I guess that is more on me than the game, but I might not recommend this as a bedtime story just yet. Either way, I kind of dreaded every new scene, waiting for things to take a serious turn for the worse, but it never happened. Maybe it has to do with the dark lighting or use of unnerving insects in human-like positions, and the quiet, haunting soundtrack probably doesn’t help much. Strangely, there’s quite a sinister air hanging over The Old Tree despite nothing terrible happening and– spoiler–a happy ending for the little alien dude. I really liked getting around the insect bellhop and his/her need to control the light switch. Despite some of the surroundings, the puzzles are mostly logical, such as how you can’t open a door as easily when it is submerged in water, meaning you need to empty the tank first. Basically, you’ll hit a number of progress-blocking puzzles, where you have to figure out what to click on in the environment–and in what order–to open up the path for our leading creepy, crawling turnip to keep moving. Think more Samorost 2 than Botanicula, but both fit the vibe when it comes to imagination and creativity. Anyways, in this atmospheric free-to-play title, you help guide a tiny alien thing, which I’ve seen referred to as both Dumbo Octopus and Baby Cthulhu by fans, to an unknown destination. It’s a short experience, but satisfying, and there’s obviously room for so much more.įrom Red Dwarf Games, The Old Tree effectively mixes point-and-click adventuring with beautifully interactive art. Thankfully, those were twelve really good minutes spent in a bizarre, surprising world, starring a microscopic octopus-like alien blob, as well as a couple other cartoonish characters, like that insect bellboy. Such is life, when you are not a space gnome.Īccording to Steam, I completed The Old Tree in twelve minutes. Too many amazing titles to try, not enough time. I also need to get around to Oxenfree and Firewatch at some point as well. It’s the journey that matters, and the locations so far are absolutely stunning in their strangeness, their ability to be unnatural and yet familiar, a place one could live in if that was their role in life.īetween this and Night in the Woods, 2016 is shaping up to be stellar for adventure games. ![]() I’m sure something will drive the space gnome forward, but it’s not essential for me to care about. I wonder what the plot to Samorost 3 will be truthfully, it doesn’t matter, because this is the sort of point-and-click adventure game where what’s on the screen and getting to the next one to see more wild imagination come to life is the reward. I just skimmed my review of Samorost 2 to remind me what happened next, and it involved a dog getting kidnapped by aliens. Thankfully, the day was saved, as well as the space gnome’s home. At times, it can be jarring, like the screenshot above, but for the most part it becomes the norm, and you begin to believe in this strange planet and wonder how these critters and beings survive and whether or not they also know they are on a bad path to their own demise. Sometimes it is difficult to take everything in when you are presented with this gorgeous, stunning mix of reality and artwork. Paying attention to everything happening on screen is vital to making progress, even if it is as minor as bugs making noises or the way a signpost is facing. You do it by clicking, deducing.Īlmost instantly, you’ll find yourself in a strange, surreal world with Samorost, where common combines with odd, solving somewhat leisurely puzzles that occasionally require a bit of extra thinking and clicking. And so you’ll travel to this asteroid, which is full of life and machinery and isn’t just some hunk of rock hurling its way towards death and destruction, and try to change its path. The story for the premiere entry in the series is that an asteroid is on a direct course to crash into the gnome’s home planet, and he will do whatever it takes to not let that happen. It’s fairly short, depending on how good of a clicker and puzzle solver you are, and it’s more about interacting with the environment than controlling the space gnome directly. That’s why I headed over to the developer’s website, where you can play the first Samorost for free in your browser. Suffice to say, I like Amanita Design’s games, as weird as they are, and I want to eventually play them all. I played Samorost 2 way back in the day (circa 2010, when I was moving out of my studio apartment), and only just realized with the latest news that I never touched the first in the series, though I did bang my head against a wall for hours in Machinarium, less in Botanicula. ![]() I mean, to be honest, I haven’t really thought about the Samorost series in a good long while. The surprising news the other day was that Samorost 3 is on its way, launching on PC and Mac on March 24, 2016.
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