A Highland Song – An Interview with Inkle Studios
In the Highlands, each mountain tells a tale, and every valley sings with echoes. Giants rest, spirits sing, crows deliver messages, and eagles carry the departed.
Inkle Studios’ A Highland Song is a narrative based adventure game about determination and loss. Read on below to hear from Joseph Humfrey, Co-Founder of Inkle Studios about this wonderfully whimsical game.
IIG: Please could you introduce yourself and your studio?
JH: My name is Joseph Humfrey, and I’m cofounder of inkle, which is an independent studio based in the UK. All of our games have a strong focus on narrative, and we like to give players a strong sense of agency within the stories that we tell. We’ve experimented with various genres, but broadly speaking, I suppose you could say that we mostly make adventure games.
IIG: What can you tell us about A Highland Song?
JH: The game is set in the wild Scottish Highlands, and has you playing the role of Moira McKinnon, a teenage girl who is running away from home over the hills to reach her uncle who lives by the sea. It involves a lot of platforming and exploration within a semi open world, allowing you to figure out your very own route through the hills – climbing, sliding, jumping over the rocks and running through valleys, as well as following maps that you find scattered about an attempt to find the way forward.
IIG: Can you tell us about the game’s conception?
JH: I grew up in Scotland and had an amazing school teacher who used to take the kids up into the Highlands, where we would go hillwalking and camping. He even let us explore the area for a mile or two around the campsite on our own – I’m not sure that would be allowed nowadays! I can definitely remember some close calls; it’s a pretty dangerous landscape, if you’re not careful.
That sense of contrast between beauty and danger is something that we really wanted to convey with the game, so we have both survival mechanics as well as a really distinctive painterly art style and lighting to try to capture the unique feel of the Scottish mountains.
IIG: Can you tell us about the gameplay?
JH: In addition to the basic platforming and route finding around the hills, we also have a rhythm running mechanic. At certain points in the game where you need to cross a long distance, Moira will enter a flow state where she’s running and jumping in time to the music, and the landscape itself morphs in response to the music so that the timing of your jumps necessarily need to match both the rhythm of the music and the shape of the terrain. We love how it echoes the sense of momentum you get when you’re running or hiking long distances.
IIG: Can you tell us about the game’s narrative?
JH: On the one hand, we wanted Moira’s Scotland to remain relatively realistic and grounded, to give a sense of the real Scotland. But at the same time we wanted to pay homage to Scottish myths and history so you will also find fantastical and magical realist elements, as well as nods to the historical context of the people who used to live there.
At its heart, A Highland Song is a story about finding yourself, understanding your own origins and your family roots.
IIG: How important was it to you for the game to feel authentic?
JH: For us authenticity isn’t just a matter of doing justice to the source material. By capturing a real sense of a place, you convey something specific, unique and real. Even if players don’t know what the real Scotland is like, I always feel like if you’re showing and telling something that’s truly real, the sense of authenticity will come across, and it will bring the world and story alive in a way, that’s almost indescribable – people will feel the truth of it.
But of course, we’ve also heard from lots of people who do know Scotland well, and we’ve had an incredible response from them. Although Scotland has some representation in media, it’s predominantly clichéd – think Willy from The Simpsons! When we were doing research for the game, I found it surprisingly hard to find films, TV or games that featured the real authentic Scotland, so I’m super proud to have made this small contribution.
IIG: What’s the reception been like for the game?
JH: The reception has been incredible! The highlight for me was, perhaps the three IGF nominations, but in general, the feedback from players has been really heartwarming. Although sometimes I’ve felt the need to watch from between my fingers, I’ve loved seeing streamers playing the game on Twitch, discovering secrets, laughing at the jokes and generally enjoying scrambling through the hills.
IIG: What’s next in the game’s journey?
JH: At the time of writing, we are actually releasing a content update for the game today! We’re calling the Harmony Update, and it includes five new music tracks, a new landmarks feature that helps reveal previous routes and mountains you discovered during New Game Plus, as well as new story threads and surprises.
IIG: What’s next for Inkle Studios?
JH: We are always experimenting with new game concepts – I always love the prototyping phase at the very start of projects, when you are just starting to figure out what the next game will be. I’m afraid I have nothing to announce today, but you’ll be hearing from us again very soon!
IIG: How can be people stay up-to-date on the latest from Inkle Studios and A Highland Song?
You can follow us on Twitter at @inkleStudios, the game is @AHighlandSong, and I’m @joethephish. Or you can keep an eye on our website here: https://www.inklestudios.com.
Thank you for reading our Interview with Inkle Studios. For more interesting articles about indie games, be sure to check out the links below.
