Year Walk: Where games begin and end

Where do computer games exist? Are they the code? Are they the actions performed by CPUs, GPUs and sound chips? The sounds and pictures they form? Or the thoughts and sensations they conjure?

I’ve been playing Year Walk, the excellent 2013 iOS, PC and Mac adventure by Simogo.

It’s a game that refuses to be contained within itself. In explaining what I mean by that, spoilers are needed.

The game could be described as a walking sim — albeit a simple and stylised one — thanks to its innovative 2.5-dimension navigation system. Its forest setting is presented as a series of linear corridors that you swipe left and right to traverse. At points you can also swipe up and down, to hop to the next layer in front or behind.

The aesthetic is similar to a cardboard model theatre set. It’s a clever disguise for an otherwise simple map. In the playing, Year Walk’s forest seems vast. In reality, it’s a diverting few hours.

Year Walk isn’t just one app, but two. There’s a companion app containing some background on Swedish folklore and the practice of Årsgång, or Year Walking, on which the game is based.

When you finish the game, it rewards you with a four-digit code. When you enter it into the companion app, it unlocks the protagonist’s back story, as well as vital clues to achieve the true ending (and with it, narrative closure) on a second play-through.

I don’t know anything about Swedish folklore, so the game came with a certain amount of web searching. First, to find out if Year Walking was really a thing. According to Stockholm University’s Tommy Kuusela, it was:

Year walk was a complex form of divination in Swedish folk tradition. The source material consists of collections from different Swedish folklore archives. The tradition of year walking is predominantly recorded from Southern Sweden, and was usually practised at Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Different regions of Sweden give contrasting explanations for how this was accomplished. From the provinces of Småland and Blekinge, the year walker was supposed to lock himself up in a dark room, without speaking to anyone nor taste food or drink. At midnight, he (or she) walked to the parish church  —  or a cluster of different churches   — and circled it three times (or more), then he (or she) blew into the church’s key hole. With this the year walker temporarily lost his (or her) Christianity. When this happened, supernatural beings appeared and challenged the year walker. If the walker managed these tests, glimpses of the future could appear; either in vision or by sounds.

I also looked into the origins of the game’s supernatural creatures. What was The Huldra? What does the Brook Horse want with those babies? Is the Church Grim a goat or a dog?

Year Walk isn't as a puzzle game, but it does demand attention. Its minions have messages to impart – long ones. Year Walk is that increasingly rare thing: a game you need a notebook to play.

My experience spilled out of the game, across companion apps, a notebook, and unusual corners of the web (including, at one point, a walkthrough, I admit). And now, in a way, this post I’m writing.

More than most games, Year Walk also lives in your head. It’s been described as horror, but I don’t think that’s right. I don’t do horror. And I mean I really don’t. I did horror once by mistake in 1998 when I watched The Exorcist in a dark room. It’s stayed with me ever since. And I’ve seen The Shining, but that’s obligatory. But that’s basically it.

I’ll buy that Year Walk is folk horror, but mainly because I don’t think that’s horror, really, either.

I’ve always had an aversion to malevolent supernatural entitites. Year Walk has no shortage of those, but there’s the reassuring sense that they’re out to help rather than hurt you.

The game has some grisly themes and imaged, not to mention a few cheap shocks, but I was always intrigued rather than scared. And intrigue is something I like – especially on a Sunday.

I enjoyed the game immensely. Here’s how I’d break down my review score, 90s games mag style:

Simogo deserves great credit for designing a game experience with such nebulous limits.

#notes #march2015