Talk:A Short Hike

WT:VG discussion

This article was the subject of a WT:VG discussion regarding the number of feathers and about the inclusion of that it can be beaten with <7, where I made a few comments. The discussion can be found here. JuniperChill (talk) 23:29, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Peer review

A Short Hike

I've listed this article for peer review because I plan on taking this article to FAC sometime in the future. I need feedback on comprehensibility and grammar. Thanks, Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Comments from TechnoSquirrel69

It would be my pleasure to help this get up to FA! I'll leave a prose review in the next few days; ping me with reckless abandon if I've managed to forget. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 23:29, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you TS. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 13:16, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Vacant, you didn't ping me with reckless abandon! I'm not really in a position to complain, though. Anyways, have a few comments. —TS

• ", also known as adamgryu" Is this really necessary, given it appears to be just an abbreviated version of his name? In both the lead and body.
  • I'd rather keep it just because that's how he is known online.
• open world exploration game → open-world exploration game (compound modifier)
• "the player is tasked with reaching the summit ... to get cell phone reception" Is this necessary to establish the premise? This detail seems a tad confusing without context.
• "the player has to collect Golden Feathers which give the player"
• " 'crunchy' pixel art style and an open world inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild " could imply Zelda also inspired the pixel art.
• The quotation marks also come off kind of scare quote–y without attribution. Can the descriptor just be dropped?
• Its first part of development → Initial development
• Development continued after that and lasted
• received positive reception (Reduce repetitive repetition? ;) )
• Ooh, those screenshots look excellent, don't they? We love artists who care about Creative Commons licenses.
  • yes !! i wish this was the case for other games.
• controls the character Claire
• reach to the top
• Referring to a video game world as a "map" is a bit of insider jargon I wouldn't expect the average reader to know. Even I was slightly confused by "the protagonist Claire gliding on the map" in the image caption. This applies to a lot of places in the article.
  • I honestly don't know what do about this. Changing it to something else just feel wrong.
    • FWIW, see my comments in Wikipedia:Peer review/Fortnite Battle Royale/archive1 regarding the word "map". RoySmith (talk) 10:09, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
• "endurance (stamina)" Conversely, I don't think this needs to be glossed — people know what "stamina" in an everyday context as well.
• Claire has the ability to meet → Claire meets (or "Claire can meet")
• Coins are another option ... → Golden Feathers may also be purchased with coins.
• endurance bar gets exhausted → stamina is depleted
• More broadly, I don't think the stamina UI element needs explanation since you've already mentioned that stamina is tied to Golden Feathers.
• mechanisms → mechanics
• kids → children
• I'd appreciate it if you could make a pass of the article for more formal phrasing. I'm also seeing some similar examples elsewhere.
  • I'll look into it.
• "... as well as requests for basic tasks" does not follow from the first half of that sentence ("offer requests"?).
• cash → coins (more formal, and matches phrasing earlier in the section)
• § Plot has two stubby single-sentence paragraphs; can these be combined with their neighbors?
• I'll look into it.
• In an opening cutscene,
• "beach volleyball, or in-game known as 'beach-stick-ball' " Firstly, this isn't beach volleyball (you don't play that with sticks! and the source doesn't state it), and it should be "known in-game".
• "stands in view of an aurora" This doesn't feel right, since the aurora isn't the one viewing Claire, it's the other way around.
• There's an overuse of the word project in § Development. It also creates ambiguity between ASH and the Paper Mario concept.
• "The endurance bar featured in the game" Is this referring to Dank Mountain or ASH?
• Defining anti-aliasing in a footnote seems kind of pointless to me — readers might as well just click or hover on the link at that point. I would gloss it in the prose or not at all.
• a such effect → this effect (or "such an effect")
• What's "point filter mode"?
  • It's a texture sampling method that makes pixelated visuals. I cannot find RS to describe what it is in the article though.
• The "Somewhere in the Wood" soundtrack from A Short Hike → "Somewhere in the Woods"
• a combination of soundtracks inspired by → combined inspirations from
• "In an interview with Polygon," This attribution feels unnecessary, especially given that it's following several unattributed statements taken from interviews (which, to be clear, is perfectly fine).
• As a general note, soundtrack is being used here to refer to individual tracks, which is a little confusing; the word is usually used to refer to the music as a whole. You could instead use track (a bit technical-sounding), piece (common in classical music contexts), or just song.
• "resembles tracks those of" Something's off here.
• Really nice work on § Music, by the way, especially on the incorporation of the Scruffy video — it all reads very nicely.
  • thank you !!
• did not had time → did not have time
• In the accolades table, I would recommend using the award ceremony as the row headers rather than the years; keep in mind that the headers don't need to be in the left-most column.
• Also recommend {{Plain row headers}}.
  • Hopefully I did this right. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see here.
• Make the ref column unsortable.
• Not a requirement, as I'm sure you know, but I would highly recommend switching the video citations over to {{sfn}}s; the spaces created by the superscripted timestamps don't look amazing.
• You probably saw that I made a couple of changes myself, mostly minor cleaning up and copyediting. Feel free to revert any of it if it's not an improvement.

Let me know if you have any questions, and ping me when you're finished with these so I can do a second pass! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:57, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

@TechnoSquirrel69: Thanks for the review! I hope that I've implemented most of your suggestions. If I missed something, let me know. Feel free to take another look at the article whenever you are able to. I'll leave the PR open until I get a few more reviewers. Cheers, Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, that's looking good! I'll get around to another round when I'm able. If you end up taking it to FAC before that, I'll just leave my comments there, so no worries. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 21:19, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I'll rather wait for you to finish the review here. I also want a couple of more editors to hop in and give their opinions before moving on to FAC. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 15:17, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Hey, @TechnoSquirrel69:. Hope you're alright. I'll go over Roy's comments next week, so if you have anything else to add, feel free to do it. No rush, though. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 21:50, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder, Vacant, I have been and will continue to be busy over the next couple of weeks between other responsibilities off- and on-wiki. For the moment, I can see that Roy has similar feelings about the map issue, so I would think about ways that friction can be avoided. In fact, I find myself agreeing with your comment at the other PR, since A Short Hike is in a similar situation. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 22:45, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

No problem, take your time! Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:34, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

As Roy closed this PR, is it okay for me to ping you when I nominate this at FAC? @TechnoSquirrel69:. Cheers, Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:45, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Please do! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 14:58, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Femke

Lovely article. Brilliantly written lead! My review:

• The gameplay section overuses the word 'can', which is somewhat jarring in the context "Claire can also" + "The Golden Feathers can also"
• "Claire can then return to her aunt, whereupon she explains to her all of the side activities she did on her hike." -> awkward phrasing. What about "Claire then returns to her aunt, and tells her about all her side activities during the hike.
• he also received help from his family and friends -> unnecessary WP:ALSO
• Awkward phrasing: A year later, Robinson-Yu started working on a role-playing video game, inspired by the Paper Mario series. However, he struggled with it during its development, slowly becoming stressed and anxious about it, knowing that it could take years before finishing development of the game. -> What about something like "He struggled with the project, growing increasingly stressed and anxious, aware that its completion could take several years."
• After tweeting the project online -> tweeting about?
• Could / would together doesn' feel elegant: stating that he could create a game that would incorporate such elements -> and stated he could create a game incorporating such elements (avoiding the first gerund to introduce the second)
• Avoid former / latter in general, as it forces readers to go back. In "He created two sets of goals during development, the former being core gameplay aspects, such as movement mechanisms, dialogue, save system, and cutscenes, and the latter being stretch goals, such as volleyball, parkour, fishing, and wildlife.", there is no proper antecedent for former or latter. Say first/second instead.
• I remember anti-aliasing from my physics degree. Do gamers know this word? If not, explain
• UVs?
• During playtesting, Robinson-Yu noticed that some players ended up going in the ocean to nearby islands or to the back side of the mountain -> Does the bird swim? Or fly over the ocean? The text seems to imply swimming
• He also later added a bucket, which allows the player to water plants -> another unnecessary also

—Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:58, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

• Overuse of 'also' in the last music paragraph.
• he did not have time for, > had not had time for
• Is the motorboat only for Nintendo switch?
• Rm temporarily, as 'for a week' conveys similar information
• Although developed for April Fools' Day as a battle royale mode,[24] Robinson-Yu announced that it would not become an official game mode. > Not a contrast, remove Althought.

If you have time and appetite, I'm quite keen on a review at MTAU/workshop—Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:09, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the wonderful review, Femke. I've implemented (almost) everything you suggested. The only thing I did not add is the explanation what UVs are. The explanation is relatively simple, it's just that I wasn't able to find a reliable source that explains what it is. I'll continue looking for it.

Also thanks for notifying me about the MTAU workshop, it seems like I missed your message there. I'll read this throughout the next week and leave my opinions on the talk page. Cheers, Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 13:15, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

I imagined you must have had quite a few notifications after your wikibreak. Thanks for offering a review, have been unsuccessfully asking quite a few people already. I'll be on holiday for a bit from next Wednesday, so might be slow to reply. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:35, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

JuniperChill

• It has also been described as a cozy game. does this need attribution (eg by PC Gamer) and do multiple sources describe it as such? JuniperChill (talk) 20:30, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  Hey JC. I've added two more sources (Kotaku and Hardcore Gamer) that describe A Short Hike as a cozy game. Hopefully, it's alright now. Cheers, Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

  You haven't added 'by some critics' or something along those lines. Also, Kotaku isn't a high-quality (or even reliable) source for those published between 2023 and July 2025 (see more on WP:VG/S) and the source was published in August 2023. (and i'm currently improving Fae Farm to GA where some sources describe it as cosy. JuniperChill (talk) 17:51, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

  I don't think that attribution is needed here, though I've applied it per your request. I've removed Kotaku. The other two articles were not reviews, therefore we cannot apply the label 'critic' here. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 18:09, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

  Fair enough then. Good luck getting ASH to FAC! JuniperChill (talk) 19:11, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

RoySmith

My main comment is that this article uses a lot of jargon which should be explained in-line per WP:MTAU. For example, open-world, minigame, platformer, cutscene, scrum, assets, UVs, noise, triplanar shader.

• The composer of the game was mainly inspired by Studio Ghibli and Joe Hisaishi. It's not clear what "composer" means here. Are you talking about the composer of the game's music, or something else?
• He struggled with his role-playing game, growing increasingly stressed and anxious Be very careful about commenting the mental health or emotional state of living people. Is it really necessary to say this? Does it have a rock-solid source?
• In December 2018, he parked it "parked" is jargon.
• Anti-aliasing (or antialiasing) is defined as ... according to Merriam-Webster. For a technical term like this, using a general-purpose dictionary is not the best source. It may be a WP:RS for most word definitions, but I think most reviewers at WP:FAC will not find it a WP:HQRS for a technical term.
• On April Fools' Day 2022, just say "1 April" (or whatever date style you're using). Readers outside of the west may not understand the reference.

Video games are not my thing so I'm not going to do a deep dive, but these are some things I noticed on a quick read. RoySmith (talk) 23:16, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Thx for the comments, Roy. Appreciate it. I'll work on this next week. I agree that there are a lot of jargons here, it's a video game article after all. Sadly a common occurance. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 17:44, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

There's been no substantive comments here in a month, so I'm going to close this. RoySmith (talk) 11:43, 15 June 2026 (UTC)