Senna and the Forest

Senna and the Forest, sakin ama düşündüren bir bulmaca oyunu, ağaçlarla konuşup ipuçları toplayarak onların kim olduğunu çözmeye çalışmak başta garip geliyor ama kısa sürede bayağı sarıyor. Oyun tamamen mantık ve çıkarım üzerine kurulu, ilerledikçe bulmacalar zorlaşıyor ve hikâye de yavaş yavaş karanlık bir hale bürünüyor, atmosfer melankolik ama güzel, görsel olarak sade olmasına rağmen anlatmak istediği duyguyu iyi veriyor. Aksiyon aramayan, daha çok kafayı çalıştırıp hikâyeye gömülmek isteyenler için huzurlu ama etkileyici bir indie.

It's cute, it's free, it has puzzles. What more could one want? Senna and the Forest is a short game where you talk to various plants and solve logic puzzles. The controls can be a bit clunky from time to time, but not enough to significantly disrupt the gameplay. There are four short levels of slightly different puzzles, which are pretty decent; my only issue was that the game expects you to guess some of the solutions instead of giving you enough information to solve the riddle without guessing. But at this price, I can't really complain.

Das ist ein sehr, sehr gutes Knobelspiel mit sehr, sehr schöner grafischer Umsetzung und tragischer Geschichte in einer dystopischen Zukunft. Senna ist einer der letzten Menschen, die es noch gibt. Und ihre Aufgabe ist es, das Herz des Waldes zu finden, um die Welt vorm endgültigen Sterben zu retten. Die Geschichte wird gut erzählt, nach und nach versteht man mehr von dem, was den nahenden Untergang bewirkt hat und wie die fantastische Welt zuvor funktionierte. Die Rätsel sind am Anfang ziemlich leicht, werden jedoch mit jedem Level schwieriger. Man muss mithilfe der Informationen, die man von Bäumen bekommt, und logischem Denken herausfinden, wer wer ist oder wer zu wem gehört. Klingt simpel, erreicht im Verlauf des Spiels aber einen fordernden Schwierigkeitsgrad. Steuerung ist simpel. Einziges Manko ist dieses eine Rätsel in der Mitte des dritten Levels des Tempels. Das habe ich auf Teufel komm raus nicht hinbekommen und brauchte dann Hilfe von YouTube. Eventuell hätte einer der roten Bäume blau sein müssen, damit man die Lösung herausfinden kann?! Ich empfehle das Spiel auf jeden Fall!

This was a pretty nice little game. I'm excited to see where the story goes next

Senna and the Forest is a boiled-down-to-its-essence deduction game where you talk to trees. Each tree gives you a line of dialogue which potentially offers a clue about that tree's place in a family tree, and you have to fill out the family tree based on the clues. There's also a loose environmentalism plot. On the whole I quite liked it, although I wish some care had been put into making sure there was no guesswork necessary. In a few instances you'd have two trees left and just had to swap names until you got the confirmation. This one made a mistake that a lot of puzzle games seem to make, which is it took a premise, made a competent game out of it, and then later on came back and like quadrupled the size of the game way, way past what the premise would support. I think the original game was great, if a bit obtuse in the third stage, and I would have totally recommended it as it was, but continuing it on for so long was really tedious and I ended up DNFing. Obviously since it's free the risk is low, but the little QOL problems that are fine for a short freeware game really do become dealbreakers in something more longform. Probably just worth playing through the first section, ie, the original game. ...one horrifying thing I see a lot is developers getting harassed because their games aren't live service. The social media era, gig culture, and F2P nightmares have created a situation where nothing can ever be done. Developers aren't allowed to move on to their next project; that's 'abandoning' the game. I think this is the same thing from the other end, a developer who feels the need to create CONTENT instead of looking at a project holistically and realizing that they've done what they set out to do. Not everything is improved by there being more of it, and many, many things, especially in this genre, are made worse. If you really want to return to an idea, you're better off reconceptualizing it and creating a sequel or spiritual successor instead of tampering with the original thing and mucking it up. It's okay to move on; it's not a failure to stop doing something. And most importantly, when you take something with a clear beginning, middle, and end, and add on a ton of stuff after the end, part of what made it work is now gone. You can't just keep adding to something and have it be the same quality. And sometimes you just have to kill your darlings for their own good.

tried this one on steam deck blindly and the controls work nicely! had a good time connecting trees to each other

Игра 'Senna and the Forest' – это настоящий подарок для любителей атмосферных приключений. С первых минут погружаешься в волшебный мир, где каждый уголок наполнен тайнами и загадками. Графика игры просто завораживает: проработанные до мелочей локации, живая анимация персонажей и потрясающие эффекты создают ощущение полного присутствия. Главная героиня, Сенна, очаровывает своей решительностью и добротой, а её путь сквозь таинственный лес полон как трогательных моментов, так и напряжённых испытаний. Геймплей ненавязчив, но увлекателен – решение головоломок и исследование мира приносят истинное удовольствие. Музыкальное сопровождение идеально дополняет общую картину, усиливая эмоциональное воздействие. Эта игра – не просто развлечение, а настоящее погружение в сказку, которая оставит тёплый след в душе.

You can't go wrong with free, but I also agree that this game has some issues. There are a few bugs, walking is a bit clunky and around 30% of the puzzles would require some brute-forcing/trial and error as not everything is 100% deductible. Nevertheless, I would still recommend this game, since it still has a lot of diverse puzzles and content to make it worth your while (4 chapters with around 3 levels each; each chapter has its own gimmicks), especially if you like deduction games like Obra Dinn and Roottrees, and it does scratch that itch. Just set your expectations that this isn't a perfect game. Have fun!