Kona

Made by Parabole | 2017 | Early access available on Steam 

A couple of days ago I came across a blogpost on walking simulators by Kim from Later Levels. In her open letter to the walking simulator, she perfectly described my exact feelings toward the genre.

At the time when I backed Kona on Kickstarter (2014), I still was in the early stages of getting to know this new, exotic style of interactive storytelling; I was stoked! In the years between the Kickstarter-launch and the release of the early access, I had the chance to play several other walking simulator-style games. Even though I enjoyed most of them immensely (Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter), gradually I felt less and less attracted to the genre.

So yes, I’m a little ashamed to admit that I didn’t even boot the game up until a week ago. Inspired by a recent playthrough of Firewatch, I decided to give it a go. And boy am I glad I did! Love the atmosphere, love the level of interaction and absolutely love the style of narration. And as a great bonus: a sweet in-game map!

Kona’s map of the Atamipek lake area

Close up of the map. Mild spoiler alert!