Open-world Video Games Codexery

A Short Hike

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A Short Hike is a platformer and adventure video game where the player controls Claire, an anthropomorphic bird, in an open world.[1] The game won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2020 Independent Games Festival.[2] Claire, an anthropomorphic bird controlled by the player, must reach the summit of the map, and her stamina for actions like flying, running, or jumping is governed by collected Golden Feathers.[1]

Making and release

A Short Hike was created by Adam Robinson-Yu, a Toronto-based developer who programmed, designed, and wrote the game.[3] Adam Robinson-Yu developed A Short Hike using the Unity engine.[4][5] After encountering difficulties with a role-playing game inspired by Paper Mario, Robinson-Yu began development on A Short Hike in December 2018.[4][6][7] His visits to national landmarks motivated him to design a game centered on hiking.[8]

On July 30, 2019, A Short Hike launched for Windows, Linux, and macOS via Itch.io and Steam.[9] Mark Sparling composed the soundtrack, recording live music with instruments including a guitar, mandolin, and banjo.[10]

What the cited sources add

Robinson-Yu stated that the fire tower in the game was inspired by his hiking trip to Mount Pilchuck.[4] The developer said he wanted getting lost to be part of the gameplay and tried to create interesting landmarks to pique people's curiosity.[4] Erskine of Shacknews described the characters as funny and the dialogue as authentic.[11] Robinson-Yu said he wanted to see if he could make a beautiful 3D world using as few pixels as possible.[12]

He mentioned that the shovel was among the earliest items he implemented, as it offered a straightforward method for incorporating hidden content.[4]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Vania, "A Short Hike", Adventure Gamers, January 17, 2020; "platformer", Cambridge Dictionary; Vania, "A Short Hike", Adventure Gamers, January 17, 2020; Erskine, "A Short Hike Review: A Slice of Animal Life", Shacknews, November 24, 2021; Paez, "How A Successful Game Genre Became the Butt of an Internet Joke", Inverse, July 20, 2020; Vania, "A Short Hike", Adventure Gamers, January 17, 2020; Erskine, "A Short Hike Review: A Slice of Animal Life", Shacknews, November 24, 2021; Moore, "A Short List of the Best Short Games of 2019", The Verg en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mersereau, "Review: A Short Hike", Destructoid, August 3, 2019 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Erskine, "A Short Hike Review: A Slice of Animal Life", Shacknews, November 24, 2021; Robinson-Yu, "Crafting A Tiny Open World: A Short Hike Postmortem", Game Developers Conference, March 27, 2020; Wallace, ""The First Time Somebody Was Reading the Dialogue, I Had To Leave The Room. I Was Too Embarrassed." – How Adamgryu Overcame Writer's Block And Creative Burnout in the Development of A Short Hike", MCV/Develop, (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Couture, "Road to the IGF: Adam Robinson-Yu's A Short Hike", Game Developer, February 21, 2020. facts only, no text reused. gamedeveloper.com
  5. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Couture, "Road to the IGF: Adam Robinson-Yu's A Short Hike", Game Developer, February 21, 2020 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Robinson-Yu, "Crafting A Tiny Open World: A Short Hike Postmortem", Game Developers Conference, March 27, 2020; Wallace, ""The First Time Somebody Was Reading the Dialogue, I Had To Leave The Room. I Was Too Embarrassed." – How Adamgryu Overcame Writer's Block And Creative Burnout in the Development of A Short Hike", MCV/Develop, (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Robinson-Yu, "Crafting A Tiny Open World: A Short Hike Postmortem", Game Developers Conference, March 27, 2020 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Robinson-Yu, "Crafting A Tiny Open World: A Look Behind the Scenes at the Creation of A Short Hike", PlayStation Blog, August 5, 2021; Wallace, ""The First Time Somebody Was Reading the Dialogue, I Had To Leave The Room. I Was Too Embarrassed." – How Adamgryu Overcame Writer's Block And Creative Burnout in the Development of A Short Hike", MCV/Develop, ; Wallace, ""The First Time Somebody Was Reading the Dialogue, I Had To Leave The Room. I Was Too Embarrassed." – How Adamgryu Overcame Writer's Block And Creative Burnout in the Development en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Robinson-Yu, "Crafting A Tiny Open World: A Short Hike Postmortem", Game Developers Conference, March 27, 2020; Moore, "A Short Hike is One Part Animal Crossing and One Part Breath of the Wild", The Verge, August 18, 2019; Hawkins, "A Short Hike Hits the Trail on Nintendo Switch Later Today", Shacknews, August 18, 2020; Morton, "A Short Hike is a Relaxing Game About Enjoying A Wee Trek", PC Gamer, August 1, 2019; Hawkins, "A Short Hike Hits the Trail on Nintendo Switch Later Today", Shacknews, August 18, 2020; Chan, "A Short Hike Review", en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "A Short Hike" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Erskine, "A Short Hike Review: A Slice of Animal Life", Shacknews, November 24, 2021; Vania, "A Short Hike", Adventure Gamers, January 17, 2020 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Erskine, "A Short Hike Review: A Slice of Animal Life", Shacknews, November 24, 2021. facts only, no text reused. shacknews.com
  12. Robinson-Yu, "Crafting A Tiny Open World: A Look Behind the Scenes at the Creation of A Short Hike", PlayStation Blog, August 5, 2021. facts only, no text reused. blog.playstation.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article A Short Hike (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Test yourself

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1. Which company developed "A Short Hike"?

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Not quite. The answer is Adam Robinson-Yu.

2. Who designed "A Short Hike"?

Correct.

Not quite. The answer is Adam Robinson-Yu.

3. In what year was "A Short Hike" first released?

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Not quite. The answer is 2019.

Answers checked against the source article

Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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