A Short Hike

Was the only game I had available in the hours before a major ear surgery. It was able to keep my mind entertained and distract me enoug, preventing the excessive development of dark thoughts. Thanks for that

A Short Hike
It is such a cozy little game. It’s short, simple, and surprisingly relaxing. You play as a bird climbing a mountain, but the real fun is in exploring — meeting other hikers, gliding around, and just watering the plants, digging around for coins, collecting chests and feathers 🪶 etc. The music and visuals make it feel warm and calm, like a quiet escape from everything. It’s a small game, but it leaves you feeling happy when you’re done.(9.5/10).5 cut for the camera view movement but besides that everything is wonderful!

Hmm... GREAT SHORT EXPERIENCE! All side activities and micro-stories of each character are really fun. I recommend trying this short game and unlocking all achievements to get the full experience

This game was such a joy to play.
If you are feeling stressed or at all burnt out and just want something wholesome and relaxing to play, this short walking simulator can be perfect. It’s one of those cosy games that does kind of fall into the territory of at times feeling like it’s for kids (like Alba or A Tiny Sticker Tale), but I don’t think I really mind that kind of thing. I like to see them as games that are suitable for kids, but still aimed at adults, as they feel like the kind of games that are trying to heal our inner child.
This game is really cute, and wholesome in that way. The interactions with characters are sweet, and honestly in fleeting moments it tugged at my heart a little. The game is very clearly inspired by the likes of animal crossing, but it is very much its own thing.
I was a little unsure at first how I'd fare with the graphics, as I heard that there was an option to turn the pixelation off. Usually when a game has a kind of blur or pixelation you can turn off I almost always end up turning it off, but this time I ended up keeping it on as I just liked it the way it was and didn’t feel the need to. Overall the game is really pretty, it’s such a lovely aesthetic and I really enjoyed exploring in this game.
Gameplay wise, it’s a game pretty much built around exploring. In this sense, it’s a game well suited for the curious, although giving that the general goal is just to reach the peak, whether you just want to reach the top or whether you want to explore everything, I can see how it kind of covers all bases and reaches the largest audience. At the time I am writing this, the game has 99% positive reviews, which is crazy!
This game was just satisfying to play in many ways. The flying mechanic having a progression to it made the exploration aspect easier as you went along, and this definitely helps the game maintain the feeling of being fun and satisfying even when I was searching the map for the last collectables or bits for achievements.
The concept of this game letting you climb up to a peak and then quite satisfyingly glide/fly your way back down again was another thing that felt like it gave this game a feeling of child-like wonder, healing our inner child. It reminds me of times you’d go down a particularly fun slide at a park as a kid and immediately want to get back to the top to do it again.
Overall, this game was fun and relaxing and it was just a joy to play from start to finish. It was a fun game to complete for me, and although you may need a guide when you get to the last few collectables, it was still a fun 100%. I can imagine myself re-playing this again in future, it maybe even becoming a bit of a comfort game for me.
I would highly recommend you give this a go if you are open to a more cute and relaxed experience.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☑ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

TLDR Review: A sweet short treat, with a well-crafted world, and a satisfying conclusion. But god I did not enjoy the “2010s internet” lingo in the dialogue writing.
In-depth review:
Pros:
- It was touted as a "cozy open world", and in many ways, I prefer it to a more expansive one. There's a surprising amount of activities stacked into a small space: from fishing, digging, watering flowers, boating, climbing, to treasure hunting (of which I found a grand total of zero treasures). There's no wasted space and that's great.
- Mark Sparling's music is fantastic. It swells in and really touches with a sense of exploration and wonder; and at other times knows to be quiet and allow the natural ambience to do the work. The second-to-last track just before you summit, with its sense of anticipation and adventure, was my favourite.
- Vertical freedom: from climbing Zelda-style (climb higher as you find more Golden Feathers), to the satisfying gliding once you reach the top, very few games have this sense of vertical exploration.
- Ending: without spoilers, I found the ending to be kind of sweet. As they say: A good journey deserves a solid landing, and this one lands quite nicely.
Cons:
- One save file. The inability to have two separate journeys seems like a limiting choice. It's a short game (my first playthrough was 87 minutes, including a few side quests), so it’s not a huge deal, but still I would’ve preferred multiple save files.
- My biggest gripe: the dialogue. Here are some quotes (slightly paraphrased from memory):
“Just jammin’” “It’s like, uh, epic stuff man” ”Welp!” “Hashtag worst dad” “You’re so basic!”
Did I suddenly go hiking surrounded by my millennial tech coworkers from Slack? Cause it seriously detracted from my experience. I know the developer didn't intend it, but I couldn't help but read a layer of irony and insincerity to a lot of the interaction. It would've been fine if a few characters talked like that, but the majority do. Also, the MC says “...uh” way too often. It felt like "A Short Hike" was trying to be relatable, but also self-aware and slightly ironic in that 2010s internet forum way. That’s not what I expected from a game about hiking and reconnecting with family and nature. As someone who values writing and dialogue very highly, this lost "A Short Hike" a solid 1 point in my books.
Conclusion: It’s a great short game which doesn’t overstay it's welcome. It gives a few solid hours of wholesome adventure, and then leaves on a good note. I actually would love more 5–10 hr well-crafted indies like this, in-between the 40–80 hour AAA marathons.
Overall score: 7.5 / 10

very adorable game. I felt like the penguin from super mario 64 (except I had a super cute hat)
10/10 would recommend!!

thank you, mr. donald for the game ♡