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Lost, cold, with a dwindling health bar, and running extremely late, I'm beginning to wonder what I'm missing. My journey through the Scottish Highlands feels like a failed attempt, and I'm considering whether I should simply start over, or indeed if I'm about to chalk A Highland Song up as a game that's simply not for me.
As flighty runaway Moira, I'm supposed to be working my way over the peaks that lie between my stifling home and the lighthouse inhabited by my distant, introverted uncle Hamish. Summoned with next to no notice, I'm to complete my journey by Beltane, the Gaelic May Day festival, but I've almost no time at all to make it, and very little in the way of either supplies or mountaineering knowledge to guide me. That never seems to bother Moira too much - my spunky protagonist is content to shelter in whatever nook she can find, even if it means yet another freezing night - but within a day or two of starting out, it's starting to seriously hinder my progress.
A Highland Song's gameplay loop is peculiarly geographical. As you make your way towards Hamish's lighthouse, you'll travel from valley to valley as you get closer and closer to the sea. But the further into the mountains you travel, the more intricate and well-hidden the paths you'll need to tread to progress become. Finding them becomes a matter of uncovering maps that will show you the route, and then climbing a peak to align your new cartographical evidence with the real world in front of you.
Of course, it's never really that simple. A 'map' might include something that the Ordnance Survey would put out, but it also might be a stylized drawing on a tourist's flyer, or instructions scrawled hastily on a letter. A 'peak' might be the top of a relatively gentle hill, but it could also be the turret of a ruined castle, the tip of a radio transmitter, or the summit of a towering, snow-covered mountain. Even if you can make it to the right peak with the correct map in hand, Moira's orienteering skills can leave something to be desired, regularly leaving the path forward far from clear.
Aye know the way
That's where I found myself a few days into the adventure. Unable to determine my route onwards despite theoretically having all the tools I needed to progress, Moira's health pool was shrinking with every night spent huddled in some rocky overhang. Beltane was drawing closer, but I was going nowhere. I'd had my eye on A Highland Song - a game from acclaimed British developer Inkle that leant into my personal tastes for wanderlust and folk music - for nearly two years, and here I was, massively behind schedule and approaching giving up entirely.
Somehow, having finally managed to locate the elusive path leading to the next valley, I managed to progress. Over time, as much by luck as judgment, I found another path. And as I progressed over hill and dale, it started to become easier to read the world of A Highland Song. From the threatening peaks to the gently-sloping lowlands that allowed Moira to run joyfully towards a new perspective, the world began to open up like its very own map. I could piece the rocks and crags together, find the Gaelic names of the peaks I'd climbed, plan my way up an imposing mountainside, and crucially, keep moving forward. It started to seem as though I might make it to Hamish before Beltane in spite of my terrible start, and with that possibility on the horizon, I could feel myself rushing towards the finish line and the feel of the sea.
In the end, I didn't quite make it. I had further to go than I hoped, and once my need for speed resulted in two painful falls in quick succession, Moira was forced to make a clean start the next morning. I made it to the lighthouse two days late, but A Highland Song was still prepared to offer me its narrative payoff. That story, woven gently and mystically throughout Moira's journey, was a delightful part of the game's patchwork folkloric aesthetic, but none of that is what's really stuck with me about this game. The truly memorable aspect of A Highland Song was the way that it unfurled in front of me like a map of itself, a code that I had to teach myself to read, that pulled me forwards faster and faster the more I learned. I'd very nearly given up on it, but A Highland Song quickly became one of my most personally satisfying gaming experiences of 2023.
A Highland Song is out now on PC and Switch. To see what other indie gems we've been enjoying, be sure to check out our Indie Spotlight series.
