Cleril Reviews: The Endless forest

[Cleril]

Many know Tale of Tales by their most announced game, The Path. They also created a nice relaxing (sometimes) online roleplaying game. However this is no World of Warcraft nor is it some game where you "level up" per say. No, this is a game where you roleplay as a deer, in The Endless Forest. Therefore it's quite a bit different from your standard online MMORPG in many, many ways.

There is no story here other than your some deer in an endless forest. Do you need anymore than that? This game is all about the roleplaying and communicating like a deer would. Unsurprising to me it makes for a great experience. First off, there is no chatbox, health bar, etc. There is no combat (in terms of traditional gaming) and there is no human interaction in terms of communicating. How do you get your messages across? By communicating via body language and a loud growl you'd be surprised by how much you can tell other players (deer).

For one moment you can be playing a game of copycat without the other deer knowing and the next you can be chasing each other around. The game provides animations for you to choose from in order to have proper deer communication. While some animations aren't realistic you won't care and really, do you know how deer live? I don't think so. You can bow down to say "Hey, thanks" or you can make an aggressive stance to say "Back off." You can also dance to add music to the game and the more deer dancing in an area the more advanced the music is.

Some female gamers may feel a little uneasy though since there is no way to pick your gender. While that may be a problem you can, later on, customize your looks to make your deer look more feminine to get the point across, if need be. Using spells found throughout the forest (by performing certain actions) you can put flowers on your head or change the color of your pelt. However most spells will not stay for long when you first play the game, because you start out as a fawn for 1 month real time. During this time you can cast spells (sometimes) and those you receive (mostly from other deer) only last a short time.

What does one do in this Endless Forest? You can visit the playground (stones), pond, ruins, an old oak, watering hole ("De Drinkplaats"), and pray at the Abiogenesis which is where the gods of the forest reside (the admins sometimes use their admin powers to make it rain, create glowing paths, or other weird stuff). This is all of course besides interacting with other deer and the objects in the forest. Got an itch? Rub against a tree. Want some flowers? Shuffle about in a flower patch. Who knows, maybe doing some of this will give you a magic spell. Don't like a spell you got? Cough it up or go swimming in the pond to get it out of your system.

The controls are simple. You can use the WASD keys to trot about and turn or you can use the mouse and based on how far your click is away from your deer depends on how fast you go throughout the forest. Actions are done by clicking on boxes at the bottom of the screen to perform the action illustrated on the box. Some of these boxes drop down to give you more choices of actions. In total there are about 17 or so actions excluding spell use.

The graphics are rather beautiful if your PC/Mac can handle them, which mine can. It runs usually at around 10-20 frames but there's very little to no slowdown and the game runs fine at that frame rate. You must have noticed that the faces of the deer look human and that's done on purpose for the sake of creativity. You should notice as well that each deer has a symbol above their head. This is their name, identity, mark, and signature if you wish to call it that. Every member gets their own unique symbol (randomly made) which other deer (players) use to identify you. It's a nice and useful way to know who everyone is without saying a word.

Okay, so do I get it?

Why not? It's freeware and it does get updated every blue moon with new areas to explore and the community online at any one time is at least 12 or so deer. If it's your cup of tea then go for it. It's something that can relax you and engage you in a new type of roleplaying scenario. In short, go for it.

By the way, this is me: http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7...0331100144.png

I've played before last year but this is a new account so I'm still a fawn. Zoom in to get a better look at my symbol if you wish.

Cleril says, "grawwwwwwwhhhhhh"! Which in English means "Hear me roar!"

[Muffincat]

Wow... I actually...really..really want to play this. I am so glad you posted this. This sounds like the sort of ridiculous game I would love and everyone I know would make fun of me for. Awesome :P

[Cleril]

Wow... I actually...really..really want to play this. I am so glad you posted this. This sounds like the sort of ridiculous game I would love and everyone I know would make fun of me for. Awesome :P

You can just google it to find it or just go to Tale of Tales official site where you can get it as well.

The watering hole and more life to the forest was added in the most recent update (Phase three). Just figured I'd mention that.

[EpsilonX]

so...you're a deer....and you just walk around and do deer things? is that all there is too it?

[jango]

so...you're a deer....and you just walk around and do deer things? is that all there is too it?

you read my mind epsi .. i simply don't get it

well written review though .. but .. i still don't get it ..

[Cleril]

so...you're a deer....and you just walk around and do deer things? is that all there is too it?

Well, you interact with other human players (other deer) with which you can play games like copy cat or chase each other.

There's also the spells which do pretty cool things to other deer and yourself.

It's a roleplaying game where you roleplay as a magical deer.

[Muffincat]

Yeah so I played it for a bit and kind of lost interest... I enjoy playing "different" games because it is fun to see the way people can try to expand on what games can be....... but there kind of isn't a lot to do and so it was like "oh I am a deer I can prance!" and then like...oh okay I am done

that's how I felt after a couple minutes anyhow

[LemonRising]

From what I had heard its just sort of a weird time waster.

I never played though cause I knew I'd get bored quick.

[ssa707]

Beautiful
Thank you
I want to see more

[gnomeo]

this is oddly intriguing, in a social experiment kind of way.