Talk about an eclectic catalogue! British developer inkle has announced A Highland Song, a 2.5D adventure sidescroller set in the Scottish Highlands, for Nintendo Switch and PC. Protagonist Moira is hand-drawn, yet there is dynamic lighting and weather effects and the scenery is painted in an impressionist style. The sum result is a pretty attractive visual aesthetic, as shown in the announcement trailer for A Highland Song.
The premise of the game is that Moira McKinnon, who has never seen the sea, is urged by a letter from her Uncle Hamish to come to the coast. There is a “wonderful surprise” for her if she can get to his lighthouse for the solstice. Thus, Moira takes off on a journey, but crossing the Highlands won’t be simple: ” In the Highlands, every peak has a story to tell and every valley echoes with song. Giants sleep, ghosts sing, crows carry messages, and eagles lift the dead.” But pretty metaphors aside, you will be hopping across a lot of crags and navigating plenty of bumpy terrain.
Inkle has developed several unique games that, gameplay-wise, don’t always have much in common with each other. A Highland Song is a sidescroller, whereas previous game Overboard! is about getting away with murder and was created on a whim during quarantine. Before that, inkle created Pendragon, a strategy game with an expansive branching story that constantly changes based on your decisions. Then there were the acclaimed narrative adventures Heaven’s Vault and 80 Days. The throughline of inkle games seems to be compelling narratives that often account for player choice, but everything else is subject to morph from game to game.
[Source: PR]
