A Short Hike is a delightful little game about a bird climbing a mountain; In order to do so, you’ll explore a large environment and interact with various NPCs, most of which will have small quests for you to do or challenges to complete, I went through the game in a single session and really enjoyed it! Some parts were a bit frustrating and others were overwhelming, but ultimately it was a fun time with a lot of heart.
Because the main driving force behind your character is to get to the top of the mountain, climbing and jumping around is one of the core mechanics of the game. In order to do so you’ll need “golden feathers”, which are akin to a automatically replenishing stamina bar. Most of the game revolves around getting more golden feathers for you to be able to climb higher and explore more of the map, and sometimes you’ll arrive at a point where it’s not clear if there’s a way to progress with the current number of feathers you have, but there were situations where I thought there was some roundabout way to do something, so I spent a bit of frustrating time on these fruitless attempts.
The way you get golden feathers is usually by completing sidequests or interacting with NPCs that want specific things. You can get a few by buying them, which is fairly straightforward, but sometimes you have to do a minigame, like some kind of volleyball. Most of them are fun, but sometimes people ask you to do something, and without a way to track what you need to do or have already done, it’s easy to get sidetracked and never get around to it. Luckily most of the harder challenges just give you cosmetics or extra bragging rights, and the minimum you need to do to get the feathers is fairly doable.
The map has various zones, all with their own activities. You start at the bottom of the mountain and there is a beach and various small hills to climb and the highest concentration of people to talk to; But as you get more feathers, find items (like a pickaxe, a shovel, or a pail to carry water) you uncover more of the mountain, with forests, snowy areas (where your feathers do not automatically recover), ruins and finally the submit. Most of the game is straightforward, but I managed to get to some areas maybe too late where NPCs were asking me to do things that seemed like too much getting out of my way, or some zones - like the water, when you get the boat - just seemed too big to explore. Maybe a map would’ve helped…?
All in all, I had a good time with A Short Hike, it’s a very friendly game with a lot of fun writing and while the story doesn’t have a strong presence, I felt like the game was still trying to say something with its characters and their motivations. If you can give this one a look, I’d recommend it!
