![]() Simogo have populated the woods with a small party of other characters drawn from Scandinavian mythology, none of which are dangerous but all of which are threatening. The details vary and the tradition has faded into the farthest reaches of obscurity but the purpose of the walk is to receive visions and visitations, in an attempt to predict events such as harvests, illnesses and deaths in the coming year. The route is not prescribed but there are guidelines and the journey ends at the village church, at which point circuits of the building are made, in a certain sequence, to summon the fearsome Church Grim. ![]() The person who undertakes an Årsgång, who I shall now refer to as an Årsgånger, fasts for a day in isolation before heading into the woods and outskirts of his/her in the small hours of the morning. An archaeological Google-dig does reveal pre-Simogo references, however, and a couple are even in English. It seems too neat and sharp a hook to hang a game on, and I suspected that references to the actual activity were a metanarrative fabrication. When I first read about the game, I wasn’t convinced that the Årsgång had ever existed outside Simogo’s design documents. To all intents and purposes, anyone who played the iOS version of Year Walk now classes as a Scandinavian folklorist. It’s a brief experience and the area open to exploration is small, but the Årsgång itself is an entirely new concept to me and I suspect it will be to almost anyone who isn’t a folklorist with a Scandinavian speciality. It’s more like a first-person adventure game, with (mostly) static screens and occasional puzzles. ![]() Misleadingly, Year Walk isn’t a Going for a Walk game at all. But as I examined its terrible beauty, I had only one question in my mind – is this the ultimate game in the burgeoning Going for a Walk genre? It's consistently unnerving and even becomes quite upsetting at times. This enhanced port of the iOS original isn’t quite a horror game but one moment did cause me to fall out of my chair. A chilling saunter through snow and sorrow that draws on Scandinavian folklore and the mystery of the titular Årsgång. Year Walk is a dose of folklore with the sharp edges left on.
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