GIAF2023

In the arena of digital game, there is a genre called Walking Simulator. The name could instantly mislead us to thinking that this game would realize in detail the walking movement physiologically, but the actual game is quite far from it.¹ Then, how is it that it acquired such a name? As you might have guessed, it is a derisive nickname. Whereas other games require incessant interaction with the interface in a fairly complex manner, walking simulator-type games propose to the players to browse through(by pressing the arrow keys) the world of polygons. Sometimes, players would try out simple operations such as reading a letter or opening a door. There has been no imminent event happening for the players to react instantly, or it has happened long time ago. That is, there is no sense of urgency inducing any adrenalin. We are simply ‘walking’ slowly in that world they have created. For gamers who are used to dealing with the character’s lifeline at every moment of their playing, or with the destiny of the whole world at their hands, such games which make you simply take a walk make them scoff. They would say that the purpose of such games is ‘simulating the walking itself’ without any aim. Thus, the history of this genre is linked to such scornful view to some extent.

However this term walking simulator which began as a derogatory remark ironically describes the mood of this special genre and the emotion felt by the player quite accurately. Walking has two coexisting aspects. First, the physical(and coordinate-based) aspect of movement that can be reconstructed by integrating segmented data² created through an aggregate of sensors such as smartwatch. The other aspect is the one that cannot be revealed through such accumulation of data alone. For example, the emotions revealed through expressions like “There are many people going about their ways but I do not know anyone, and the mountains and rivers are getting thicker and denser, I am unfamiliar with the landscape. My house which is 200 li away from here seems like a 1,000 li or 10,000 li, so I gradually feel regretful for having left home.”³ are all a part of the ‘walking’ experience. This abundance of margin in walking is paradoxically linked to the obvious limitations of the human body. The body exposed to the environment and its relatively slow speed create numerous reactions of meanings that cannot be captured by sensors.

Walking simulators create that ‘room of margin’ through systematic limitations(rather than physical limitations). In many cases, players cannot even ‘jump’(let alone run) in this genre of games. As mentioned earlier, interaction with the surrounding environment is also extremely limited. Interestingly, the result of these blatant restrictions is a world where game rewards are unclear. Here, the compensation does not necessarily have to be in the form of a rare item or abundant experiences points. For example, players enjoy the sense of achievement through episodes of having solved a very time-consuming complex puzzle, or having defeated an incredibly difficult boss after 20 attempts. Thus they are rewarded just by solving a certain difficulty. In summary, in most other games the compensation is an object of design which requires a very precise feedback. But the walking simulator genre blurs the feedback of such compensation system. So then, what is the essence of the reward given to the players of such games? This is like a bizarre SAT question giving students a part of a poem to guess what the theme is about.

The walking simulator genre, like the walking itself(which it simulates), eventually evokes significations that cannot be fully reflected in quantitative data and feedback loops based on clear-cut rewards. They may be certain inspirations, or unfathomable anxiety, or both. The key is that the room of margin is not only huge, but it rather determines the character of the whole experience. Walking simulators calculate an ‘opaque’ world through systematic limitations in the user interface and level design. Although there is no clear goal or destination, and they cannot even provide plausible motivation(through concrete rewards), they simply nudge you in a bold manner to just have a go at walking. That world, of course, is a space designed with great care by developers, step by step. However, through unexpected paths, each player often experiences something that goes beyond the intent of the design. But isn’t that true with the actual walking experience as well? If you simply want to get to a specific destination as quickly as possible, you can ride convenient vehicles. But if you still choose to walk(even if it is a shortcut), you will ‘inevitably’ encounter some unexpected coincidences(person, feeling, emotion, thought, bridge).

Lady Kim from Gangneung, the author of Seo-Yu-Rok, walks back and forth between Gangneung and Seoul just like that. One of the reasons why this record is gripping is that although there is a clear motif of ‘sightseeing Seoul,’ the author devotes almost half the text to the experience of walking from Gangneung to Seoul. In short, this essay is as much a record of the hardship of walking to Seoul as it is of visiting Seoul. The author was shocked by her observations of rapidly changing Seoul, and she explicitly emphasizes at the end of her essay, a purpose. It seemed that the purpose of this record was to call for enlightenment(especially in the female community). If so, aren’t the detailed stories about her walking trip to Seoul just some unnecessary beating around the bush? Probably so, if we take the author’s intention simply at face value. However, as with walking and walking simulators, writing often inadvertently travels beyond the boundaries of pre-set intention and design. Therefore, I refuse to evaluate her essay as the result of Kim being an ‘amateur’ writer, not being able to decisively omit some parts as a ‘professional’ would do and ending the piece in a long-winded manner. Rather, I think we should ask ourselves in a different way: how does this ‘journey to Seoul’ engage with ‘sightseeing Seoul?’

Despite Kim’s regretful complaints, which start all over again like a pansori tune just when one thinks it’s done with, (or rather, when considering these complaints), the richness of ‘walking’ is well incorporated in this description of the itinerary to Seoul. She is a curious observer. Even in her weariest state on the road, she is constantly inquisitive about the surroundings and takes a closer look at a “two-story Western-style building made of red and blue bricks”⁴ which she has seen for the first time in her life. But when she is narrating her main exploration of Seoul, she starts to behave like a ‘tourist.’ Obviously, strictly speaking, it is difficult to regard Lady Kim of Gangneung clan, born in the late Joseon Dynasty, as a tourist in the modern sense(of which the notion emerged with the formation of mass society and consumerist society). However, in this record, her ‘sightseeing’ is not an adventure or pilgrimage in the medieval sense, nor is it the ‘grand tour’ of the English nobles, but follows the typical touristic pattern. This is not unrelated to the historical context that Seoul at the time Kim visited was rapidly transforming into a modernized city. Seoul was a totally foreign place even for her, who had lived on the Korean Peninsula for half a century.

Her tour of Seoul begins with a ride on the “rolling glass house”⁵ which is the tram. From there, most of her schedule is filled with experiencing ‘new cultures’ such as Western-style houses, a bank built of stone, train, bicycle, automobile, zoo, botanical garden, and being examined by a doctor “graduated from medical school that has made new inventions,” Catholic Church pointy-looking house, Wumigwan Cinema, electric light, gas lamp, public school, private school, Youth Center, and watching steamboats at the newly furbished port. Among these observations, the part about “going to the station and seeing the comings and goings of the train again”⁶ is particularly interesting because she clearly states she has never going to ride the train again after having had extreme motion sickness on her ride. Nevertheless, the sight of the train in operation must have been so fascinating that she had to go see it again. This is a sort of industrial tourism, reminding us of trips made on purpose at night to see the complex and dazzling lights of an industrial complex. But the reader of this essay would wonder by now, what does this tourism bit have to do with the ‘room of margin’ of walking?

At this point we need to make a detour by way of Hiroki Azuma. The surprising thing about his book Philosophy of the Tourist is not about the fact that he simply considers the existence of tourists in a positive light, who are frivolous and shallow consumers. Not only does he boldly bring tourists to the fore as the 21st century’s major subject, he also suggests that they hold the key to resolving some of the most troubling political conflicts currently facing the world. The reason is not that tourists ‘turn out’ to be very thoughtful, cultural and self-reflective beings. Tourists do what they do best; just sightseeing as ever. “A layman who has never laid eyes on an art book goes to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, and an aristocrat who has never cooked his own food tours around a slaughterhouse in Paris. Obviously, tourists will have numerous misunderstandings during their tours. It is difficult to expect for tourists to properly understand their object of tourism. Nevertheless, none other than ‘wrong delivery’ may become an opportunity for new understanding or communication. That is the charm of tourism.”⁷ Such steadily(?) accumulated misunderstandings and illusions ultimately trigger the effect of ‘solidarity while not being solidarity’ between people. Tourists can be irresponsible and ignorant, but they can also be very coincidental beings. And this coincidence ends up creating the possibility of unexpected solidarity.

As such, sightseeing while walking may sometimes seem old-fashioned and trivial due to its limitations, but perhaps that is exactly why they possess a large margin of coincidence. The current situation, in which the expansion of algorithmic surveillance systems and the effectiveness of existing political systems have reached their limits, continues to impose a certain dystopia of inevitability on everyone bearing the ways of this world. This is because coincidence is impossible in a world where everything is reduced to data and movements of all things are purportedly predictable/calculated. The threat of inevitability seems too intimidating and sophisticated that people are overwhelmed by a sense of desperation; they feel as if they must somehow even ‘generate’ contingency by using a randomized algorithm, extracting random numbers. Perhaps we are missing the margin of old things we think we already know well enough. As the journey of Lady Kim of Gangneung who could well be Korea’s first proper tourist has shown us, the world is full of ‘incalculable’ dynamic coincidences. Hence this brings a fortuitous tourist to the fore, not the inevitable other.