Dweller’s Empty Path is a great world to get lost in

Since it can be difficult to find time to finish video games, let alone find interesting ones that will provide a complete entertaining experience in a few hours. For this series I’ll talk about a short game that could easily be played to completion over a weekend.

As a kid I played a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and while its gameplay is great what had me coming back was the sense of place. Koholint Island is such a strange and interesting locale, full of lots of people and place that make it feel like a living island that you want to just explore. Dweller’s Empty Path is a game that taps directly into that feeling to draw you into its world and story.

I’ve been torn about how to describe Dweller’s Empty Path because in a sense it’s effectively an 8-bit walking sim, but you could also just call it a small open world JRPG without any combat. Both feel accurate, but don’t quite fully capture the game.

The game follows Yoki, a woman with strange rabbit-like ears and a thin forked tail, as she spends the day walking around the mountains, forest, village and kingdom around her home. What that means is you effectively spend the day walking around talking to people and animals, and looking at things. As you do you start to piece together an understanding of the world, its characters, and most importantly what's Yoki's deal.

While early on the walking feels a bit tedious, as the world itself is actually pretty big and most of the areas you walk through don’t have anything to do in them. At a certain point it’s not that it stops feeling tedious, but that it starts to feel more like a place. As you explore and find new little story bits and unique illustrated moments the treks you make begin to help to reinforce that this is a place you are exploring and spending time in. Making it feel more like a living breathing world that these characters exist in.

It also helps that the music in the game, written by the game’s designer/developer Temmie Chang, Undertale’s Toby Fox and musician Camellia (who also did the arrangements,) is amazing. It is a joy to walk around listening to even if you end up lost listening to the same track on repeat for tens of minutes. Although if you find yourself frustratingly lost as to what to do next, there are some birds around the world you can talk to which offer tips on where you should go.

My only complaint about Dweller’s Empty Path is that I want more of it. The game’s story is very clearly a prelude to something, a quiet before the storm that is clearly on the horizon. I also just want to spend more time with these characters. There is a charm and silliness to the writing that reinforces rather than undercuts the more dramatic or serious character moments. It’s that kind of writing I honestly eat up, because when done well it makes characters feel more natural and helps dramatic moments hit harder (see: Gintama).

With everything going on right now, especially for me as this has been my final week at The Verge before being laid off after a three month furlough, Dweller’s Empty Path was the perfect place to get lost in for a few hours.

Dweller’s Empty Path was developed by Temmie Chang, and is available on Itch.io (Windows and macOS) for pay what you want. It takes about 3 or 4 hours to finish.