I went through a bit of a journey with this one. Initially I made it up to the point where you get caught in a blizzard and I somehow managed to miss the cave and couldn’t find it again, so I stopped. Then for some reason I came back to it this morning and played it through to the end.
This game gripped me in a way I wasn’t expecting. I really liked the subtle touches that lent the game an effective atmosphere, like the little sounds that everything makes and the way that the ice creeps slowly away from your vision when you drink tea so that you’re not quite sure if you’ll need another cup or to hold on to the reserve you have.
I really liked how having to drink tea at set points throughout the game gets you attached to your sled. It keeps the player invested in the well-being of what would otherwise just be a physics object for flavor. I feel like you could have done a lot more with that by creating a sense of concern for making sure the sled is still with you at all times. As it stands, I did find myself periodically looking back to make sure it was still there (even though it’s literally tethered to the player character) but nothing really posed a threat to the sled itself. When the giant worm initially attacked me it landed on my sled, which initially frightened me, but because nothing really interacts with the sled except me it didn’t create an actual threat to my progress.
I don’t have any further notes on the gameplay itself. As walking simulators go, this one interests me because it’s not exactly subtle but it still creates an effective atmosphere by making the player feel like they’re in a hostile environment. I really appreciated how instead of throwing up a “Game Over” screen at the end the payoff is that I get to relax and drink more tea in my house, because it made the trek feel totally worth it, and that sounds silly because it’s such a simple touch but it actually creates a sense that the whole journey had an actual point rather than just being some dumb guy in the woods at night for no reason.
Overall verdict: Surprisingly good, could have benefited from more of a sense of threat.
EDIT: Having gone back and played this game through again, I now know that I somehow managed to miss the chase sequence towards the end with the giant worm, so my complaint that the game didn’t have enough of a sense of threat is hereby retracted. Either I triggered a bug or I somehow managed to sprint my way through the tunnel so fast that I didn’t even notice something was chasing me. That’s a much better climax than I initially experienced when I played for the first time.