Now you see, I had an absolutely entirely different experience. I'm someone who can get reeealy deeply invested in certain types of narrative, the best example being her, which is essentially two hours of a dude talking to his phone. That film's narrative is brilliant though though, and beginners guide in my mind is good/average, but more importantly interesting in terms of what can be done.

One of the main things I find that separates a good piece of media and a bad piece of media (in this narrative style) is engagement. Her had me completely encompassed in it, like absolutely nothing else mattered and my mind was entirely occupied with what was going on. The interesting thing though, is so did this.

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that you should use a medium to do things that only that medium can do, but I'm not basing this argument entirely on that statement. I do think certain stories have a "best place" to be, be it a book, movie, audio, play, game etc, but I disagree with the idea that if one doesn't push the medium then it doesn't belong there. I also disagree with the implied notion that interactivity requires challenge. Virtual reality is about to blur all of those lines to a considerable degree too.

Even besides that, I disagree that TBG would be better done in another style of media. I also disagree with your idea that it is a game, and I instead think that it is not. The word game should be used loosely, as a game implies a condition for victory and a condition for failure.
The way that this narrative is self paced yet controlled is interesting, but the best thing about it is the "interactivity". The puzzle was irrelevant, and I actually think it detracts from the whole thing. The fact of the matter is that when watching a movie, you're viewing a documented series of events. With TBG, there is a certain personal element that I can't quite place, but that I haven't experienced with other media. It's a type of engagement, a type of Immersion. The fact that I had to manually move around to explore this narrative, even though it was linear, inserted a part of myself into it directly. That is something that while it can be done in film and audio to an extent, it can have a much, MUCH larger impact with just that small amount of control. Interactivity doesn't have to require challenge, or a condition for victory/failure.

And for me, this game had an insane amount of immersion, more than anything I've had since her, and definitely the most I've had out of interactive media. I'll be honest in saying that for some reason, I fell for it. Initially I assumed it was just all done by him, but when he did that (surprisingly well acted) passionate rant near the end of the tower, i doubted. And that small amount of doubt changed it from a really weird kinda wonky narrative to this insane spark of the potential of the medium. I have never, and I mean NEVER doubted that what I'm watching is real or fake. From what I understand, It's one of the reasons people always talk about the blair witch project, and I think it applies here. The interactivity of the medium, not in the sense of choice but in the sense of the illusion of control and therefore immersion, caused me to doubt. And the feeling I had when I came back to my senses clicked that it was entirely fictional was amazing, because it had made me doubt.

1) It's a bad game, but it is not a game. It's not trying to give you satisfaction by overcoming challenges, it's using the interactivity for immersion. I don't think that every single thing made with a realtime graphical engine and the ability to interact in the most basic sense should require a challenge, and I actually think the notion that it should severely limits the space in which to explore.
2) It's a disappointment in the quality of the narrative, but holy balls is it exciting in thinking about what could potentially be done. Things like Gone Home and Dear Esther made me doubt that anyone would actually be able to do anything with this weird in-betweeny medium. They were both crap storied presented in a crap manner, and also traditional stories trying to mould themselves into the wrong medium. With these two I definitely think they would fare better conveying their story in a different way. However, I didn't entirely discount the concept of a walking simulator because I just had this feeling that there was something there. Something that could be done with this style that couldn't be done with conventional film or audio. The stanley parable shows that that something can be done more traditionally with choice, and after playing this, I think that something can be another level of immersion.


To reply to some of your specific points, one of them was about forming a relationship and interactivity. I think interactivity and choice are two different things, and you're lumping them together. The Stanley Parable was brilliant in that it was ALL about choice. This game isn't about choice, but it doesn't try to be, which I respect, unlike telltale style games. It is, however, interactive at a fundamental level.


So to sum up, It's not a game, but I do think it benefits being presented with the medium it is presented in, due to the small amount of control via movement and pacing creating a much larger amount of immersion and engagement. I also think it is mostly good in a potential sense, in that there is promise in the medium of "walking simulators" which holds promise. I don't think everything interactive has to be a game.