At first glance, Welcome To Elk looks like the bright and breezy cousin of Die Gute Fabrik's alien soap opera Mutazione. Both feature young women travelling to a new island community for the first time, and while Elk swaps Mutazione's balmy tropical forests for the frozen hunts of a small Arctic fishing village, each game plays out in a very similar fashion.
You spend a lot of time getting to know the locals, and every now and again you'll play a small, reasonably inconsequential mini-game to advance the story. But beneath Welcome To Elk's cheery cartoon exterior lies a tale of surprising depth and human tragedy, as the tales you hear and the people you meet aren't just made-up creations of developer Triple Topping. They're all people and events that are based in fact and have happened in real-life, and the resulting story is as affecting as it is disarming.