Everyone is talking about A Short Hike, here’s why

Animal Crossing in flight.

We’re all a bit stressed. What helps with stress? A game full of nice things, nice tasks and nice people that lets you roam around outside. Wonderful! The virtual outside. That can’t be hurt by climate change can it? Oh god.

A Short Hike, the exploration-based Animal Crossing-like release late last month has been garnering a fair bit of attention from fellow developers as of late. So why’s everyone talking about it? In short, the game combines pretty much everything that’s hot in indie gaming right now. There is witty, self referential dialogue, chilled out mechanics, nature and pixels; an indie lovers dream. But what is this game like to play?

It’s wonderful. It feels a little like stepping into the communication style of games like Wandersong and Night in the Woods, but with the calming, collecting driven world of Stardew Valley. I’m into it and it’s synthy chilled soundtrack and gliding, oh, what a joy. I spent my first hour talking to whoever I could, stopping anthropomorphized island inhabitants in their tracks as they trained for their marathon, just to get even more snippets of truly lovely dialogue.

While talking to people around the island, I received little tasks to find lost items and retrieve shells, all encouraging me to keep scooting around the world in my little penguin form. The main aim is to get to the highest peak of the island, a place where you just might get enough phone signal to call your family. It’s a simple goal, but to achieve it the whole island must be navigated in search of golden feathers. These feathers act as a stamina system, allowing you to climb rock faces to points otherwise unreachable, win races and fly extra high.

The art style exists in a curious inbetween realm of pixelated and 3D, which can seem a little unclear at first, but you soon get used to. The camera’s habit of dramatically changing angles at certain points of exploration can be a little distracting at points but otherwise navigation and keeping track of where you are is fairly seamless.

In just a short playthrough I can see why everyone has been loving this. It’s chilled out, it’s characters are idiosyncratic and joyful and, best of all, you can flippin’ fly!

A Short Hike is out now on itch.io and Steam. Go get.