

This is a nature-themed historical Walking Sim, with some "fake" survival elements. And when I say "fake", I mean you can't really die. The worst that can happen is that you faint from overexerting yourself, but then you immediately wake up in your bed. Graphics are pretty good, and typical of a 2017 game made with Unity. The voice-acting is decent, and it may be A.I. doing the voices. You are author Henry David Thoreau. You must live in the woods surrounding Walden Pond ([i]which is outside of Concord, Massachusetts[/i]) for one year. The game starts in Early Summer, and "technically" ends in Late Spring of the next year. And when I say "technically", I mean you don't actually have to quit playing. I'm getting ready to start my third year, so I guess you can continue playing to infinity. The game starts with you looking at the frame of the cabin you're building out in the woods, so obviously the first thing you should do is finish building the cabin. The game has four survival tasks to constantly keep up with ([i]although as I said earlier nothing will really happen to you if you don't[/i]). Those tasks are find food, chop wood, mend your clothes, and repair your cabin. You walk around in the woods, inspecting plants and animals, and collecting arrowheads. You get inspiration from nature, and it helps you write your essays and stories. You can walk into town to buy supplies, get odd jobs, and send/receive mail. In town you can visit the general store, the post office, and your family home. It's weird that your parents and sister are supposed to live there, but you never see any of them. Speaking of weird, every building that you can go into either doesn't have a door, or the door is standing open all year long. You play a guessing game with your sister where she leaves a note with poetic clues to a location, then you go find that location. It's not hard, because you don't actually have to figure anything out. When you read the notes, the mystery locations are automatically marked on the map for you. Your best friend is the author Ralph Waldo Emerson. You fetch books for him that he takes into the woods to read and then accidentally leaves them out there. You also do some quests for controversial author and teacher Amos Bronson Alcott. He was an outspoken abolitionist, and helped runaway slaves who were escaping via the underground railroad. He was also the father of author Louisa May Alcott. To purchase supplies at the general store, and to get to Boston to give a lecture, you need money. There are five ways you can earn money. You take random jobs as a Surveyor, do some work at your best friend Ralph's house, collect plant and animal specimens for a scientist, sell excess harvest from your bean field, and chop wood. I find this game very peaceful and relaxing. I also love the immersion. It actually makes me want to go out into the woods and live in a cabin myself, because I understand why Thoreau liked solitude. There is a free soundtrack, but it doesn't automatically come with the game. You have to manually download it from the Store Page. Achievements are all easy to get. Just do the quests and go with the flow of the game.

As odd as the concept is for a video game, they capture the spirit of the book well. It's not particularly deep or engaging as a game, but it's simple, peaceful, and reflective. As Thoreau's life in the woods would have been. Thanks USC Games, and thank you Henry. Moose Indian

To be clear, this is not a traditional survival game. Although the game contains several survival elements, such as building and maintaining a shelter; mending clothes; foraging for food; and splitting wood for fuel, the failure to meet one or more of these needs will not have serious consequences. I spent much of my first winter near starvation with my cabin in disrepair, and the only change I noticed was my lower stamina when completing these routine chores (I have since read that it is possible to faint from extreme hunger, but this never happened in my game). Although simple and repetitive, the tasks are satisfying to perform, and only when fishing did I ever feel my patience tested. However, I suspect they are largely unnecessary for survival. The aim is to achieve a more immersive experience, not to create a fail state. The heart of the game is its detailed natural environment, aided in large part by stellar sound design - a particular highlight of my playthrough was boating across the pond early one morning as birdsong sounded against the gentle splash of an oar. While there are some long-term goals, most gameplay consists of walking along the banks of Walden Pond, inspecting wildlife, and jotting down notes in your journal. If I were to offer one criticism of the game, it would be the difficulty of navigating the journal. At the end of each day, Thoreau will flip to the start of that day's entries, allowing the player to reread each of his observations. Past this point, there is no way to lookup a particular date, and older entries must be located by painstakingly leafing through page after page. So far as its story is concerned, I feel the game did a tremendous job of compressing several key moments from Thoreau’s life within the span of the game. Through a series of letters, it explores Thoreau’s professional life and his relationships with his sister Sophie, his brother John, his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the abolitionist movement. Because many of these letters issue quests that will only trigger a reply once completed, it is unlikely most players will experience every piece of narrative content within a single year. Despite introducing a welcome element of replayability, I do wish this had been done a bit differently. One year is already about nine hours of gameplay, by which time most players will likely have seen all the game has to offer.

yes.

A man who plays lives a thousand lives before they die. A man who never plays lives only one. EDIT: I made a mod that fixes the mouse issues. You can get it from nexusmods or the steam discussions

█ Refunded █ For a title I anticipated to be very solitary, there is [i]an awful lot of voice acting.[/i] :^Þ I mean... it's Walden. Out in the woods. As Thoreau. [b][i]Alone.[/i][/b] But here he is, narrating. Aloud. And alone. It simply doesn't work for me. Just read the book. Aloud, perhaps. X^D

just read the book, amazing idea but the wonky controls are a serious deal breaker