Mr. Wapojif

A Highland Song: Stunning Hiking Across Scotland’s Mountains 🌅

A Highland Song by Inkle Studios

Here we have Cambridge-based indie team Inkle Studio’s A Highland Song, which offers a beautiful romp in the Scottish Highlands.

It’s a game about hiking, with a coming-of-age tale thrown into the bargain, but it also features some of the most jaw-dropping scenery of the year. We doth swooned for this one!

A Highland Song Offers Emotional Hiking, Sweeping Vistas, and Rain

You can find this one on Steam and the Nintendo Switch, but we should imagine it’ll head to other consoles before too long.

But what’s all about!? Well, in recent years a new style of genre has emerged in the indie world—cosy games. Think of titles like Coffee Talk 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly (2023) and you’re on the right path.

A Highland Song joins the genre with a hop, skip, and a jump.

In the plot, you take control of the Scottish teenager Moira. She receives a letter from her uncle Hamish and decides to flee her annoying mother for a fun time of it in the Scottish Highlands.

Much hiking is ahead, with what’s essentially a coming-of-age type romp with the aim of reaching Hamish before Beltane (Gaelic May Day).

The game’s relaxing qualities kick off with abundance. Cripes almighty, the jaw does drop once you see what Inkle’s art team has done to the Scottish Highlands. It looks phenomenal—like a work of art!

The atmosphere and looks of the game help create a blissful sense of serenity, which is complemented by that stunning score to ramp up the emotive nature of it all.

But what of the playing experience?

A Highland Song’s gameplay elements focus on hiking across a pretty full on mountain range (nod here to other recent rock climbing experience Jusant) to the backdrop of that stunning hand-drawn scenery.

These days, many indie games mix other genres together.

In this outing, there are rhythm game sections (think of the excellent Runner2) to shake up proceedings from time to time. It adds a little variation, although the main focus is scaling those big old mountains of Scotland.

That’s tough going. Inkle Studios don’t make it easy for you. If you screw up you will fall and smash into the ground. It’s easy to adapt fast to the system, though, such as avoiding shale and focussing on passable peaks.

Along the way, you also get some amazing views.

Definite Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom style vibes, as there’s a very real feeling of sweeping exploration here.

As it’s a 2D game, depth to the experience is created by letting gamers move backwards and forwards to foreground and background platforming sections.

The aim is to explore, discover objects, create a map of the area, and reach the peaks of various mountains.

Along the way you must find shelter at night so Moira can rest.

The game just launched (December 2023) and the gaming press reacted very positively. Some criticism has been aimed at the backtracking required from time to time, with this cited as annoying and repetitive.

A Highland Song does have that. Sometimes it’s not entirely clear where you’re going, you really do need to examine everything you spot in the game (items are flagged up with a white light) to fill out the map.

That makes exploration a lot easier, although the fiddly control system sometimes makes that tough going as well.

However, for us those are minor niggles.

We really needed a title like this right now. After a bit of a crap week, Inkle’s game reminded us of the joys in life and the beauty around us.

It offers around five hours of gameplay, but demands multiple playthroughs so you can experience everything the title has to offer. Our thoughts? This is a triumph! Congrats to the team behind it.

A Highland Song’s Folksy Score

The score was composed by Laurence Chapman, who’s from East Sussex in the UK. As you can see, he was open in posting recording sessions for A Highland Song to his YouTube channel.

For anyone interested in how composers go about their processes, he also posted this fascinating timelapse in 2019 (for a different game).

Not much of the score is available on YouTube, but you can buy the whole thing on Bandcamp if you’re desperate to hear it.

The game is heavily steeped in folklore, so it makes sense to have a folk band there with an orchestral sweep to it.

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