The Willow Man

The game has a number of issues that make the game effectively unplayable. Dodging's invincibility frames are effectively meaningless as they exist for such a small part of movement that hitting them is effectively RNG. The sanity restoration mechanic that stops the screen from being filled with random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is possibly RNG as it requires you to spam the U button until you restore a section, and if it isn't RNG it means that it sometimes just doesn't work on if you are able to restore sanity. If you don't restore sanity you are going to have various images spawn covering the screen, have a reduced field of vision that gives you pretty much no time to run away from the monster, have your dodges stop working (This also happens at low health), and are going to be inundated with even more noise then is already caused by the cacophonous background noise that is way too loud even when you reduce the sound of it. Furthermore, blocking is next to useless as if you block you are guaranteed to take more damage then you would take from running away due to blocking removing the knockback. All of these issues caused by the monster wouldn't be such an issue if it didn't spawn within roughly ten seconds of you actually managing to remove it. And, if you do go through the trouble of removing it you get stuck on a black screen that you can't leave for roughly 5 seconds and sometimes even longer then that even if you're pressing the button to leave. The end result is a game that the best way to deal with it's mechanics is to pray that the monster which causes the worst of them doesn't appear, and to use dodges to move between doors as fast as possible in the areas where doing this will prevent you from taking a hit. If your sanity is too low to allow for consistent dodge spam, only then do you jump into a closet to lose the monster and then you have to pray that you'll recover sanity in time to spam dodges again so that you can avoid dealing with the monster. Part of me wants to like the game, the aesthetics have their own charm to them, the dialouge is bad in a way that can be funny, and the couple of scenarios such as killing classmates and bossfights are cheesy in a way that might make it enjoyably bad if the game itself wasn't so awful to play. It would feel dissapointing if free, but the cost for this is way too much to find any enjoyment in it.

This game is not good, but i can see some good in it. It was made by a new-ish solo dev, so i won't be too harsh. Let's get the negatives out of the way: The gameplay is very clunky, it's buggy (i got stuck twice and it required resets), the dialogue is bad (expected, writing is hard) but it's also full of typos wich make it feel like it's a low effort game and i don't think that's the case, and the animation is very limited. Now with the positives: I think the sprites look nice. I respect the ambition the dev had for the gameplay. This could have been a simple "hide and seek" horror game but they decided to give it boss battles, blocking and punishing, a dodge roll, a sanity meter. None of it is well executed but i admire them for trying. The music is good, a few times i found myself thinking "that's a nice tune". The Willow Man himself is a cool character and a good concept for a monster, i like him. Unfortunately, i can't recommend this game for it's price. if it was a free game (or a lot cheaper) i would have recommended it so the dev gets more feedback. There's potential here and i'm interested to see the dev improve, they have some good concepts but are lacking in execution. While i can't say it's good, i can say i enjoyed its ideas and my friends enjoyed watching me endure the jank on stream.

For a first time title this isn’t a bad showing, it has many of the elements that make a game great, boss fights, multiple enemy types, a challenging game loop that forces you to think ahead and manage your health, great witty writing that holds your attention, an attempt at combat mechanics that actually comes in handy and not just for show, jump scares, a very good sound track. This attempt is great! There’s something here for everyone to enjoy, with two twist endings that will leave you wanting more from this developer. I enjoyed the art style, the villain, the supporting cast of characters that you actually want to save, its not bad at all. There’s even an implied sanity meter where its your responsibility to keep your character from becoming disoriented and I found myself loving that mechanic getting her to calm down, the stress is very realistic. Anyhow the developer assumes that you should know where you are going at all times and assumes prior experience in exploration based horror titles, you seek out keys to unlock doors, solve puzzles, trigger cut scenes, talk to npc’s, and run through the mansion seeking out clues as what to do next to advance and uncover more of the mansion and the story. The game can be frustrating at times especially with the shortage of save points which are also health recovery stations, there are 4 total through out the mansion and the developer assumes you should know where they are at all times as you navigate the mansion, I kinda needed to adjust my play through to adapt to this because if you don’t you’ll be forced to watch the cut scenes again, but I powered through because I wanted to see where this is going and it wan’t bad I’d say that It was the developers intention was to raise the stakes and keep you in a cautious state, I like the idle animations when the character is facing the screen but not the stiffness when the character is facing left or right, so if you could get the character to face you when you stop that would be great and would add more to the immersion. I leave you with this review, and I will give you the developer a thumbs up, I want to see more.