I find it interesting that calmer games like walking sims originated from more violent and action-packed games like first-person shooters. Wanting to explore a world usually unavailable due to actions and conflict is common in human beings. It’s like setting a pack of cookies on a table, saying no one can eat it, and then leaving. Surely no one will miss one cookie in the pack. It’s the same concept for these shooter games. Players are busy running around, surviving, and fighting, so they don’t get to actually appreciate the world they are in (by design). It makes a part of their brain curious to experience the world they are already in without the pressures of battle, so a modder will take a cookie form the pack and eat it, opening up the rest of the pack for other people to enjoy. That’s when they realize the game they were praising for graphics and immersion is actually just a rough sketch, raisin cookies when they thought they were chocolate chips. This creates a sense of disappointment. I can see how walking sims were born from it. To cure the disappointment players felt when they realize the game they loved isn’t as polished as they thought. But without the allure of fighting, walking sims need something else, some other temptation. So, they promise ice cream with the cookies, sprinkling lore and stories into their world. Finding out pieces of the story give players their dopamine boost while satisfying their curiosity for adventure. The article then mentioned punishments within the game and how walking sims remove that and instead explore living with the consequences of your actions. This adds more depth to the ice cream and cookies players have been enjoying before, forcing them to either love or hate them more intensely.