Their stories lack any player agency; they simply make you trudge from destination to destination to pick up nuggets of story…
I think this is a very shallow take on walking games. Impact does not always come from violence, and this comment eradicates the importance of plot in a game. Even in RPGs or open-world games, going to destinations and learning new lore is often the norm, just incorporated with combat.
Stories do not require us to do anything except to pay attention as they are told
I feel like Murray often underestimates the impact of a story, omitting how a story forces us to think and therefore interact with the content upon listening to them.
As a format for electronic narrative, the maze is a more active version of the immersive visit
It basically just gives the illusion of having agency while all leading to the same point in the end
In the right hands a maze story could be a melodramatic adventure with complex social subtexts.
I feel like the author is honestly just writing to write at this point, the entire middle section is just laying out examples and possibilities of an adventure-maze type game.