This game is about exploring interactions possibilities, offered by a two dimensional, grid-based surface, by navigating a rectangular character block with limited actions (walk, describe, pickup, open, transfer, etc.). The character is the real eyes and senses of the player in this game, since he only deals with character's descriptions of the surrounding objects, while looking at simplistic, abstract models of absolutely identical images. That is why this game relies on its character's personality, expressed through his words, portraits and cut scene animations, and provides a pleasant experience on this behalf. Each description and its delivery adds to the uncovering of a story with some detective elements (like the connection of a shooting star to a lumber-mill day off), but also with many questions left intentionally unsolved (where did Lemon's father go, and why? What is the old man's story with the tractor? Who used to live in the abandoned cabin? etc.). This creates a feeling of a larger-than-this-story world and adds to the immersiveness of the game. It also emphasizes sense of a spooky adventure, mystery and unknown (the fantastic music and animations are largely to blame for this), while also staying warm and childlike with its light humor, friendly animations and cartoony appearances. Throughout the whole play I was expecting for some dark turn in the story, but thankfully author has wisely decided not to play this card and instead focused on a more subtle feeling.
The game itself provides little to no challenge, which, in the case of this particular story, seems appropriate. The game's only real puzzle is the forest, but it literally solves itself due to a good level design: from the very first location player is told to be on a lookout of an item, that will allow him to remove the trunks in order to get to the sparkly things; next few areas show him where all the items that he want are situated, so he can easily come back to them later; finally, the way wraps in a big loop, allowing player to instantly return to the initial location after acquiring the required item.
Overall, this game is very simple in terms of its mechanics, but this simplicity is compensated and ideologically justified by the story, since it paves the way for precisely the experience it strives for.
Reviews for "Flatwoods"
This review is super in depth and I cant thank you enough for taking the time to write up something so well thought out. I am glad you had a good time! :)
I learned so much about turnips. 10/10
Beyond that, though, this was just a really sweet and polished little game. I do wish the lag issue could be fixed, but it wasn't a deal breaker for me.
Turnips are very important don't you know.
It was a fun game, just enough to get me curious enough to play it through a second time and get the good ending as well. Unfortunately, the game had a bug that caused it to lag horribly just by walking around. I assume it's because it's drawing too many assets from other parts of the game; two different musical tracks were playing at the same time during my second playthrough.
You guess it, the game was originally designed to run at 720p but this version is only 800x450. I didn't have the free time to rebuild all the maps unfortunately. This is the first time I have heard of the audio bug tho.
Very cute and fun point and click.One complaint though,you can stand in front of the mother and she won't notice you unless you interact with her.
Also was the old guy supposed to be a murderer?There was what looked like blood over his tractor that was stashed in the woods next to a hatchet and one of the pictures in his house was of a woman bent over a tractor.
I forgot I had to program the mother for that shot.
I had never thought about the old man being a murderer but that's definitely an interesting theory!
...did I not get the right ending? Maybe I missed something....
Also the game lags through map screens where you are able to 'run' around. One way to fix this is to bring up menu with the save, then cancel the menu. Or save the game. That usually may help clear the lag and makes the lag disappear (But only in the map you're in, once you moved to a different map there's no guarantee the lag will go away, so you have to keep using the same tactic)
I collected so many metal pieces and I'm still missing something....
Oh crap I Forgot about the old padlock near the start...gotta find that key ><
Sounds like you missed out on a few of the pieces of metal, don't forget to go check out the chicken co-op on the farm.
I think the laggy maps were due to their size, the game wasn't originally designed for html5 so when it was ported the size of the maps caused some issues on some machines unfortunately.
8 metal pieces all up. ;D