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Woodle Tree Adventures

In Brief

Woodle Tree Adventures is a relatively short 3D platformer created by Fabio Ferrara. It has cute colorful graphics, and is largely a collectibles game with approximately 1 to 2 hours of game play (hence the low price of £1.99/$2.99 when it's not being given away free).

It's an ideal game for the family. The kids will love the in game characters, but may need parental help negotiating some of the platforms (depending on their age). I give this a 6.5 out of 10 for Gameplay. It would have been higher if there had been more than 7 levels and the camera angles had been better.

Suggestions:

If you don’t like today's offering, instead of posting a few words saying you think it's a waste of time, or other words to that effect, please would you instead give some feedback detailing why you don't like the game and how it could be improved from your point of view. If you don't like this 3D platformer genre at all, explain why. There are thousands of subscribers to the game giveaway of the day every weekend which makes this an ideal forum for giving developers ideas as to what their consumers (i.e you) would like to see in a game. For example, you could suggest extra content that would make it more appealing. There is also a thread over in the forums where you can post suggestions about which games you would like to be given away.

If you miss today's giveaway you can get the game on Steam for £1.99/$2.99 HERE. None of the free game sites have this in their listings and generally the game is only available from distributors as a Steam key, though drm free copies have been sold via indie game bundles and for Mac and Linux computers. Todays giveaway is a drm free version of the game. It should play on all versions of Windows from XP upwards. You do require a minimum of a 2.6GHz dual core intel processor or a 3.0GHz dual core Athlon processor

Introduction:

Woodle Tree Adventures is an old school platform game with a catchy and unique art style! You will find all the classical elements from the 90's games and new interesting ideas. Explore a total of 6 worlds and save the lands with the magical water drops you'll find through your journey, bringing back peace and balance and finally becoming the new hero!

The feeling of traveling around the game world is refreshingly peaceful. Woodle Tree is a great game to play if you want to relax, and the soundtrack and art style help giving a serene tone. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, this game is still very much worth considering, even if only to witness the beautiful game world.

If you loved games like Banjo Kazooie and Mario 64, never fear, Woodle Tree will take you back to the good old days! The whole gameplay is an hybrid between an art game and a platformer and is meant to be played by adults and children and to bring happiness to all souls.

Reference accessed HERE 10th April 2016

If you wish to see the problems section, which I've now incorporated into the FAQ's thread you can find it HERE and the recent game deals (now called The Weekly Roundup of Game Deals) is HERE. I've not posted the installation section yet, just not got around to doing so. In the meantime, if you have problems installing the game, just post a comment here, thank you.

The Game:

Video game mascots are one of the pinnacle inventions that brought the market back from the brink. For kids, it was a way for them to connect, to easily recognize out in the wild, and more importantly, allowed the arguments of who was better: Mario or Sonic? These conversations continued up to the fifth generation of the Playstation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64. As time went on, these mascots seemed to fall back to the shadows (with the exception of Mario and terrible Sonic games), but there’s always something so charming about a main protagonist that resembles the characters on a cartoon. Chubby Pixel has braced an entry into the mascot platforming genre with Woodle Tree Adventures as a charismatic tree log, armed with a giant leaf, set to collect special apples and water droplets to give new life to his forest home.

Woodle Tree Adventures is a recreation of the popular 3D platformers like Super Mario 64, Spyro, and Croc. There are six worlds to explore (seven once you’ve collected 600 apples which means finishing the game) of all different atmospheres including wintry wonderlands, water ridden marshes, and bee infested honeycombs. Strapped with an ever growing bag, you’ll collect apples which will unlock new worlds.

The game opens up with our character Woodle standing on a floating island. This will act as your hub from world to world. Around the outside, you’ll find some podiums with giant numbers over them. Collecting will unlock new worlds and also allow you to upgrade you leaf weapon. Moving to the inside of your house, there’s two floors to enter the different worlds. You’ll have a few to start with then unlock more as you complete them. Walking up to the different “balls” you’ll swipe at them to start the level. This is reminiscent of jumping into the paintings in Super Mario 64.

The game is ideally played with an XBox 360 controller (PC version), but a keyboard will sufficeif you don't own a controller. You'll find the main key bindings and controller controls detailed in game. The left analog stick moves Woodle around, the A button jumps, and holding down the X button will make the log run. Which is a blessing because the walking speed is extremely slow. To start the game using the keyboard, press the return key; for movement you can use either the arrow or WASD keys, to jump use space, to attack or defend use the E key, but you do need to pick up a leaf before you can use this. To run, use the shift key in combination with the movement keys, to exit the game use escape. You can play local co-op using a controller, to start a co-op game ensure you have a controller plugged into your computer then click the right arrow on the controller to play as Woodle beaver.

The jump mechanic is a bit floaty at times. You’ll be relying on your shadow spot to line yourself up on platforms. You can adjust the distance mid-jump which will help making it to different platforms. There doesn’t seem to be any uniformed jump distance between platforms so some jumps will feel fine using a full force jump while others you’ll over jump and ultimately die. With all of the issues with the camera in this game, you’d think the jumping would feel more controlled. Sadly, it doesn’t.

Even though in a 3D environment, the layouts of each level have a start and end point. There is a little bit of exploring that will grant you more apples to collect, but mostly if you stay on the right path, you’ll collect everything you need and make it to the end. Lots of platforms to jump on, some cool jet streams that’ll push you up into the sky, and turtles! The graphic design is excellent. Very unique and, I mean this in a nice way, cute. It’s extremely charming to run through these lands as a happy, apple collecting piece of wood. Who would have thought?

There are enemies that scatter the level but they are more or less just there for looks. Some enemies just walk back and forth, others up and down, some don’t do anything and are just there seemingly to deter you from moving one direction or another. The ones you can kill just take a simple swap of your leaf and they fade away into nothingness. Others can’t be killed at all, only avoided. There never seems to be any threat to force you from one point to another. There’s no time limit and you don’t have a hit meter. If you fall off the world, you’ll just respawn either at the closest checkpoint or at the beginning of the stage. Seems more of a romp through an interesting, yet repetitive, landscape than a 3D adventure game. There isn’t even a counter as to how many apples you’ve collected or how many still exist in the world. Lots of missing things here, especially for a game that claims to be complete, that said, it is a very cheap to buy game.

The leaf weapon is a nice touch. Going up to different enemies and smacking them down makes sense since you’re a log and all. And the upgrades are welcoming even if I completely forgot about them until I had finished the game. You use your weapon so sparingly, that any upgrade seems to go unnoticed. Would have liked to see how it would have worked in a boss battle or with more difficult enemies.

Even with all of the monsters that litter the worlds, you’re biggest enemy is the camera control. You can move the camera in and out using the right analog stick. In and out. No left to right or in a 360 degree rotation. Just in and out, or by moving the mouse back and forwards. Granted, zooming the camera all the way out to see the entire level in a single screen is impressive in itself, but more often than not you’ll be missing platforms or falling off the edge because the camera controls are aweful. This was the most challenging issue I had with Woodle Tree Adventures. The camera is so poorly designed, that it creates an obstacle that you can’t just over come. This problem makes this game even unplayable at times. And the camera seems to have a mind of its own. Starting the level, the camera is typically positioned to the side allowing you to walk left to right. Suddenly, the camera will change perspective behind for no reason which usually ended with my death. Never thought that a camera angle could be so cruel. Brutal, brutal stuff.

Edited reference accessed HERE 10th july 2016

Video

You’ll find several videos of Woodle Tree Adventure game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE , HERE and HERE

Conclusion:

Unfortunately Woodle Tree Adventures misses on the bare mechanics needed to make this a pleasure to play. The poor camera work, the missing difficulty, passive enemies and relatively boring level design spoils what could have been an excellent game. The odd camera angles gave me a headache and I felt a little woozy after playing this game for over an hour. Also, there are only several levels which can easily be completed in an hour or two at the most .

That said, out of the four thousand plus reviews (yes, 4K) over 60% are positive. You can see those reviews HERE

Scoring:

Game play: 6.5

Graphics: 7.5

Audio: 7

Re-playability: 6

Originality: 7.5

Fun Factor: 6

Chill Factor: 7

Power-ups/upgrades: 3

Mini Games: 0

Game as art: 8

Tutorial/Help section: 5

Collectibles: 5

I've added more categories to the score board, but I won't be giving an overall average score based on those because each holds a different weight when taking the whole into account. Overall, I'd give Woodle Tree Adventures a 6.5 out of 10, this would have been higher if the camera controls were not so abysmal.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the developer Fabio Ferrara for giving Woodle Tree Adventures to the giveaway community for free today and to the game giveaway team for finding yet more games.

Extra information:

The problems section that used to be posted here in the game review is now included in the Game Discussion FAQ's thread; which you can find HERE.

I've updated the 'games, games and yet more games' section that used to be posted with the review. The thread is now called 'Weekly Round-up of Game Deals. You can find the new thread (which I've posted in the sticky section of the game discussion forums to make it easier to find if you are perusing the game discussion forums) HERE.

The latest free game over on Origin has changed to the excellent FPS game Medal of Honor Pacific Assault. It's a little dated compared to the latest FPS games, but is still a great game with excellent graphics. It was released around 2005 so should easily play on most computers of today. You'll find details of that game and how to get it in the Weekly Round-up of Game Deals.

........................Moderator Comment..........................

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