Oct 272023
One game that’s been in my backlog for a while now that I finally decided to try this October is Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest.
It’s based on the Werewolf: The Apocalypse tabletop setting, which I’m unfamiliar with, so I went into it not knowing what to expect.
You play as Maia, a young woman who keeps having strange, ominous dreams about the ancient Białowieża Forest. Seeking answers about her family and these dreams, she travels to the forest to see what she can learn.
It is largely presented through text, with illustrations in the background to provide somewhat of a visual novel experience, although I’d be more inclined to call it interactive fiction. Numerous dialogue choices lead you down different paths, affect your relationship with the other characters, and influence the story in other ways.
Depending on how you answer certain questions at the start, you end up with various stats that open up new dialogue options and may provide different ways to approach situations. You also have 3 stats to keep an eye on, health, willpower, and rage. These can be spent to make certain choices and replenished through others.
There are a lot of characters, possibly too many for the few hours a single playthrough will take. I had trouble keeping track of the cast, let alone feeling like I’d made a bond with anyone.
Now, I mentioned at the start that I wasn’t familiar with this setting going into it. If I was, I might not have been as surprised when it turned out to be an environmentalist story about trying to save the forest and the clashes between different groups with different opinions about what should be done.
Plus werewolves. Partway through the story, the werewolf aspect comes into play, although by that point you’re so deep into the game that it feels more like it should be setting up a larger narrative.
Despite a single playthrough being fairly short, there are several paths to take. Since you can’t manually save, however, you have to start over to try different options. Because of that, I decided not to replay it. I was happy enough with my outcome, even if some of my choices didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest has some neat ideas, although it wasn’t quite what I expected. The werewolf aspect takes a backseat to the environmentalism, and it feels shorter than it should be. The premise feels like it should set up a creepy, atmospheric story, but it didn’t quite work for me. However, since it’s part of a larger universe, maybe it appeals more to fans already invested in its lore.
I wasn’t familiar with the game either so my first thought was the traditional “werewolf/mafia” type game where you’re trying to find the impostor. I wonder just how much “lore” there is for things like this…
There’s probably a ton of lore. According to Wikipedia, the first tabletop edition was published in 1992.
My thoughts also initially went to the mafia-style werewolf game, haha.
It sounds kinda interesting, but also like you maybe don’t recommend it? Also, what would you call the difference between a ‘visual novel’ and ‘interactive fiction’?
I’d recommend it if the premise sounds interesting, just that you should know what to expect.
Hm… I’d say the dividing line for me is on the visuals. If the focus is mostly text, then I consider it interactive fiction. Here I felt like the images were mainly there to accompany the text as a bonus for more atmosphere, versus a visual novel where the visuals are helping to illustrate the scene, showing character emotion, etc.
I always appreciate game with different characters to interact with and different outcomes, especially if the game is a short one!
Makes it easier to go back to
True, but like we discovered with The Quarry, it can be rough when there’s no way to skip dialogue or make manual saves wherever you want.