Welcome to Elk is an adventure game set on a fictional island stitched together with true stories and tall tales, and inhabited by the people who lived them. You play as Frigg, a young carpenter trading their busy life in the city for an apprenticeship in a small town. When she arrives in Elk, Frigg worries that the slower pace of life will be boring (they don’t even have the internet), but quickly discovers nothing could be further from the truth...

Welcome to Elk is a biographical adventure set on an island like no other, where every character you encounter has a story to tell. From the weird and wonderful to the dark and desperate, all the tales told on Elk are based on true stories of life on the road less travelled. On Elk, you will meet weird and wonderful characters - people whom the world has either ignored or forgotten. Follow their ups and downs, their odd drinking rituals and their unique ways of tackling whatever life throws at them.

The game is fun and quirky, as well as a little dark. For the majority of the time you will be travelling from one part of the island to the other, meeting and getting aquatinted with the locals. Every now and then you'll get the opportunity to play a mini game, all of which are totally different from each other, yet they are all incredibly creative in their construction. These, in a lot of ways, mirror the crazy and off beat world you inhabit. Even the ragdoll, cut-out animation style of the characters means that you can get a lot of amusement just walking around the environment.

Most of the gaming area is in black and white, but if you see anything that is in colour it means you can interact with it. As the game progresses, more of the environment is available to you.

The main story revolves around your character, Frigg, a young carpenter who has just landed on the island for the holidays. While there she hopes to learn a lot from the local carpenter. But she soon realises that life on Elk is not what she's used to. Firstly there's no internet, but the local beer has some sort of weird trippy effect that makes Frigg have weird dreams whenever she drinks it. Every morning, when she awakes, she discovers that someone is leaving a beer bottle in her living room. Each bottle has a label which tells a tall and bizarre tale.

Every now and again, we get a video cut sequence with a person telling us a tale. These tales are all, supposedly true, and formed the backbone of some of the characters and situations in the game.

While quirky, and a lot of fun, it won't appeal to everyone. Those that don't like to think when playing a game, or spend time reading some of the stories, will find this a bit hard going. Personally, while I enjoyed it, I didn't really feel like it was leading me anywhere or trying to keep my attention. The walking between the bar and house started to get a little tiresome very quickly.

Overall, it's a rather interesting indie game that is both unusual and unique in its execution.

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Nick Smithson