A Short Hike is the 1st selection of the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club Year 3! Spoilers open!

SPOILERS ARE NOW OPEN

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club Year 3! Our 1st game of 2024 is A Short Hike. The target completion date is January 15, 2023.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after January 15, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You are also free to come back any time after the completion date and share your thoughts! This club is meant to be open to all whenever you want to join in the fun!

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is A Short Hike?

A cozy game where you play a young bird exploring a peaceful nature park and trying to hike to the top of Hawk's Peak. Lots of Animal Crossing vibes but crossed with a small scale adventure game.

How long is A Short Hike?

How long to beat lists it as 1.5 hours long.

At 1.5 hours and 450 yen on Steam this seems within my capabilities of trying out.

@chamurai: You're very welcome to join the festivities. It would be an honor to get the opinion of a #prodigiousguesser on this.

50 minutes in I just got to the top of the peak. I figured that that would be the end but apparently there's more to it. Excited to see what's left. I picked up shells and a couple treasure maps. Gonna look for the treasure later on on my next playthrough. There's more to this than I thought for sure. I think I'll have my 9 year old play this. It seems up his alley.

@chamurai: Your 9-year-old has an alley in a provincial park in Canada?

I like this game. It got a LOT of hype back when it was released and I'm not exactly sure why, since it's not spectacular in any specific way just kind of nice, but it is a nice and pleasant experience. The throwback pseudo-PS1 graphics with the warm colors and tones are pleasant, the sounds are pleasant, and there are a fair number of not very stressful and mostly kind of engaging things to do. It's sort of cool as a minimalist open world experience. It has a nice minimalist story too.

On the other hand after you reach the peak if you're trying to complete more of the game like catching all the fish or finding all the bounce flowers it gets a little bit more tedious and the seams start to show.

I do wish there were more games like this. Small worlds that are just sort of pleasant and stress free to inhabit. Kind of like a vacation. An antidote to the tendency to make games bigger and either more tedious or more difficult these days. I guess you could put this in the "cozy game" category, but most "cozy games" are more about relationships or repetitive tasks like farming than traversal mechanics.

Overall a nice, mellow, time.

This game was such a nice respite post-holidays. Winter holidays are always tough for me, so having this relaxing two-ish hour vacation was just really pleasant. I ended up playing it on Steam to help clear out my backlog since I have had it installed since release. Playing it in just one sitting, and feeling full from it without the need to see everything just made for an overall really enjoyable experience that I think most people would enjoy. Objectives could be obtuse at times, but the gameplay was so simple that nothing ever got frustrating. Once I reached the peak, I only played for ten more minutes and called it a day. But I am glad for the day I got with it and feel like most gamers would find enjoyment in it. 5/5 feathers.