Review: A Short Hike

Available on: Steam, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch

Cost: €6.50 or included on Xbox Gamepass

Genre: Exploration Adventure

Developer: adamgryu

Publisher: adamgryu

A Short Hike is a charming exploration adventure game where you play as Claire, a curious bird visiting her Aunt at Hawk Peak Provincial Park. Explore the park at your own pace, meet quirky characters and complete tasks from collecting items, finding lost belongings and competing in a marathon to gather golden feathers, your only support to successfully hike up the Park’s mountain peak.

Story

Claire is an adventurous bird visiting her Aunt at the Hawk Peak Provincial Park for a break from home. Unfortunately, Claire has no mobile phone reception in the Park, so must hike and climb the park’s trails to find signal. Exploration is key to the game, and it’s up to you what path you take to find your way up the summit. You can explore at your own pace, and there’s plenty of the park to cover with helpful items to pick up, fellow hikers to meet and complete tasks for, and chests to find.

Gameplay

The controls of movement are buttery smooth, movement is a real highlight of this game and it’s both satisfying and enjoyable to jump off a cliff edge to glide to another ledge or area, or to climb up to a new summit. Purchasing the speed boat for rent was particularly fun, racing at quite a speed around the island to get to your next area more quickly.

The gameplay revolves around meeting other hikers and residents and getting to know them, mostly by completing simple tasks for them. The characters are quirky with a good mix of humorous and mindfully encouraging dialogue, and I certainly enjoyed meeting all the characters and finding out their personality types, from thoughtful contemplatives to anxious artistic types, to downright sassy. These tasks range from collecting items, to finding lost possessions, and even a game of beachstickball. Most will give rewards of golden feathers, which increase your stamina, allowing you to climb higher or run faster around the reserve.

Graphics and Visuals

Set on an mountainous island, the visuals include all the usual designs of the beach, ocean, lakes, mountains, trees and flowers that you’d expect in a pixel art style. The game is colourful accurate to a nature park with plenty of greenery and rockfaces, while the changes in weather in the various points of the island are perfectly themed. It has a lovely feel of being in nature, and soaring around the peak is a pretty experience seeing all the little details in design.

An option unique to A Short Hike is being able to select the pixel size to your preference, from “Big and Crunchy” which will give a blurrier 2000’s retro look with blockier pixels to “tiny and sharp” for a finer pixel size to give a fuller image. This was a lovely touch to the game meaning you can play in a style that best fits your visual preference, and no option diminishes the quality of the view or gameplay.

Longevity

I completed the game in around 2 hours, although there is some extra tasks to pick up from collecting shells to filling out your fishing log. There’s plenty of chests to unlock as well as treasure to find from clues on treasure maps you find along the journey. However if you’ve completed enough tasks to gather enough golden feathers to reach the summit, there isn’t much of a purpose of completing any further tasks. That being said, I’ve played this game a few times now since it’s release as it’s calming atmosphere and short play time is a draw for a few hours to relax in an evening and it’s always been an enjoyable experience.

Conclusion

Overall, A Short Hike is a truly delightful experience. With it’s charming pixel art style, atmospheric music, scenic surroundings and smooth, intuative controls, the game is a pleasurable experience for a few hours. The game has a good sense of humour through the characters you meet, as well as some fun tasks to complete. The journey to the peak also holds a sweet story to conclude Claire’s adventure. I would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a relaxing escape for a few hours in an evening, for a chuckle, a sweet story, and an exploration adventure you can take at your own pace.