How A Short Hike Captures the Feeling of Fall

As leaves fall and sales for blankets with sleeves rise, it’s clear the northern hemisphere is nestling nicely into autumn. And, while the chill of the outdoors may be too much to bear, A Short Hike puts its players in a prime position to explore all aspects of fall from the comfort of their couch. 

Creator Adam Robinson-Yu captures the season’s spirit with burnt orange tones and comforting story progression, while Mark Sparling’s dynamic score follows you around Hawk Peak, evoking a range of emotions, from childlike joy to thoughtful contemplation. You play as Claire, a small bird with a seemingly anxious disposition, on a journey to scale the eponymous mountain in search of phone reception. On Claire’s journey throughout Hawk Peak, the development team used a clever mix of mediums to give the player a sense of autumn without explicitly saying so.

“I don’t know if it was a conscious decision, but I think the mood of fall suits the game well,” said Robinson-Yu. “Fall is the end of summer – the days start getting colder, and nature is changing around you… a cold winter lies ahead … It feels like a time to reflect, maybe with nostalgia or melancholy.” 

In A Short Hike’s GDC Postmortem, Robinson-Yu spoke about using autumnal reference images of the Canada Shield to build the game’s palette.“I think I like to draw from things I know – I was lucky enough to spend a lot of my childhood summers at Algonquin Park, so it’s the wilderness I’m most familiar with,” Robinson-Yu told Uppercut. That familiarity comes through as players face all of the season’s elements while traversing the map. 

Claire’s adventure takes you to sun-soaked beachsides, rainy hills, frosty peaks and lakes surrounded by clusters of swaying trees, each vista filtered through a crunchy pixel lens. This style gives the game a feeling of walking on crispy fallen leaves, like visual onomatopoeia.

 “I don’t think I was explicitly thinking about the connection between the pixelated look and fall,” said Robinson-Yu.“Although I feel like low-resolution kind of creates an impressionist effect – it allows your mind to fill in the details while still giving a strong impression of the atmosphere.” 

Whether by happy accident or not, this atmosphere allows players to take what they feel from the experience and filter it through their own.

Claire interacts with many complex and lovable characters during their trek, some more open to sharing than others. And as Hawk Peak’s residents opened up, I found myself in my feelings. With an artist unable to see their value and a young scholar stubbornly struggling to find tuition money, the park had a depth that I was not expecting. Both plights also feel at home in the sensation of change and acceptance that autumn is often associated with. 

“I ended up taking a very improvisational approach to the dialogue and story moments,” said Robinson-Yu. “I wanted the game to touch on my experiences with anxiety and how I’ve tried to cope with it – often, getting out of my head and getting outside helps. I hoped to channel some of those feelings into the atmosphere of the game … and here in Canada, autumn is often a great time for hiking due to the vibrant warm colours and cool weather.”  

Adding a vibrance of its own is Mark Sparling’s seasonal score, which shifts as Claire explores the map. “There’s a lot of beauty but also decay associated with Autumn,” Sparling told me over a video call. “I feel like that’s just kind of my vibe… I like sad, beautiful music and Ghibli soundtracks.” Robinson-Yu and Sparling had an initial meeting to hammer out the game’s details and bonded over a love of Sufjan Stevens’ album Carrie and Lowell. “He (Robinson-Yu) also wanted it to be ambient, like Firewatch, so players know you’re exploring this world for an indefinite amount of time. You don’t want to get tired of the music.”

Taking the story at your own pace is made easy by an endless soundtrack. Sparling’s use of recurrent melody and layering lets each area breathe whilst also giving them a distinct sound. When you climb higher into the frosty mountain, the soundtrack switches carefully. It moves from relaxed and percussive to twinkling and dreamlike, taking the player from sunburnt leaves and campfires to icy wind and anticipation, creating a sense of urgency to reach the peak.  

Sparling wanted to create a sense of motion in the soundtrack to keep the character moving, but he also wanted to make sure there were spaces to relax. “I tried to put little pockets of respirable layers in there, especially Meteor Lake.” This refers to a location high up the mountain where players learn about the slow nature of fishing from a friendly resident. “I wanted that to be sort of just like a, you know, a space where you could chill out for a little bit.” 

As for what the autumnal season means to Sparling, he talked about playing in corn mazes and going to farm festivals with family. “That or my parents raking leaves and me just like rolling and jumping into them, making a big mess.”

Naturally, Autumn is an emotionally charged season. I grew up in Australia, where fall comes earlier in the year and has no obvious visual indicators. Despite that, there is still a constant hum of change and anticipation. A Short Hike harnesses that electricity by mixing a chunky digital style with warm instrumentals and a hopeful story. And sure enough, when you do make the climb, and your phone starts to buzz, you’re rewarded with a hopeful climax well worth the effort.

“I feel like fall is a time of change, and change can be scary and intimidating. The leaves are all being left behind, and you wonder if you made the most out of the summer, the most out of the year… the most out of… Life?!?” said Robinson-Yu. “For much of my life, fall always coincided with a new school year – another thing changing. This transitional period between the heat of summer and the cold of winter has always felt a little sad to me. But I also like it a lot. 

A Short Hike tells a story about growing older and seeing how the things you knew changed, and in doing so, artfully captures the feeling of fall “The ending of A Short Hike, for me anyway, is partially about how your relationship with your parents changes as you get older – I feel like that fits with the changing seasons too.”