Day Nine

• Game: Year Walk
• Source: BundleStars's Killer Bundle (still going!)
• Start: 09/12
• End: 09/12

It's another iOS adaptation for PC, but a special one. Not only is Year Walk one of a handful of iOS games that Giant Bomb has ever Quick Looked that wasn't some crappy freemium thing, but one of the few games I was actually looking forward to playing when it wasn't exclusive to a $500 paperweight. Year Walk is, and this ties in nicely with another recent release by the name of Never Alone, a game based on actual pagan mythology of a northern peoples that Christianity, in its wisdom, all but scrubbed away and replaced with something they liked better. But whatever, if not that, then something else, right? Fortunately, it's common enough to find preserved specimens in the snow and tundra of rural Scandinavia, and so too has much of their folklore been dug up in a similar fashion. The Year Walk is based on one of these ancient traditions: a ritual fasting period followed by taking a walk into the deeper parts of the forest in a semi-delusional state to learn things beyond mortal ken.

As a game, it's fairly rudimentary adventure game puzzle stuff, but does have a bit of a "how far does the rabbit hole go" feel a la something like Fez. You're never sure if the solution you've found is the complete picture, as there's multiple unexplained elements and iconography scattered around the sometimes confusing map that either means something or it doesn't. It's a neat compromise that Fez pulled off as well, in that you can reach a conclusion and still feel like you haven't found everything. And I don't just mean something as immaterial as collectibles, which this game does not have.

Tonally and artistically the game is very grim and stark and, as Brad himself said in the Quick Look, doesn't shy away from the often brutal twists and endings that came with traditional folklore and fairy stories before they got Disneyfied. The nature of the creatures in the game is left purposefully ambiguous as well, as each one seems neither particularly evil or good but simply an impartial force of nature like the snow under your feet. It's certainly not a long game--I beat it in an hour with zero hints--but worth the few dollars they're asking for it. It's culturally informative, eerily spooky and utterly unique.

But man, if I can just afford a little bit of grousing here, this is the second day in a row where I've been temporarily stymied by a puzzle requiring musical aptitude. Indie musicians should not be designing games, consarnit. Let them sing about how much it sucks that Starbucks keeps getting their order wrong and away from a game engine. Rabble, rabble, rabble.

(Yes, I realize this game came out in 2013, but only for mobile platforms so it doesn't count. So myeh. Man, I'm crabby today.)

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