Year Walk

Year Walk draws on the old Swedish tradition of the nocturnal "year walk" – a ritual in which a person heads alone into the forest on Christmas Eve to catch a glimpse of their future. The player walks through a dark, hand-drawn forest, controls the character by touch, and solves puzzles built on Scandinavian folklore – encountering beings such as Näcken or Skogsrå, whose behavior rules must be discovered from hints in the surroundings, not from a text explanation or tutorial. A companion app with an encyclopedia of folklore figures, available separately, filled in the background mythology on which the whole game built its atmosphere, and served as an alternative to a traditional in-game journal.

Simogo, the same Swedish studio behind Device 6, released the game in 2013, just a few months before it, and bet on a dense, unsettling atmosphere instead of straightforward fun – quiet sound design, muted colors, and the feeling that something not meant to be seen is lurking in the forest make Year Walk more of a dark fairy tale for adults than a classic adventure aimed at a broad audience wanting mainly to be entertained. The story itself also turns against the player's expectations near the end in a way many reviewers described as one of the most surprising conclusions of a mobile game of its time.

The short playtime, completable in a single sitting, goes hand in hand with the intent – Year Walk wants to be an experience for one quiet winter evening, not a long game for sequels and repeat visits.

Why play it: For players seeking a dark, folklore-grounded atmosphere who don't mind an ambiguous, unsettling story without a clear explanation.