For my Critical Play, I played Year Walk which is an exploration game based on Swedish folklore and mythology. The game is set in 19th-century Sweden, where the player embarks on an ancient practice called “year walking.” This ritual was believed to grant seers visions of the future. The player must navigate chilling landscapes, solving intricate puzzles and interacting with eerie creatures drawn from Scandinavian lore.
In Year Walk, the integration of interaction loops and arcs enriches the game’s narrative and player engagement and participation in unraveling the narrative. While the interaction loops are more minimal than the arcs, loops are used to facilitate the learning and discovery process within the game. Players start with limited knowledge about the eerie environment and its mystical elements. Through repeated interactions—exploring, solving puzzles, and encountering mythical creatures and objects—players build and update their mental models of the game. Each loop involves decision-making and actions (such as following/moving along with the lady in the woods or opening the map to decide on a new location to check out and explore), and the feedback received from these interactions helps players understand and adapt to the game. This cyclical learning process is crucial for mastering the game’s mechanics and more efficiently uncovering the narrative layers.
The game also incorporates narrative arcs that put the user in the cockpit of the story so as to make the narrative more thrilling and mysterious. These arcs are structured around key moments or revelations that significantly advance the story. Each major narrative arc is an expedition into new parts of the story, revealing the dark secrets and lore of the year walking tradition. However, the arcs are not as straightforward as one might think which is exactly why they are an excellent tool for eliciting mystery. The user must “figure out” the right actions to take based on the contexts of the story and the observations and experiences they’ve collected thus far. The right answer is not always clear, leaving it a mystery whether they will make it out alive. For example, when I was following the creepy lady into the forest, she laid down a leaf path for me, potentially leading me to the key, but I was also worried that following her into the forest down the path would kill me.
The setting of the game (exploring a snowy forest with different buildings and locations) sets a perfect ground for exploration which is the backbone behind the delivery of the narrative shrouded in mystery. Furthermore, the eerie visual and auditory choices create a high barrier to boredom for the user since the game is beautiful enough to be as slow moving as it is.
Overall, Year Walk was a very enjoyable game that was a pure joy to analyze and one that taught me a lot about the success execution of interaction loops and arcs as the mechanical structure behind building an interesting and mysterious narrative. The ambiguity of correct/incorrect decisions stood out to me as a core tool for create feelings of mystery.
