Take a Big Walk with No Small Games: Hands-on Impressions

It’s a big, big world when you’re just a bunch of little guys.

In a sea of friendslop, Big Walk stands out as an example of how magical a highly polished co-op experience can feel. The newest title from House House, the makers of Untitled Goose Game, puts 2-12 players in the shoes of some adorably rotund little dudes and drops them into a wilderness full of bizarre contraptions. Their special brand of puzzle-solving requires open minds and experimentation, but most importantly, teamwork. So we thought we would share some of our experiences with Big Walk in the same fashion, as a team.

Dawn of “The Baby”

One of our first significant moments after leaving the training dome began much like most of our future key moments would: we spotted something in the distance. As we approached, we discovered it was a tallish tower of scaffolding, almost built like a crane. It had some mechanical dohickeys along the top extension, including something that looked like the buttons we had been playing with in the tutorial zone. Our gears were turning. “Hey, we’ve pushed something like that before.” The button was too high up for one person to reach and, in fact, too high up for both of us to reach standing on top of each other. But eventually with Kate hoisting me up, and me jumping off her raised hands, we managed to make contact. This initiated some clicking and clanking and eventually a large red blob fell down and landed in the sand below.

Watch Kate and Emily’s First Hour of Big Walk

We immediately picked it up to try to find out what it could possibly be. It didn’t seem to do anything except emit a sloshy, wubbly sound when we shook it. But without even having to discuss it between us, we decided to bring it along with. We also pretty quickly started to refer to it as “The Baby,” although it showed no signs of life and, looking back, we couldn’t pinpoint why exactly we even gave it that nickname. My best guess is that its bulbous form reminded us of our own strange bodies. We proceeded through the brush.

We had a few more forays in which we encountered other interesting items and tools, some more useful than others. We could only carry two things between us so the question became: “what do we keep?” The answer always included The Baby even though its usefulness was increasingly suspect. Shortly after that, we discovered that The Baby is perhaps the most important of any item in the game, when we came upon another structure that we gave the moniker “The Baby Station.” I’m left with the question, “how did we know?” How did we know this was so important that we had to leave behind other more obviously useful tools?

Big Walk is an absolute masterclass in design language and nonverbal communication. For me, our first experience with The Baby encapsulates the essence of what’s going on in Big Walk. Groups of players are presented with bizarre buildings, machines, and tools, and tasked with making meaning of it all, with little-to-no instruction. Not only is that a brilliant setup for really special gaming experiences with friends and exciting collaborative puzzle-solving, but it also means that every single group of people who play it will have their own unique experience together. I can’t wait to hear what names other groups decide to call The Baby, and what other hilarious lore emerges as a result.

– Emily

Puzzles for All

If I must do a puzzle in a video game, I’d much rather do it collaboratively than on my own. Upon booting up Big Walk, my usual puzzle apprehension was lurking in the back of my brain, but I was delighted to find the puzzle design really fit a wide variety and range of thinking/communication styles within each challenge. Some are more physical and reactive, while others are more thinky. 

One of my favorite puzzle moments was when Emily and I had to drop kick giant glowing balls into a tall hoop. We were shooting hoops Big Walk style, and luckily this was a puzzle that Emily had all the juice for. Seeing her score basket after basket and carrying us through this one, I still had a blast and laughed so hard at our (mostly my) many failed attempts to make the shots. 

Normally, this would make me feel a little bit bad about myself, but Big Walk does a beautiful job at making your less successful moments valuable by providing opportunities for lightheartedness and laughter fuel. No time is wasted and pride/egos can be left at the door, because this game is consistently providing us with low stakes moments of fun and connection.

– Kate

The Importance of Drop Kicking

The first time I picked up an item in Big Walk and discovered there was a drop kicking mechanic, I was absolutely elated! Drop kicking things is so important to me, and they’ve cooked up a really satisfying feeling with this one. The drop kicking proves to be relevant for puzzle solving, but it’s also relevant if I want to kick something at Emily just for fun.

– Kate

Big Walk in Action

From One Little Guy to Another

The unwritten rule of Big Walk is that once every ten minutes or so, someone must say “ok, I think maybe what we need to do is…” Every puzzle that Kate and I came across was unabashedly unexplained. Buildings and mechanisms and buttons and doors laid out very carefully, with intention and with absolutely zero prompting. In typical House House fashion, the path to answering “what should we do here?” starts with asking “what can we do here?”

One of my favorite puzzles that we tackled early in the game featured a setup that seems to recur regularly over the course of the game. Part of the group has to close themselves in a room that blocks all sound from the game’s proximity voice chat, in order to receive information that they have to communicate to their friends on the other side, through a big glass window. This is when it becomes clear why our wide-eyed, round-bodied dudes have so many options for waving and pointing in different directions. 

In this case, I had to point out to Kate which out of five different buttons along a big, curved wall she needed to press, and in what order. The buttons were just close enough together that a slight misjudgement on the angle would send Kate to the wrong one. With no voice chat and no facial expression to go off of, my only other options to communicate were pointing and wildly smacking the glass window with my hand, which is exactly what I did. And somehow that worked? You’ll have to ask her what she thought of this, but I was able to help redirect her to the right button after giving ambiguous pointing clues. 

All that to say, the physicality in Big Walk is unlike anything I’ve experienced in a non-VR game. This is just one moment of many where I found myself engaging with the world of the game not in the way I would if I were trying to optimize for all the controls of the game, but the way I really would if I were really there in that shrubland.

– Emily

Big Walk Trailer

Romanticizing the Simple Beauty of Life and Exploration

One thing that kept blowing my mind was how exploring the environment felt so intuitive and realistic and how our characters could easily run, jump, and move around the space. I found myself pushing the limits of exploration and curiosity. That looks exactly like the ocean, and I wonder how far I can swim? That looks like the intended path, but what if we went down this more rugged terrain in the opposite direction to see if there’s anything surprising? 

Visually, the character design matches the structures and items you can interact with, which creates not only clarity and direction from a gameplay design standpoint, but a beautiful contrast among the hyper-realistic nature environments. As expected, everything sounds as realistic and good as it looks. 

Big Walk is constantly and effortlessly blending the real and the surreal. Towards the end of our first session, it was dark and we were looking for our next puzzle when we heard some ethereal tunes off in the distance. We followed the sound, and it got louder and more layered as we climbed and circled our way onto a perfect patch of rock to sit and watch the sunrise while listening to some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. It’s moments like these that make me feel like Big Walk is quite possibly already my game of the year. 

I struggle to think of another game that has given me the feeling and opportunity for connection that I’m experiencing here. After being so active and goal oriented when it came to solving the puzzles and finding all the “babies”, I am dazzled and delighted by the moments built in that encourage us to stop and experience shared beauty with our friends. 

-Kate

No Small Games was provided with review keys for Big Walk by popagenda

About No Small Games

No Small Games is an indie game recap and review podcast brought to you by hosts Kate and Emily! They became friends while streaming on Twitch and bonded over their love of indie video games. In each episode of No Small Games, the two will discuss an indie game they both played independently. They’ll compare their experiences: the good, the bad, their most memorable moments of their playthroughs.

Learn more about the podcast and its hosts on the About page. You can find all our episodes here on the Episodes page, or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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