The First Tree (2017)

This should not be considered as a game but an interactive short story, when a man tells about a dream he had about a fox' search for missing cubs. He retells it for his love partner and touches upon his past childhood and the objects in the dream that are connected. The main themes are concerning the growth, family, maturity, dreams but also loss that we all might relate to at some point.

The narrative might be passable as an audio short novel but there's only so much you could get out of The First Tree as a video game, because you'll be spending a majority of the game running through vast fields with relatively little to interact with (like jumping over obstacles or literally digging up the past). The graphics are okay, the level design is plain but made up somewhat by the beautiful scenery through and through. The music is the high point of the contents, with piano and soundtrack elements that could warm a heart of stone.

For all the content's worth, I'm glad I finished it after just over 1½ hours. The game could do with trimming down the immense fat of level design, in order to condense the narration. Barely recommended for fans of walking simulators and interactive stories, while gaming-focused audience better give it a pass.

I tried to enjoy this, but the story is too sad and boring.

Looking for lights was surprisingly challenging. I often had to climb somewhere high to look around, and even that didn't always help. I got lost multiple times.

I didn't find all the story elements. And then his father was dead.（＊〇□〇）……！I knew it's just a matter of time, still. I must have missed something. I didn't like the story, the dialog felt unnatural, but the ending was touching.

I had some small problems: Stary sky, I started following the stag and got lost. In the end, I watched a youtube video to found out, I have to go into the tent

I bought it for 1euro.

I love atmospheric exploration games, but this one was low on the explore and heavy on the endless running around to get to unchallenging interaction points. The one interesting mechanic (the butterflies) was used twice, with no real difficulty added to it. I got bored running in a straight line to get to the next goal. The voice actor (also the game creator) made what could have been a really emotional game sound flat and disconnected.

I was surprised at the ending, but it was tempered by the complete boredom of, once again, running in a straight line to get to a fairly unsatisfying conclusion.

The games themes are about unprocessed grief and loss, dealt with in an theoretically interesting way (if poorly executed). I felt bad for the woman who listened to the man's ramblings for an hour+, giving thoughtful and kind responses, only for her to tell her story and him not respond/dismiss it. Ah well. The soundtrack was great! The single-axis fox, which caused much hilarity when running and surprising annoyance when jumping, was not.