How could you make a video game without combat mechanics, without turning it into a walking simulator?
Is it even possible? Most games always revolve around hitting, shooting, stabbing or killing something.
I just want to explore goddammit. Any recommendations?
pure plataformer, pure puzzle , animal crosing , sinematic game
INFRA
Yes it’s possible and it’s an existing genre.
There’s Myst, Riven, SOMA, Ammesia, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Antechamber, Portal 1&2, The Witness, etc...
Stealth games? I mean proper stealth games like Thief or Styx.
Most adventures/point and clicks don't have combat but these games are not big on exploration.
there's a billion of games that have no combat
if you don't know any you should stop playing triple A games only
Minesweeper. Solitaire. Oh wait, you wanted to make a generic 3D open world adventure...
Platformers are lame for a game focused on exploration though
Most of those you listed are just heavily focused on puzzles. Not a lot of exploration.
Stardew Valley
My Time at Portia
Farming Simulator
Fishing Simulator
Eutotruck Simulator
City Skylines
All peaceful and chill games.
>pic
Games with those vibes?
Eastshade
holy shit you are fucking retarded
>I just want to explore goddammit. Any recommendations?
Open world puzzle games like Monster's Expedition?
Cool looking puzzle games like Manifold Garden?
Minesweeper? I'm actually working on an open world game, where you walk around in a minesweeper grid.
You'd need a very hyperbolic definition of "walking simulator" to argue that the many games without combat are all walking simulators. Thankfully you're on Zig Forums where stupid, oversimplified definitions are the norm.
Just make thief with no enemies or stealth, you just navigate. Sounds sucky though.
calm down. why are you so angry?
Have you tried Ancestors: The humankind odyssey?
It involves exploration and experimentation.
No. It turns into Death Stranding which is boring shit. But Disco Elysium is perfect game for that.
Try Caves of Qud (pronounced chud)
I mean there's the Myst series, INFRA, Outer Wilds (this one is heavy in exploration)
Yeah this came to mind. You (walk) around some abandoned dam project that your company bought taking pictures of everything that needs repairing and you uncover the history of how the dam went out of business or something. Pretty neat if you're looking to explore.
Even Mario has some basic combat for bosses.
>Zig Forums
Lost: Via Domus.
It's mostly about exploring and solving puzzles, while interacting with other NPC.
Thief is great for exploration
One mission in NuRaider is pretty similar to that feel.
Scrabble?
By giving it some other type of gameplay instead. Clock Tower isn't a walking sim but it has no combat. You can struggle while you aren't too panicked, but that's it. The real gameplay amounts to solving puzzles and avoiding dying to progress the various endings. A walking sim would be a game that tried to be an adventure game in the same manner but forgets to have any puzzles, a fail state, or really any meaningful player interactivity. The most interactivity I've seen in these kinds of failed adventure games are walk to X and press interact key/button to trigger cutscene or read words, this sets a flag for somewhere else now go there and repeat. That is what I would call a real walking sim outside of something like a certain game where you actually walk down an endless hallway, or a Yume Nikki clone without effects or an ending of any sort, things like that.
That said, I see no reason to avoid having combat of some kind unless it's a horror game. There is an appeal to games where you really are physically helpless and have to use your head to escape. But otherwise I think combat is fine. I think some fun examples of uncommon combat gameplay are Mario Tennis/Golf GBC, Pokemon TCG, certain Puyo games, certain Yugioh games... I like being able to walk around and explore instead of going through menus. There just needs to be careful design to make sure the walking speed and map size don't make the game a bore and there needs to be gameplay that rewards the player, not just story. If you want to just tell a story, there's a market for VNs and people would rather have a VN than a walking sim. Otherwise add some gameplay. From the shit Japan churns out, it's obvious it doesn't even have to make sense. All that matters is that the person playing is having fun. Of course you can't please everybody, not everyone likes every game genre. Even if somebody likes the genre you choose, some may prefer a game of that genre without adventure/story/whatever elements.
Play the Skyrim mod called The Forgotten City. After you get past the intro it's set up so that you can't fight/kill anyone. Instead you have to explore and solve a mystery.
Although, it's being adapted into a full standalone game pretty soon (next year I think), so you might want to just wait for that.
Andrés?
yes, no one said mario was one of those games