A Short Hike is a fantasy about life without fear of failure. By decoupling effort from consequence, the game creates the conditions for Claire, and the player, to turn outward and engage with people, the world, and life itself.
We are introduced to Claire as someone that is expecting a very important phone call. Unfortunately the only place with reception is on top of Hawk Peak. And so we set off.
The weight of the expected phone call begins to melt away as we are enveloped by the island’s sandy beaches, turquoise waters, and lush vegetation. It quickly becomes clear that “failure” has no real consequence in Hawk Peak Provincial Park. There is no fall damage, we cannot die, and there’s no time limit for reaching the peak. Indeed the imprecise controls and swinging camera perspectives almost lend themselves to trips and slips.
While perhaps initially frustrating, we eventually begin to embrace “failure” as another step in the journey. The game makes this explicit through the Golden Feathers scattered around the island and offered as quest rewards that gate our progress higher up the mountain. In order to progress we must explore and venture away from the peak.
As we do, we find NPCs: funny and relatable and always friendly. With them, there are no wrong dialogue options. Avery the parkour runner will always be down to race and the beach-stick-ball player will always be down to play, no matter how many times we bail on them.
What could feel like shallow NPC design that threatens to trivialize our interactions actually lands as a gift. A gift to Claire, a somewhat reserved teen with a lot on her mind, to open up and connect with her community. And a gift to us, the player, to not have to worry about picking the “wrong” dialogue option and instead freely explore all the options and see what hints of lore, characterization or directions to treasures we can uncover.
In her book Wandering Games, Melissa Kagen explains how wandering games have long offered fantasies of better circumstances. For instance, Kagen argues that Eastshade is a fantasy of work under capitalism: a world where everyone loves what they do and financial barriers don’t exist. While clearly sharing in tone, appearance, and gameplay elements, I’d argue that A Short Hike isn’t a fantasy of better work, it’s a fantasy of better play.
This is what the consequence-free world gives us. Not just a sandbox to wander around, but an invitation to turn outwards to the park and other people. Just like Claire, we came to Hawk Peak Provincial Park with something weighing on us. Distracted and waiting for an important phone call at first, by the time we reach the summit it’s clear she no longer needs that call in the same way. Her anxieties have been lightened through her engagement with the people and places around her. And then we realize our worries have melted away too.
We soar above the clouds, the world glowing in pink and blue silhouettes beneath us. While a life free of failure is impossible, A Short Hike shows us that a life free of the fear of failure can be found in the world around us.
