Communication is key in Big Walk, a wildly inventive puzzle-adventure game where you team up with real-world friends to solve puzzles scattered about a sprawling island. Using proximity-based voice chat to collaborate, you’ll throw balls through a hoop, move a heavy weight uphill, stitch together a sequence of coded symbols through a game of telephone, and do so much more that we won’t spoil.
There’s no quest log, objective tracker, or map to guide your party. Solving each puzzle rewards you with a red gourd-shaped object; acquire enough of them and you can move to a new area. The world and its puzzles automatically adjust based on the number of players in your group (up to 12, with full crossplay across platforms), so there are no challenges you can’t overcome with some creative thinking.
What we love: Finding clever ways to communicate. Get too far apart and you can’t hear each other, so you may have to use your arms to point or shoot a flare into the air. If it’s nighttime in the game, you may not be able to see companions either; maybe you can illuminate yourself and your surroundings with a lamp, or ring a cowbell to signal each other. Even when a puzzle ensures you can’t hear comrades—like a conundrum that puts one player in a soundproof room—you’ll always find sly ways to relay information if you put your mind to it.
Quick tip: Come up with an agreed-upon strategy. Many puzzles will isolate you from your friends but not before you have time to assess the unique mechanic at play. Collectively decide how you’re referring to each symbol, define specific hand gestures, or agree that one jump means “yes” while two jumps mean “no.” Whatever you decide, just make sure you’re all on the same page.
Meet the creator: Five-person developer House House is best known for its award-winning stealth sandbox release Untitled Goose Game. The studio’s third title, Big Walk, leans into gaming as a social space in which—as the team sees it—you can “hang out and get lost with close friends in a big world.”
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