The Forest, open world survival horror

[DerAlex]

Think Far Cry graphics and setting, Minecraft exploration and base building, and Amnesia pants-shitting.

Announced almost a year ago with this trailer, which got it greenlit almost instantly:



I voted for it on Greenlight, even tho I was sceptical, because the whole thing had a pretty pre rendered look to it. But it got my attention.

About 4 months ago, the second trailer got released (everybody with a powerful subwoofer, maybe consider turning it off... or crank it up to 11, if thats ya thang...) :



This one I really like.

Today, the third trailer was released:



In my opinion this shows too much, but I think it still looks and feels fantastic. It now looks more like Skyrim and less like Far Cry, which, in my opinion, is a good thing. This is also the first trailer that looks like the game is actually being played, and does not have unnatural, pre-defined camera movement. Also, it does not look as good as the previous trailers, graphics wise, which in my opinion is also a good thing, because it shows how the game will look and not how they want the game to look.

I really like the narrative between the 3 trailers, the player is helpless and lost in the first, more advanced and capable in the second, and pretty much Death, Destroyer of Worlds in the third trailer, with traps and a huge fort. I'm really looking forward to this title, it got kind of a I-Am-Legend-y, Lovecraft-y feel to it, and I am a sucker for good horror and good survival games. Also, how it looks and fells is really impressive for a small indie title. I hope it will play as good as it looks. Oh, also, this has out of the box oculus rift support, because the developers really hate clean pants.

Some bullet points:

-release this May, on steam, around 15$
-early access (sigh...)
-unity-4 engine
-co-op: strong possibility to be added, but not in the initial alpha release
-hand-crafted world with finite resources / no procedural generated terrain
-peaceful mode available
-has a defined ending, but if you don't pursue it, you can play pretty much forever. Story and ending is there, for those who search for it

Thoughts? Opinions?

http://survivetheforest.com/

edit: wording

[Taleric]

Wow! Hope the music element is in the game as well, the delivery was very eye catching.

The multi limbed walkers were chilling. The tooltip icons were pretty while also not wrecking the atmosphere.

I remember a short blip on this but I am sure going to watch it now :)

Edit: miss understood the genre (not full on world building)

[Gunnerman21]

At first im like, "Wow such a nice wall around his base! why would he ever have to leave?" And then I watched the rest of the third video.. "oh."

Looks like a really amazing game! But too scary for me...

[dawnraider]

Wow. Just... wow. It definitely seems to have promise, but I'll have to look into it a bit more. I'll definitely keep my eye on it though.

[DerAlex]

The fact that such a good looking game is made by only a hand full of people still baffles me. The animation quality alone is horrifying incredible.

This is at the top spot of my 2014 hype list.

I hope the survival aspect is as good as it seems to be. Much more important to me than the horror aspect, which seems to be the developers focus. But as of now there is no reason to lose hope for this to be the "Robinson Crusoe Simulator" I hope it to be. And if it isn't, well, there is still Stranded Deep. Really exciting times for fans of the genre.

[jorgebonafe]

This one was released today on early access... I'm gonna check out some videos, see how this plays... Anyone tried it yet?

[DaveYanakov]

To me when something is described as "pre-alpha" it says do not spend money yet

[Taleric]

I watched a bunch of release videos and the visuals are still impressive. Bugs did pop up, some dramatic such as the light fearing enemy being out in plain day.

I was suprised that it is priced at $15. Going to watch for a bit yet.

Woah! Beware you can't save at the moment and the devs said the "hot-fix" will be in two weeks.. X

[DerAlex]

I've played a few hours now. Given that this is an early access alpha, this is what I've hoped for: A solid base for a potentially really fun game. Bugs don't bother me right now, and there are a few, some of them huge, but that is to be expected, you are warned when you buy the game, and again when you load it up:

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Here is the menu screen:

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And the options menu:

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No key binding.

Story: (Or rather, "Story")

Your plane crashes, and, half-awake, you see a native of the forest abducting your son (?)

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And then you are thrown into the world:

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My experience:

Your plane crashes, yadda yadda yadda, you start the game.

There is no classic tutorial, but rather you conveniently have a survival book in your inventory, which tells you what to do, but not excactly how you do it. Inventory opens with "I", but nobody tells you that, so if you've never played any kind of RPG, you're lost already :D

The book, which you can also open using "B", is a suprisingly immersive idea, and it doubles as a crafting menu. BTW, time does move on while you read in the book, the first time I opened it, I read throu the whole thing and was assaulted by natives half way throu in what seems to be a scripted event. more on that later, here are some screens of the book:

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This strikes me as a really great idea, and it feels really nice, even thou most of the recipes need other ingredients in different amounds than it is written in the book, but I still love the idea.

Another great little feature is the inventory. By pressing "I", you open your backpack and see this:

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Very limited space, for excample you can only carry 5 Stones and 8 Sticks, also only one kind of every meat, raw. You cannot carry cooked meat, you eat it straight out of the fire. Nonetheless, I love the inventory as well.

So you start the game in the middle of the forest, learn a few basics like collecting leaves by punching bushes, terrorize the local wildlife like bunnys and lizard-like things, collect stuff from the ground like stones and sticks, and getting your ass handed to you by a pack of roaming maniacs who where attracted by the plane crash. I nearly had a heart-attack. There is a sound cue when you are spotted, but the first time I heard it thought it was just ambient sound. So yeah, I was knocked out and woke up in a cave, with bodies hanging from the ceiling and blood and bones everywhere.

I immediatelly thought I lost the game and started from scratch. This time, after the crash, I collected everything at the crash site and ran away imediatelly, setting up camp at a clearing on a hill. I was building a little shelter when I realised the trees are moving, or rather "things" moved from tree to tree:

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Sneeky little fuckers... I killed 2 of them, 2 more I could not handle (they need about 15 hits with the axe you see in the picture, and you are down after about 3-4 hits. Hope this gets adjusted in the future, feels a bit off.) Anyway, I woke up in the cave again and realised that getting attacked is scripted, and if you leave the crash site, they hunt you down, no matter where you are. It's all part of the "tutorial" given that in the cave you are told how to use your lighter and how to crouch and so on. This, for me, is the biggest design flaw in the current version. In order to open up the game you have to lose once. That's bullshit...

I escaped the cave, and built a new base. Given that there is not much content in the game at this stage, there is not much point in discussing it further. The only thing I'd like to point out is this: The enemys are really impressive. The design is somewhat generic, but they look and especially move realistically, climb trees, try to hide behind trees. They are the most impressive thigns about the game in this state, I can't stress this enough. They sneak around without making any sounds, apart from some kind of snickering. You have to be on the lookout constantly, or they will surprise you.

You can hide, you can sneak, but it feels like they are always one step ahead of you, always watching you. What makes them even scarier, in my opinion, is the fact that they are not always attacking you, but watching you from a distance. If you aproach them, they let out some kind of screetching scream, alerting the others. Then they sometimes flee, sometimes attack, and sometimes charge at you before stopping apruptly a few feet from you, as if to test you and see how you react. If you kill one, others might flee to. They feel "real", I don't know how to describe it better, but thats the thing that gives me high hopes fo this game.

Around my clearing, I noticed effigys popping up, and I am pretty sure that they where not there the day before. The natives are building a perimeter. But it feels like they are as scared of you as you are of them.

Then I fell off a cliff and died while fetching logs for my cabin.

Random points of notice:

-Your full body is rendered in the world:

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-Your model does not have a head :D :

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-The crashed airplane is German:

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-Building a shack is a little strange ATM, meaning that, most of the time, you build it about 6 feet in the air, even thou the crafting framework shows it on the ground:

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I died 2 times, once I fell of a cliff, and once I fell throu the world:

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Dying equals game over:

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I will play some more once they fix the saving, not much point right now. Even thou I really want to play again now that I typed this :D

If I play again I might do a write-up if there is some interest.

Closing words: It's an alpha, an incomplete, buggy mess in which you currently cannot save. But it shows promise, in my opinion a lot of promise, and I look forward to future updates

[DerAlex]

If you want to see the game in motion:



Not my video. But I thought it pretty funny how it scares the crap out of him :D (No, not in a Pewdiepie-way. It's watchable)

[johnt]

It has a lot of promise, but I am super skeptical that they will ever get multiplayer working, because of the way he's handled physics and objects.

I do like the AI, but I feel like he should gradually introduce them, and keep them in the forests for a few nights, maybe just kind of just out of your sight range, and they run from you when you get close. Also, at this point, to be honest, they look silly, rather than scary. The models for them are comically awful.

The inventory system and the help system are both super creative and I like the way he's handled it.

I really think he had a lot of great ideas for how it should look, and what features it should have, but hasn't put a lot of thought into making it an actual game. I feel like it suffers a bit from "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" syndrome.

[DaveYanakov]

I feel like multioplayer would be a huge mistake for a game like this unless he adds on an entire new game mode

[erikdk321]

I have heard the game got updated and you can now save :) Will probably buy it later tonight.