Firewatch is a single-player first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness, where your only emotional lifeline is the person on the other end of a handheld radio.
So it’s a video game, full stop. Just say you only like mechanically focused games, a valid opinion, instead of this absurd gatekeeping where games you don’t like aren’t actually games.
So it’s a video game, full stop. Just say you only like mechanically focused games, a valid opinion, instead of this absurd gatekeeping where games you don’t like aren’t actually games.
Do you think the phone book was a story?
Putting words on paper doesn’t make a story, nor does putting pixels on a screen make a game.
There’s nothing wrong with these “interactive” stories, but they’re not games because they lack gameplay.
Just because the game is narratively focused doesn’t mean it lacks gameplay.