A Short Hike: A soothingly sweet journey of pure freedom

POV, you’ve just had the worse two days at work, at a job you hate but have to keep to actually keep yourself financially afloat. You’ve been battered by seething comments and stacks of plates shoved into your arms, and you’re now lying in bed wondering what the hell you can do. Now that sounds like a pretty deep question, but I only wanted a simple solution. A cosy 2-3 hour experience that would drip feed some kind of joy. I never thought I’d find something so perfect a fit as a solution as, A Short Hike.

It had been on my Wishlist for eons, mixed in there with all the other indies I waited to be on sale just to realise I still didn’t have enough money for them. I had seen what it had looked like, a weirdly hazy animal crossing people had called it and so I went in with semi-hopeful expectations and forced the £6 it cost me to cure me of my night-time blues.

The first 5 minutes of the game had already struck me with its soothingly playful charm with the transition of music. You begin in silence, with the wind and your footsteps the only sound. This tone was calm, not in your face. It kind of said to me, hi welcome to the game, enjoy. Nowhere to be found was reems of context or flashy cutscenes, it had cut straight to just being Claire. As you move further into the game, the gorgeous melodies of Mark Sparling began to colour the world. All are woven together to paint the subtle different areas of the map, whilst not making it feel like you’ve stepped out of the box. He only needed a few tracks to feel the snowy terrain of the mountain to the islands in the sea to realise the world in A Short Hike, an essential element of my experience.

Another aspect of the game that swept me off my feet in awe was the ability to touch anything and everything in the world. In a lot of games I play, backgrounds are untouchable pictures that serve as, just that. Pictures. Whilst that satisfies me enough in order to build the world around me, that effort to make everything literally a part of the game gave me freedom in the purest sense. I could climb any cliff, swim in any body of water, and glide past any trees. Everywhere had been meticulously thought out and included to serve a purpose. Where it might be a minigame, a treasure map location, or simply a chest. In no part of Claire’s journey did I wade through empty space. This aspect made me appreciate this game so much more, as I could clearly see the love and thought poured into this game to make it a delectably full experience.

I loved a lot of things about A Short Hike, the above being the two stand-out aspects ill always think about when pondering on what game I wanna play next. However, other features also accumulated to make this the perfect gift, including, the range of fun silly mini-games, from 'beachstickball' to racing Avery. Such simple tasks never felt like an obstacle or a hindrance to my trip. They were fun detours that felt natural and entwined with the theme of this game.

Talking about the theme, I really appreciated the quiet comfort of the story of this game. It didn’t need reams of texts to flesh out characters and story, it only needed the brief chats with the many NPCs in the park to give me enough to feel who Claire was and how others went about their day in the game. It don’t have to be deep, it just need to be cute, and that’s okay. The subtle melancholy of Claire’s purpose in the game also added an extra layer of comfort to the game as we see her struggle to come out of her shell on her own. Worried about her mother’s health she can’t seem to relax and enjoy herself, until she ventures on her own Odyssey to discover at the top, that everything is ok.

A Short Hike didn’t have to be much of anything, with a 2-hour run, why would I still think about this experience for more than 2 minutes? But it did, and more. It was less and yet so much more of an experience than a lot of things I consume in media. It came to me at such a perfect time when I was down and questioning my own decisions, it only needed to leave me to be free to do everything the game had in store for me to win me over. Whatever your mood, this indie is perfection to a T and will be sure to sweep you away into the skies of A Short Hike.