Amid this busy review season, one game has offered me a bit of reprieve from the hustle and bustle of talking to PR reps, taking intensive notes, and planning out written and video coverage. Truly, my time is stretched so thin right now I’ve barely been able to make social plans to go out and touch some grass. Which is the main appeal of Big Walk, a game that lets you go out and touch some grass.
It’s virtual grass, but grass nonetheless.
Developed by House House, Big Walk is a game that can only be played via online multiplayer. You’re meant to make use of the game’s excellent proximity chat to explore a giant island together and solve puzzles. I’ve been playing it with my partner, who’s been gracious enough to let me put a hold on date nights, allowing me to stay home to work instead. So, to make up for those missing date nights, we’ve been playing Big Walk instead. And you know what? Big Walk might as well be a date simulator.
Big Walk largely wants you to solve puzzles using your teamwork and communication skills, but a lot of the time, you’re just walking around the island, keeping an eye out for cool new items to pick up and interesting buildings to explore. During our first play session, we stumbled across a little shack that allowed us to grab a paintbrush and paint each other’s characters a different color. The game allows you to choose different colors for your head and torso, too. Why go shopping when you can just paint each other in Big Walk? You don’t even have to spend any money!
A lot of the time, my partner and I are just walking and talking, catching each other up on what happened with us that day, what we’re up to, and what our friends are up to. The proximity chat is so good that I know exactly when I’m walking too fast — which happens in real life too — and I should slow down or turn around to check on her. When we’re not in a walking mood, we sit by the beach and watch the sunset over the ocean as we continue chatting.
If one of us needs to leave the game for a bit to do something, we let our character sit. After a few seconds, the in-game character falls asleep and its head kinda nods back and forth. When this happens, I usually take screenshots of her character’s sleeping face, or maybe I’ll kick a football at her, or even pick her up and throw her around. I don’t get to do that in real life, so I gotta seize those opportunities where I can, y’know?
The actual video game part of Big Walk is also excellent so far, as House House puts their game design chops on full display here. Some of the most interesting puzzles we’ve done so far have involved our characters being separated and forced to communicate in non-verbal ways to progress. Most recently, my partner had to enter a soundproof room to check a puzzle solution while using her character to point me in the right direction without any verbal communication. This puzzle involved some pretty tricky jumping bits — which I’m notoriously bad at — but every time I failed the jump, I’d look back to see my partner flailing her arms about in the soundproof room as her way of cheering me on.
When I finally made that jump, I turned around to see her jumping and flailing — her way of celebrating my victory. I waved my arms around too.
Big Walk is a game that I didn’t think too much of when it first released, primarily because I’m not the biggest fan of Untitled Goose Game (it just ain’t for me!), but Big Walk is very much for me. And my partner too, for that matter. I’ll have more to say in a full review once we’ve completed it, but for now, here’s to more virtual dates.
A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. You can check out our review policy here.
