“You might spend all your time in the woods, you might focus on bean farming, you could become a famous author — sending<br />off articles to your editor, Horace Greeley — or you could become an activist, working on the Underground Railroad.”<br />At a time when the most popular video games include the active participation of the player<br />— slay a soldier to capture enemy territory — the Walden game seems passive by contrast.<br />“Maybe they’re not the same as the people who would sit down and read Thoreau’s book.”<br />Ms. Fullerton — whose group also created the popular 2005 flying game Cloud — consulted Ms. Anderson’s<br />organization, along with the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, to create the game.<br />“It might give you pause in your real life: Maybe instead of sitting on my cellphone, rapidly switching between screens, I should just go for a walk.”<br />The game — which Ms. Fullerton said is likely to cost $19.99 — takes six hours to play.<br />“You’re not only trying to survive, you’re seeking inspiration in the woods,” Ms. Fullerton said, “If<br />you spend all of your time grinding away on survival tasks, the environment will become less lush.<br />Instead of offering the thrills of stealing, violence<br />and copious cursing, the new video game, based on Thoreau’s 19th-century retreat in Massachusetts, will urge players to collect arrowheads, cast their fishing poles into a tranquil pond, buy penny candies and perhaps even jot notes in a journal — all while listening to music, nature sounds and excerpts from the author’s meditations.
