The Forest Cathedral

The forest cathedral tries to be art, but it misses the mark. It tries really, really hard. Maybe too hard. There were a lot of strange decisions, and I'm going to talk about all of them (that I remember off the top of my head.) We're going to start with the premise, because the story of Rachel Carson telling the world that DDT is bad for the environment is a *really* strange choice for a video game. This isn't to say it's a bad choice. Modern history and the birth of the environmental movement are an interesting topic and it's always cool to see a story about one person heading up a crusade against greedy people. But that's not the story we actually get told in this game. This game's plot is more like the emotional cliff notes of the DDT story. DDT bad for bugs, bad for fish, bad for eagles, Rachel tells the world and dies before she can see the results of her work. Beyond that, we learn nothing of the story from real history. Aside from names and the basics of how DDT caused problems for the fish and eagles nothing about this game is in any way accurate except the end dedication cards. Next is the writing. This comes off like something written for a kindergartner. Rachel refers to every single thing she interacts with as Mr. or Ms. "Mr Chair, Ms Table, Mr. Trout, oh, I'm sorry, Ms Trout." It's a really strange choice that makes her seem kind of crazy and hard to connect to as an adult. At the beginning of the game it made me think that this game was really made for younger kids. If you're simplifying Rachel's story down to teach first graders about environmental protection, that's fine. That would make sense and I'd be far less offended. But this story was not written for children. We start in media res and this first chunk of the game is told in a choppy enough manner that you'd be forgiven for thinking it was in anachronic order. The majority of young children aren't going to understand what a biopsy is and how it's foreshadowing. They're unlikely to pick up on Mueller being sexist about her being a biologist. The story is severely hampered by the fact that most of the cutscenes are literal talking heads. It comes across as hamfisted. The kindergarten/young child vibe is reinforced by the happy bright colors randomly used on manmade objects. There's a wooden gate over there but some of the wooden poles have been replaces by random vibrant rectangles of varying colors for no good reason. At one point when you finish a gameplay segment a happy little minimalist sign pops up next to it. I'd swear it wasn't there before and I never noticed another one. But that same vibe is killed by the surrealist static that regularly pops up, the interface screw of blurriness and fog that comes up any time Rachel is uncertain or doubtful, and the random inclusion of disturbing and scary audio clips. What was this game trying to be? I genuinely don't know because one third of the time it's a kindergarten walking simulator, the next third is a horror game with really distressing visuals of dead fish and birds and weird sounds; (Not to mention Rachel is literally getting stalked by death at the end.) The last third of the game is the platforming section. Now, the best I can figure out is that this is all a metaphor for Rachel doing work, and possibly an allegorical reference to the common men and women who helped her figure this all out. She comes off as an idiot who thinks computers have little men in them solving problems. Again, really strange choices. She doesn't come across as the well respected scientist that she was, but rather a bit of a naive nut-job. Oh, and I don't think I've played a platformer this bad since the early 2000s. It's sloppy and imprecise. It's hard to control. It has way too many mechanics that get introduced in the tutorial and then almost never used again. The hitboxes are so unrefined you die by touching air, and the platforming segments themselves are so hard that even with the cheat settings on, (that the dev graciously gives you access to from the start of the game, points for that,) it's super hard to beat. They weren't fun to play on their own, they were just filler so that I could move on to the next, more interesting, story bit. And considering how uncompelling the story actually was? Yikes. The part that offended me the most though, was the scanner. You're supposed to use it to scan fish and the environment, and it seemed like a reasonably fun mechanic. It gets used about three times for that purpose after the tutorial. What you'll spend most of the game using it for is to follow the glowing pipes to figure out where you need to go next. There's one segment of the game where you basically need to use it to navgate a maze that doesn't exist through a dark, blurry field just so you can move the story along. The dev couldn't be bothered to build good level design that naturally moved me along. They just game me a terrible, clunky map. This game made me feel things. They were not good things. They were not the things the game wanted me to feel. I felt anger and frustration because this game just felt like a cobbled together mess that stomped all over history and a very real woman's legacy in favor of the very simplistic message that DDT is bad. We know. That's why it's been banned nearly everywhere. If you wanted to extrapolate that into a bigger message of how humans need to protect their environment, you probably should have said so.

This game hits the uncanny valley, in a not so great but confusing way. The title of the game makes no sense. Actually, not much in this game makes sense. I felt like I was on drugs even though I've never been on drugs. You know what else is on drugs? The pricepoint. It's way too steep for the 76 minutes of mediocre gameplay you get. I can't recommend this.

[h1]FINAL VERDICT: GET IN A BUNDLE![/h1] I got this in the Humble Bundle "Easy-Going Games" and there is absolutely nothing easy-going about this game. Talk about a game that is mis-placed with the other Whitethorn Games in the bundle. While the game overall does have a casual walking sim vibe, the mini-game platforming is frustrating and rage-inducing. It took me 2 hours to beat the game. The main gameplay is this arcade, simple platforming. However, the controls are absolutely atrocious. I had to switch to a gamepad just to get through them. Timing is very important, but the controls feel floaty and just not as tight as they need to be. I would often not get the intended output (grabbing the ledge instead of jumping over it, dashing in the wrong direction, etc.) The story does feel like a drug-induced fever dream. They have a very odd re-imagining of Rachel Carson that almost feels like its satire. I kind of digged it, but it also made no sense and didn't feel particularly respectful of her real-life work and death. The art style does go along with this aesthetic. It's probably the best thing about the game. It's just too bad the focus is on those 2D arcade platforming. At least the VOs are well-done. Overall, it's just okay. If you want to play something different this would be it. I wouldn't call it a good game. It is trippy. So I would recommend this to anyone looking for trippy games and an experimental, alternative re-imagining of the story of Rachel Carson. You may want to take some DDT beforehand though. [b]Rate 5.5/10.[/b] [quote]If you enjoyed my review, please consider joining my Steam Curator Group, Attorney Reviews. You can join here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/AttorneyReviews [/quote]

You can see a lot of the influences. You've got your Meat Boy/Celeste style platforming. The intersection of real world/digital world, like in games like The Witness and such. You can see the dramatic cuts and shot framing that are common in a lot of movies. The problem is that none of those things are executed particularly well. This is really reminiscent of a student film. Its got some potential, covers its lack of budget with basic camera tricks. It lacks the confidence to do anything super interesting in the actual cinematography (though it tries a few times), but instead chooses to go full contra-historical in the narrative. Like a Tarantino movie, but without making it an interesting choice, just a confusing one. I like to think of the short, narrative-focused games as "Is this a good use of time/money vs seeing a movie in a theater?" This game does not pass this test. If you got it in a bundle, is it worth the hour or so of your time to check out? Sure, why not. There's worse things things you could be playing.

I'm sure that there is a deep message that this game is attempting to tell. However, it's so boring that the message was lost on me almost immediately.

Incoherent dialog links to 2 minutes of odd gameplay links to more incoherent dialog links to 2 minutes of odd gameplay links to incoherent dialog... ad infinitum

this the most tentative recommendation that could ever be given. i didnt not enjoy my time playing, but im not sure i enjoyed it either. nothing is particularly bad with this game (except for the price). but its such an odd blend of game design that i spent the entire game slightly bemused. this is a walking simulator and also a 2d platformer that also teaches you some history and science and I just cannot reconcile all those parts in my mind and neither can the game.

This feels more like a student game than a real professional product. The game has a few interesting ideas and mechanics, but also a lot of ideas and mechanics that just aren't interesting and the whole thing never really gels as well you'd want it to. One big issue I had was that the "Full Controller support" that this game claims to have is completely non-existent as far as I can tell, and if you're going to try and sell a game in 2023 that is mostly platforming, there is no excuse to not have controller support. And to top it all off, this game is incredibly short for the price they are asking. The game takes a little over an hour, and I'm sorry but $15 is insane for such an experience. I can go to the movies for about the same price and I can get at least 2 hours of entertainment that way. I'm glad I got this in a bundle because I would feel extremely ripped off if I had paid $15 for this game.

3/10 should be like a 3/5$ game and does a poor job of informing people how DDT is still massively used or what it is DDT Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. HIGHLY TOXIC and you cant taste it...... its so much worse and this game only just touches it in 2020 a story in the Los Angeles Times that scientists had discovered thousands of barrels of acid sludge, a by-product of the manufacturing process for the notorious pesticide DDT, underwater in the California coast leaking into the ocean + story - also story could be better - floating trees - part where you lose most of your vision and need to walk in the woods. for me it was ALL my vision and only wat to see a tiny bit was whipping out clip board and putting it away really fast - short - god awful 1 hit death tiny platforming with janky ass hitboxes that are way bigger than they look - part your gonna die at a bunch of times, lets put the checkpoint at the end of a long ass straight hallway so the player can walk strait down it every time....why? no reason for this but to waste time and inflate gameplay make the game better. or make the game cost less. should be more about spreading information that saves lives over making money and it you want to be about making money im fine with that, but make a better game

Game is weird and I'm curious as to where it goes. That said it crashed on me twice for no reason as far as I can tell and I just can't be bothered to keep trying right now. Maybe I'll edit this review if I decide to give it a go again.