This week, I played A Short Hike, a game developed by Adam Robinson Yu that can be played on various different platforms including Steam, Nintendo Switches, or PlayStations. This game is for anyone who enjoys exploration and a relaxed, narrative centered gameplay. As the reading explains, walking simulators use exploration instead of other gameplay mechanics to tell a story, allowing players to engage with a world themselves instead of giving them direct tasks and puzzles. A Short Hike tells a story by making the exploration process a reflection of the character’s emotions as he/she attempts to complete a seemingly simple objective, leaving the player with a light but meaningful narrative and gameplaying experience. The player’s movement through the world is the main storytelling mechanism, showing our idea of a spatial story and reinforcing the game’s theme that the journey is more important than the destination.
I played this game on Steam and it took me about 2 hours to complete the main objective. I controlled a character given the objective to reach the top of a hike in order to gain reception to take an important phone call. The introduction establishes that this phone call is something that is urgent and that the character is feeling uneasy about, which sets some tension and structure for the story that the game will follow. I immediately began following the signs in the space assuming that the objective of the game was to reach the top as soon as possible, however soon realized that the design of the game pushes the player to explore all of the surroundings in order to work towards being able to finish the hike.
The most important collectible is called the Golden Feather, which increases the player’s abilities to fly and climb the terrains. In the early stages of the game, walking around the lower parts of the mountain was very slow. This progression is meant to reflect the underlying story of a character who starts on a long and scary journey, and gradually gains confidence and ability to navigate through it. Most notably, climbing more difficult terrains becomes easier as I collect more feathers, which also reflects the character’s growth. A moment that stood out to me was finally reaching the snowy area towards the top of the trail and experiencing the shift of the ambiance and music. This experience in space was part of the narrative, creating a feeling of accumulation of progress into a final push to the top without any explicit dialogue.
The world functions as environmental storytelling, using treasures and optional side quests to create a narrative space instead of just telling the story. The mechanics of collecting Golden Feathers, climbing, and exploring the world create dynamics that promote exploration and aesthetics of accomplishment and curiosity, supporting the idea that the journey to the destination itself is meaningful. The space is the narrative architecture itself rather than being a background, with every trail and optional task contributing to the spatial story. This idea is similar to many other walking simulator games, but A Short Hike has fairly little dialogue and structured narration. Much of the exploration in the game is optional, but is notably rewarding and engaging as it adds significantly to the narrative. There are very few hints, clear direction, or requirements compared to other games I have played. I found myself often setting my own goals based on what I wanted to explore, such as collecting treasure boxes nested on elevated surfaces that required me to glide down or water flowers to bounce on. The design of the game creates these narrative possibilities with the space of the world, which made my journey feel more self directed and personal. The game’s design is effective, but a critique I have for the game is that exploration should be more explicitly encouraged since it is possible for players to focus on completing the hike as quickly as possible given how the objective is introduced with little other context. I could see some players struggling with the lack of instruction and structure in the navigation process.
The idea of walking in order to work towards an initially straightforward goal while discovering new things creates a rich story in itself. My favorite part of the game was the ending (which I will not spoil, but is attached in the image), which ties together the complete narrative with a wholesome message that further reinforces themes of focusing on the journey rather than the destination. A Short Hike was overall an enjoyable experience to play, providing just enough structure to outline a story that the player finds a way to fill in through their own exploration of walking around a terrain.
