Games may use wandering as a topic, formal style, metaphor for aesthetics, or player action. It can refer to moving forward, moving backward, traveling, meandering, or escaping.
By examining the functions of wandering in various game worlds, game studies expert Melissa Kagen presents the idea of "wandering games" in this book. She demonstrates how the much-maligned Walking Simulator, a term that was originally used to disparage video games that were less violent, task-oriented, or difficult to complete, semi-accidentally tapped into something brilliant: the rich intellectual history of the idea of walking in literature, philosophy, pilgrimage, performance, and protest.
She considers how ideologies of work, gender, colonialism, and death influence the ways we wander through digital spaces as she examines the implications of wandering within these various game worlds.
