A Highland Song feels familiar to me… and all I have to compare it with is actually living in Scotland for half a century.
I don’t even live in the countryside. I live in a post-industrial, UK city. You could drug me and bundle me off to Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester or Liverpool. And when I woke up, it’d take me a long time to realise I wasn’t in Glasgow anymore.
Thing about the Highlands, though, is that they come all the way down to Central Belt. Glasgow’s near the fault line between them and the Lowlands, so they’ve always been on my doorstep, never more than a horizon away.
In A Highland Song, you’re Moira. Your quest is to make it to the sea, and your uncle’s lighthouse, within a week.
I recognise the hills, the weather, the accents, the food, the animals you encounter.
The game is a stew of platforming, survival, revisiting places and people, loneliness, humour, and, if you find a place to run, preferably with a deer companion, a Scottish Folk Music rhythm game.
I recognise how near the surface the history and folklore, poking through inevitably, their roots entangled under the soil.
I’ve always liked games that make it their business to share a culture with their players—Venba, The Great Palermo, Alba.
I recognise A Highland Song. And to the team at Inkle… thank you.