This indie walking simulator draws from a real-life interview with the developer's father, capturing his struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts. Players listen to edited audio from a 54-minute conversation, condensed into a 9.5-minute casual adventure that highlights universal feelings of isolation. The game aims to spark conversations about mental health stigma and urge those facing similar challenges to seek support.
Optimized for Steam Deck with standard subtitles and graphics settings, it offers Y-axis inversion for gamepad users. Free to play on PC, this biographical prototype belongs to a PhD research series at Abertay University. It suits fans of thoughtful, personal narrative experiences like those in documentary-style indie adventures.
The Longest Walk is a deeply personal biographical walking simulator game about my father's experience of living with depression and suicidal thoughts. The game was created using audio recorded from a 54-minute-long interview that I conducted with my dad, which was then edited into this approximately 9-and-a-half minute long playable experience.
The aim for this game is to help reduce feelings of isolation and encourage those who are struggling with depression or experiencing suicidal thoughts to reach out for help. Through my father's sharing of his personal experience in an open and frank manner, this game seeks to raise awareness of and provide an insight into what it is like living with depression in order to provoke discussion and help tackle the stigma about opening-up about mental health issues.
Whilst my father's experience and the locations depicted in the game are specific to him, the thoughts, feelings, and message conveyed through his recollection of lived experience are universal.
The Longest Walk is now playable on Steam Deck! Please use the following settings for best performance and subtitle readability:
- Subtitles: Standard
- Graphics: Optimised
Players using a gamepad or Steam Deck can invert the Y-Axis by holding LB (L1) and tapping RB (R1) on the gamepad.
This free game is part of a series of documentary-inspired biographical game prototypes that I am developing for my PhD at Abertay University - Funded by The Northwood Charitable Trust - and was inspired by games such as Dear Esther (The Chinese Room), Actual Sunlight (WZOGI), and That Dragon, Cancer (Numinous Games). This game is published under the Abertay Game Lab practice-based research group by Somewhat Unsettling.
