We are living in a golden age of indie games. From the industry-changing mechanics of “Undertale” to the sheer uniqueness of “Superhot,” developers are chugging out games that feel fresh and push the boundaries of the medium. That being said, I normally stumble upon an indie game as a result of subsequent hype, causing me to ignore what is either a treasure trove of hidden gems or a pitfall trap of utter trite. As a challenge to myself, I clicked on the Newly Released games on Steam and bought the first game that caught my eye, entering the experience completely blind.
In “The First Tree” by David Wehle, you play as a fox in the middle of Alaska, who is searching for her three lost cubs. The only dialogue in the game is the voice of a man named Joseph, who is reminiscing about his father. His speech is heard as you explore the wilderness as the fox as Joseph acts as a detached narrator. Joseph reveals early in the game that the fox story is actually a component of his dream — certain actions like digging up a toy train cause Joseph to describe certain anecdotes and experiences from his life. What ensues is some platforming, exploring and basic puzzle solving in this game’s claimed 90-minute runthrough.
Arguably, the best features of the game are the graphics and the music. While the shapes are obviously polygonal, which can be a bit jarring to someone unfamiliar with indie games, the colors are gorgeous and can still be handled by a humble 13-inch MacBook Pro, which has the graphics processing power of a potato. The soundtrack matches the barren scenery perfectly, with its heavy piano influence but tactful use of string instruments like the cello in more dramatic parts of the dialogue. In a similar manner to “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,” the game uses silence excellently, ensuring that the soundtrack’s heavy moments have more impact.
Unfortunately, if one looks past those qualities, the flaws in the game become prominent. The story — while lucid at times and with natural voice acting — is fundamentally too obscure or meaningless to resonate with some players. Sometimes the anecdotes that Joseph recalls are banal and catalyze no development for either himself or his father, while other times the cheesy, pretentious dialogue by what should just be a “normal guy” takes away from the message of the plot (see: any time Joseph calls his partner “my love”).
More than anything, the platforming element of the game is not executed well — to the point that I felt anxious and irritated by its poor delivery. The fox has the ability to jump, but it is often unclear how high or how low the platforms can be for you to get on them. At one point, I thought I saw an interesting hut on top of a cliff, so I attempted to jump onto it. No matter how many upgrades I got, I simply could not get on top of the cliff even though I was jumping the right height.
This leads to another spatial flaw in the game: There is a lot of empty space that you cannot easily tell is untraversable. I would often run up cliffs for minutes on end, only to realize that I could not go any higher; even though the cliff did not get particularly steep, I would often be met with invisible walls preventing further progress.
Occasionally, I deviated from what I thought was the main path to do some additional exploration, which lead to dead ends with mostly no additional plot or dialogue to be gained. Even if I returned to where I started after failed attempts of finding something unexpected, there was no guarantee that I was continuing in the right direction. “The First Tree” is intrinsically a linear game, so the seemingly large and empty overworld does absolutely nothing to augment the experience.
Overall, while I like the delivery of “The First Tree” in terms of art and music, it is a let down. It gives merely the illusion of depth with a mostly large and empty overworld and a plot that, while decent, is obfuscated by occasionally cheesy dialogue and abstruse anecdotes. The biggest contributor to its substandard quality is by far the horrible roaming mechanics, which castrate the overworld and strip the game of the wanderlust of exploration.
As this golden age of indie games continues, it is unfortunate that a game like “The First Tree” will likely be buried into obscurity by the other hits of the year.
Grade: C
For 'The First Tree,' Beauty Only Skin Deep
Courtesy of David Wehle
