The lies The lies'After my early script ideas for the game, we talked about it a lot and ended up changing very much,' Flesser says.Tarestad was now the warden of Simogo's dark, portentous odyssey, acting as Virgil to Flesser's Dante, overseeing Flesser's contributions to the story. Though the folklore was mostly collected by Tarestad, he was open to altering it, and allowed Flesser to change and add things as he wished to benefit the game.The first decision was to silence the protagonist, to distract the player as little as possible. Simogo elected to use the iPad's screen as a frame for desaturated, two-dimensional environments, presenting the story in stark, focused scenes, like a painting in motion.

Simogo has a new game out. It's called Year Walk. And it's a creepy, atmospheric puzzle-adventure set in a chilly Swedish forest. As you wander about the woods on your spirit quest, you'll come across cryptic puzzles, weird symbols, and tricky conundrums.

The player would navigate through the seamless frame by sliding from left to right and forward and back. The map of the forest is linear, but cut with enough paths to inspire many directions to every destination. Each swipe through the forest comes with a pronounced crunch of snow, revealing only a little at a time. The player explores to find strange puzzles that lead them through a harrowing succession of bygone Scandinavian spirits.

The creatures needed to have a gradual progression to their appearances to better serve the game, and with Tarestad's assistance, Flesser used his limited knowledge of myths to fulfill this necessity.Flesser's additions to the script reflect the myths he knew best while growing up; he was bullish about including a siren like creature, called the Huldra, who leads year walkers into her den where she either weds them or kills them. Hack items. Then there's the Brook Horse, an equine terror that tempts children into riding on its back before plunging into the nearest river, drowning its young passengers.Year Walk leads its supernatural menagerie with these two beasts, both of which are emblematic of preying on the naive and impressionable. By doing this, Flesser and Tarestad scaled the story to the ignorance of the player, placing them on the same psychological trajectory as someone who perhaps grew up learning these stories. The Huldra and the Brook Horse are the first lies told to the children — in this case, the audience.

The momentum builds from one encounter to the next, arming the player with practical knowledge of these legends until they are finally able to confront the fearsome, final monster, the Church Grim.The emphasis on otherworldliness and the threat presented by these morbid creatures slowly drove the human element out of the tale.' We removed almost every human character but the miller's daughter, says Flesser.' There were a bunch of characters. There was a little village as well,' he says. 'But ultimately, we decided it should only be about the player's perspective.' Simogo's design for this precept was to show, not tell. Players swipe and tap their way through the forest, uncovering disturbing artifacts and encountering each of the story's mythical creatures, unburdened with company or exposition.

The solitude and wordless, unhurried pace leads many to describe the game as horror, but Flesser is quick to delineate between intention and perception: 'I don't really see it as a horror game. There are definitely things about it that are tragic and unsettling, but we wanted to keep it a blank sheet. Then things are open to the player's interpretation. That's what matters.'