Cav's Place

No Response is a free game that I picked up several years ago and, to be perfectly blunt, I finally played it today because I wanted something to write about quickly… Though writing even such a quick little review, if the term may even be used, takes much longer than playing it, since that only takes about 15 minutes. But I guess that’s long enough to tell the story, despite the perhaps rather unusual manner in which it’s presented and the minimalist methods, making each word, sound and graphical object count.
That said, I wonder whether something like this can even be considered a game, being a walking simulator with just about zero actual interaction or player agency, and even that very short duration is in fact obtained because of the slow walking speed. I guess there is one possibly optional spot to explore, where the path branches off, but the message seen there doesn’t seem to fit with the rest… Not that those seen before that point make that much sense either, considering the context that’s pretty obvious from the unskippable intro and made so clear in the tunnel that there’s little point in the game not ending right then. And, at least for me, the menu, whether the one that shows up when you press Esc or the one at the end, couldn’t be interacted with either, so just use Alt+F4 to quit.
I do think that walking simulators and games whose sole aim is to tell a fixed story or convey a message have their place, that it may be a way to use the medium as an art form, and I’m also aware that games made for game jams, such as this one, shouldn’t usually be expected to be more than little demos, but I see little reason to even watch a video of No Response, much less go through it yourself, perhaps in good part just because it’s so obvious. Then again, I saw comments from some who were surprised by the ending, which I find baffling but probably means that a target audience does exist.