Walden

Walden is an educational role playing game created by Game Innovation Lab and origninally released in 2017. Now, I am a huge history nerd, and I do know about the story of Henry David Thoreau living in the woods to connect with himself and nature and all that, but being Henry David Thoreau who is living in the woods in an attempt to connect with himself and nature and all that? It really puts a different spin on it. And in the fact that the people who made it were connected with the university I live like three metro stops away from is honestly kinda fun.

Let's start with just how cottagecore this game could get.

Between building your cabin so it has actual walls and foraging for berries and listening to the sounds of nature around you while you write notes in your jounals and grow beans, this game gets pretty aesthetic. You spend your days looking for inspiration in the world around you and getting enough food and firewood and other neccesities you need to survive and having the opportunity to grow your beans and do fun sidequests for your neighbors (people who live in actual houses just outside the woods). Also! You get letters from your sister, Sofia, and other important figures in Henry's life.

The envirnment in the game changes as the seasons progress. You start in early summer when berries are ripe and flowers are blooming everywhere and you can see rabbits. Eventually, the leaves start to change colors. The air starts to get colder and now your cabin with the no walls needs a lot more work. Then, all of a sudden, there snow!

It's not just wandering the woods and staring at lakes looking for artistic inspiration and philisophical understandings. In game, you need food and shelter and warmth to live, and all those things take time from your mental pursuits. The game itself is really good at remindig you of your different needs as you play. Telling you when your food supply is getting low or you're lacking inspiration, or you need to tend to this need or that task. It's a need for balance when you get right down to it, something our friend Henry probably had to reconcile and find for himself at the time.

Saying all that though, I feel the need to point out that despite the cottagecore fantasy of it, the idea that if you got crafty enough you could survive off blueberries and beans alone while living in the woods is probably not a good idea.

Also, can I just point out that this is another game that really needs you to have a mouse? Like I adapted to using the trackpad at this point but I have such a feeling that some of the controls would have been much easier if I actually had a mouse to use. I can't believe that it's taken six months and a role-playing game about Henry David Thoreau that's finally convince me to buy a mouse.

So far, I've only put about four hours into the game and it's barely winter. My Henry is growing enough beans to survive with a little extra and has a fishing rod and walls on his cabin. We're still working on getting more firewood and stocking up the food stores, but this is just such a comfy game despite it all.

I also think I figured out the screenshotting issue so hopefully I can show how pretty this game really is soon.

Okay, that's enough from me for today.

Happy dreams.