Deep Forest

[rynling]

Deep Forest by Small is Beautiful
https://small.itch.io/deep-forest

Deep Forest is a free GB Studio adventure game that takes about 45 minutes to play. There's no combat, but the game features legitimate exploration and puzzle-solving gameplay elements. You play as a forest witch tasked with helping three trees that have become cursed. To purify a tree, you must first find it by exploring the forest. You then enter its nightmare, which functions as a dungeon. Once the tree's curse is lifted, its thorny roots vanish, thereby allowing you to explore more of the forest.

This is the basic gameplay cycle of the Legend of Zelda series, and the simple puzzles reminded me of Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, wherein you:

(1) Use an animal to procure a seed.
(2) Find a patch of soil to plant the seed,
(3) which sprouts into a vine
(4) that allows you to climb a cliff.

If this similarity is intentional, it's a lovely homage to the debut work of the director of Breath of the Wild. In addition, I had a nice "Legend of Zelda" moment when I found Deep Forest's one secret. Specifically, I was delighted when I realized that you can water the single square of roots in front of an otherwise unremarkable cave in order to discover a hidden spring. This moment of discovery gave me a spark of excitement that reminded me of exploring Hyrule for the first time.

In terms of its visual style, Deep Forest is reminiscent of the Game Boy games that were released in the West under the "Final Fantasy" logo, which include the first Secret of Mana game and the first three games in the SaGa series. This style feels extremely nostalgic, and it's cool to see it used to depict a thriving forest.

Deep Forest is fairly linear, and the gameplay mechanics are beautifully intuitive. It's exactly the perfect length, and I really enjoyed the exploration elements and wholesome story. The interactive postgame credits sequence is lovely and genuinely feels like a reward for playing. I would have loved this game as a kid, and I'm extremely fond of it as an adult.

Comments

[deemoyza]

This post came up on my Network page, and I gave this game a try. What a sweet, nostalgic little game! The perfect length for a nice distraction. I'll definitely be checking out some of the other games you've mentioned. Thank you so much for sharing this, and shining a spotlight on games like these!

[rynling]

Thank you so much for reading this, and it's cool to hear that you enjoyed Deep Forest. I've been trying out a lot of free games on Itchio that aren't so good, so it was such a joy to come across a treasure like this.

I just subscribed to your journal btw. You should have seen the smile on my face when I saw your username in my inbox!