Adam Robinson-Yu’s A Short Hike is simply a lovely game.
The game is designed to feel warm, comfortable and stress free, with a simple, yet emotionally hitting low-stakes narrative, friendly characters with funny and casual dialogue options, and simple pixelated graphics with a warm colour palette.
A Short Hike is a short exploration game where you play as an anthropomorphic bird named Claire, exploring Hawk Peak Provincial Park. In the beginning of the game, it is revealed you are waiting for an important phone call, and are tasked with climbing to the summit of Hawk Peak as that is the only place where you can obtain a signal. There is no rush to reach the top within any set time limit; the player is free to indefinitely explore the Park at their leisure if they wish, though the main storyline will not progress. At the summit, Claire will receive a phone call from her mother, who tells Claire that her surgery went well and congratulates her on the climb. At that moment, a huge updraft will appear in front of Claire and her mother will tell her to seize the opportunity to fly with it. In doing so, the flight appears to act as a physical and visual release of the small knot of tension Claire has been holding for her mother and also serves as a wonderful view of the Park.
There is no shortage of things to do in the Park before, or even after completing the main storyline. The park is very relaxing to explore, with many different areas and full of secrets to keep things fresh. There is no fall damage or fear of getting lost, and the only true difficulty is obtaining golden feathers to increase your stamina and performing some bits of parkour to reach more obscure areas. Indeed, the feathers are necessary to climb Hawk Peak, but feathers can be found all over the park or even bought, with money also found from exploring, in some areas. There are also multiple paths to the summit, one that can be done with more mechanical skill and less feathers, and a straight shot one that requires more feathers. Either way, the game is very accommodating to different playstyles.
Fun characters appear everywhere, giving small side quests, imparting wisdom or just adding to the general ambiance of the game. All dialogue is written in lowercase letters encased in a soft text bubble, adding a further sense of candidness and amiability to the characters.
Diverting a bit from my main thesis, I did want to point out one specific character in the game, the “painter kid” that Claire encounters all over the map. I very much read into this character as a bit of a self insert for the creator. Painter Kid is always painting whenever encountered, and often changes locations on the map, claiming that the “previous location wasn’t working for him”. His painting style leans towards abstract or impressionist landscapes. As you converse with him more, you learn that he is finally having his work exhibited next week in a gallery full of contemporary artists he admires and feels incomparable to. He worries that he isn’t as talented as the others, and that no one will understand his work, and even considers changing his art style into that of the other artists. His doubts are compounded by the uncertainty that he is creating anything meaningful as an artist, while more traditional paths have a better measure of success. Slowly, Claire helps him gain confidence in his own style, essentially telling him that he was invited to the showcase because his style is desirable, that he shouldn’t feel pressured to create anything because he feels like that’s what others may expect from him. For me, it’s a lovely little character arc that eases very modern anxieties about expectations and the measure of success.
Finally, we come to the graphics of the game. The graphics were the first thing that stood out to me upon opening A Short Hike, with its warm tones and unique 3D -> 2D crunchy pixelation technique. I did some digging into how this look was achieved, and found a tweet by the creator that linked to this package for Unity, a Unity package that, as described on the website, renders Gameboy style visuals by rendering its given images at 160 x 140 pixels and sets a custom shader limit to output to a 4-colour palette, simplifying the entire image to a very pleasing result. As for the palette of the game, Robinson-Yu explains in his speech given to the Game Developers Conference that he sampled colours directly from images of the Canadian Shield in the autumn to paint his game in its warm and cozy tones.
This game is like a warm cup of hot cocoa on a cool autumn day. The simple pixel graphics style is reminiscent of retro games (I would hesitate to use this term as we discussed on the first day of class, but it was literally created by a package called GBCamera to emulate the visuals of the Gameboy console), creating a comforting sense of nostalgia. As mentioned, the characters, story, and gameplay are all very welcoming and accessible and also puts the player in a calm, thoughtful state, ready to take in and enjoy the simple wonders of Hawk Peak Provincial Park. I think I’m going to play this game later after I finish up all the rest of my work.
