Year Walk

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Walk into the winter woods on New Year's Eve to see your future.

Platforms: PC, Mac, iPhone
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (90% of 2,020 reviews); Metacritic 87 on PC; rated 4.2 of 5 from 368 ratings on the App Store
Players: 1
Controls: Mouse on PC; touch on iPhone and iPad.
Made by: Simogo
Released: 2013

Get it on Steam App Store (iPhone and iPad)

What frightens On a cold New Year's Eve in 19th-century Sweden you go year walking, an old ritual to see the future, alone through dark snowy woods where creatures of Swedish folklore wait: a horse-headed figure, the souls of murdered children, a hanged wooden doll and stranger things, in a quiet world that keeps unsettling you.
Content: themes of infanticide.

Year Walk is a first-person adventure from the Swedish studio Simogo, based on the old Swedish practice of year walking. On a cold New Year's Eve in the 19th century you walk into the dark woods to glimpse the future, solving cryptic puzzles while creatures from folklore appear around you.

About Year Walk

Year Walk was made by the Swedish studio Simogo and released on iPhone and iPad in February 2013, then on PC and Mac on Steam in March 2014 with new locations, puzzles, a map, hints and a built-in encyclopedia. Critics praised it; it holds a Metacritic score of 87 on PC.

It is built on an old Swedish custom, the year walk, in which a person went out on a winter night to glimpse the future. On New Year's Eve in 19th-century Sweden you walk alone into a snowy forest to learn whether your loved one will ever love you back. The world is flat paper-like layers you move through side to side and into, with spare, muted art of dark trees, a red cabin in the snow and a frozen pond.

There is no combat. You listen, look closely and solve cryptic puzzles, and the folklore creatures you meet are strange and wrong rather than chasing you: a horse-headed figure in a suit, the Myling, the souls of murdered children, explained in the game's encyclopedia, and a hanged wooden doll in a dark barn. Its makers say that to understand what happened on that night you will have to delve deeper than the adventure itself.

It suits players who want quiet, unsettling folk horror and puzzles over jump scares.

How to play Year Walk

Buy it on Steam for Windows or Mac, or on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
Walk through the forest by moving left, right and into the scene.
Look and listen closely; many puzzles hide their clues in sounds and details.
Read the encyclopedia to learn about the creatures you meet.
Use the map and hints in the PC version if you get stuck.

Screenshots

Year Walk screenshot: a pale horse-headed figure in a dark suit stands on a frozen pond with ghostly shapes behind it

Year Walk screenshot: the encyclopedia page on the Myling, with an ink drawing of a crouched child by a grave

Year Walk screenshot: a wooden doll hanging by a rope in a dark barn

Year Walk screenshot: a red wooden cabin in deep snow among bare trees

Tips

Play with headphones; sound is part of several puzzles.
Look closely at every scene before moving on.
Read the encyclopedia entries carefully.

Questions

Is Year Walk scary?

It is unsettling rather than full of jump scares: quiet, dark woods and strange folklore creatures, with a story that blurs reality and the supernatural.

What is a year walk?

An old Swedish custom of walking out on a winter night to glimpse the future, which the game turns into a vision quest on New Year's Eve.

Which version should I play?

The PC and Mac version adds new locations, puzzles, a map, hints and a built-in encyclopedia. On iOS, the free Year Walk Companion app holds the folklore.