Game Club Discussion: A Short Hike

[elf]

Now that we've had time to play (...and possibly, time to forget why we played and lose track of time because of NaNoWriMo), let's talk!

This month's megabundle game was/is (for another week) A Short Hike (itch.io version), "a little exploration game about hiking up a mountain."

Here are some potential questions to discuss, but you're not required to answer any of them. Feel free to make up your own questions and answer those, or just talk about what caught your attention.

1. What did you think this game was going to be, before you played it? What was surprising about it? 2. How far did you get in the game? Do you want to play more? 3. What was the central focus of the game, and what was on the sidelines? How did the sidelined parts support or detract from the central focus? 4. What kind of worldbuilding does it have? What questions about the setting were left unanswered? 5. Did you particularly like or dislike any of the characters? 6. What parts were most frustrating? What parts were most fun? 7. Did you use a keyboard, a controller, or both? How do you think that affected the game?

Comments

[elf]

I played once, for a few hours, with Kid the Elder over my shoulder for part of it, telling me bits of how to move around so I didn't get frustrated with it.

(I get frustrated with a lot of video games.)

Did not get to the peak. Plan to play it again and finish it; it was very pleasant. But I got busy with other things, and then there was NaNo. (I'm doing very well at NaNo but it's killing my evening leisure time.)

Did not even try keyboard. But had to dust off the controller, because I rarely play games that need it.

I was also pleasantly surprised how much game there was. "Short" is right there in the title, and I've seen a lot of games described as "short" and what they mean is "you can see absolutely everything in half an hour. You solve 1-2 simple puzzles, have a couple of quick interactions, and you're done." I had figured this was more than that, but didn't know it had so much to explore.

...I played the ball game enough to win one prize (which I have now forgotten what it was) but not the other one; getting to 20 pts was just too frustrating and I gave up.

I plan on playing it again later and trying to get a better sense of the layout, and of course, actually climb to the peak.

[vriddy]

I also expected it to be a lot shorter, and it was really nice to realise that no, that island is a lot bigger than expected and offers a lot to do!

Congrats on the NaNo progress and good luck with the rest of November :)

[isis]

I think the peak is sort of not the point :-)