Developer: Sokpop Collective
Publisher: Sokpop Collective
Year: 2021
Genre: Visual Novel
System: Windows

Aran’s Bike Trip is an interactive travelogue where you follow along on a bike trip through the Dutch countryside through a series of 360ยบ photos. The game says it’s a short bike trip but it’s about someone riding their bike for two days, which doesn’t feel short to me. This is a game by Sokpop Collective, a small group that has been making a variety of short games for years, but this one is a pretty big stylistic departure from their other games. I think it would be a stretch to say the game has FMV since all you do is look at the panoramic photos of the Dutch countryside while looking at notes from the designer and listening to calming music, but it’s very nice. Sometimes a game can just be an excuse to look at photos of beautiful places in the world. It even inspired me to make a really tiny game about walking on a trail near my home.
