Slow Gaming: Applying Slow Movement to Post-anthropocentric Play

This paper introduces "slow gaming," an approach to play that draws on the broader slow movement, which champions mindful, sustainable alternatives to fast, consumption-driven life. Slow gaming is framed as a challenge to cultural expectations of speed, efficiency, and constant progression, creating space for players to move, observe, and interact at a pace that resists the acceleration of contemporary media. The study situates this concept within research on stillness, coziness in digital games, and post-anthropocentric perspectives on the relationship between humans and their environments, asking how these principles shape both play and ecological awareness.

The argument is developed through a comparative analysis of two games that depict worlds after humanity: Journey (2012) and Stray (2022). Journey is characterized as an example of coherent coziness, where visual harmony, fluid movement, and minimal conflict sustain a near-meditative atmosphere. Stray, by contrast, is described as employing dissonant coziness. Although marketed through warm lighting, a cute feline protagonist, and domestic micro-spaces, the game juxtaposes these comforts with scenes of decay, infestation, and infrastructural collapse. This tension between stillness and ruin is read through Nixon's concept of slow violence, which suggests that the remnants of human activity continue to inflict harm long after people have disappeared.

The paper concludes that both games show how digital worlds can cultivate environmental awareness and deeper engagement with post-humanist imaginaries. By aligning game design with the ethics of slow culture, the author argues that slow gaming enriches player experience while also functioning as a critical tool for examining the ecological dimensions of play. The analysis draws on a close reading of two titles and a body of theoretical literature rather than on empirical data such as player surveys, so its claims rest on interpretive rather than quantitative evidence.