Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Absence or presence of nature in videogames of the walking simulator and the adventure genre can provoke myriad of emotional responses from players. It can be seen as daunting, provocative to think about and to imagine, and it can be seen as a projection of a possible future.

Paper long abstract

Nature in videogames of the walking simulator and the adventure genre can inspire players of videogames to experience different emotional responses. Absence of nature can be interpreted as something concerning and worthy to reflect on in depth while presence of nature can be seen as something that offers peace and serenity. The presentation proposes an idea of how absence or presence of nature in a selection of videogames of the walking simulator genre (with elements of horror) and videogames of the adventure genre can be experienced as a potential window to a foreseeable future, and how this absence can be stopped from happening before it happens.

Presence of nature offers a sense of peace in players because it simulates, to an extend, the "real" world, offering them liberating experiences of open world exploration. Absence of nature can be apocalyptic and warning, while presence of nature usually does not provoke thoughts of what life could be, or could look like, without nature in it.

The idea of the presentation is to show the potential of videogames in general, and of specific videogames, in how they artistically portray humankind's possible and potential future through ideas of nature, and how nature is represented in the artistic world of digital media.