You thought of a good name for simulations of space/virtual environments yet?
Nope. I tried looking through similar types of things on wikipedia to see if there was a categorical name for them (but did not find one):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_attraction_(simulated)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funhouse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstacle_course
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_park
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropes_course
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steeplechase_(athletics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_No_More_(2011_play)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_theatre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_theatre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_education
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_therapy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Adventure
Some candidates I have are:
Video Dreams
I think this one is just cute more than anything. I don’t think it’s descriptive or crunchy enough to actually catch on.
Entertainment Software
This can include stuff like Netflix, so I’m not sure if it’s really specific enough. It’s already used a fair amount, so low bar to adoption.
Promenade Theater/Site-specific Theater/Environmental Theater/Interactive Theater
Applicable to theater productions, but no good word to bridge it to digital media. It’s the physical equivalent to what is commonly done in digital media, you set up a place that allows people to interact in a certain way and see certain things.
Digital Museum
Fairly self-explanatory. A few digital museums actually already exist. Trouble is that people might expect things that resemble real museums a bit more when the media here supports things that are more like Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The word Theme Park also isn’t really appropriate because it’s not really a park.
Digital Playground/Sim Playground/Sim Spaces
Maybe these could be the best term? They’re generic enough that it could fit nearly anything that’s currently being called a game, but more specifically referring to a space than entertainment software, thereby excluding Netflix.
Virtual/Sim Adventures
Bit more imaginative than the previous ones. Virtual/Simulated/Digital are all decent descriptors to point out that this is happening on a computer. Simulator is slightly more generic and can refer to real life simulations too, which may be desirable for a term like this, since there is an analog in medium.
The primary criteria I’d have for a term like this is that it’s short, two words maximum, it’s descriptive, and that it’s easily adoptable, not too far a jump from our existing lexicon. Ideally it would seem like a word/term we always had.
Again, if you guys have any ideas, you’re welcome to send them in. I haven’t gotten any suggestions yet. You can of course use pastebin for longer thoughts.
All those ideas are honestly terrible, lol. Video dreams? Promenade theater??? I really think walking sims and interactive environments are the best terms.
I’m not referring exclusively to walking sims here, I’m trying to come up with an encompassing term for all simulated environments, because games aren’t necessarily simulated environments and simulated environments aren’t necessarily games.
Also promenade theater is a real term.
Think I’ll go with Simulated Environments.
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