Lost in a Forest (PC) review "It really puts the 'bore' in arboreal"

Had I not read Lost in a Forest's Steam page, I would have not realized it was intended to be a parody of indie horror games. Booting up the app leads you to all the signs of lackluster experiences, from a prominent “Unity” intro to a title card with no fanfare. You receive sparse options, no storyline context, and very little narrative as you hop into its cheap campaign. The only thing the game offers is a wrecked car at the side of a half-way developed street. Had I not known this experience was intended to be a comedy, I would have mistaken it for a sincere (albeit poor) attempt at a horror game.

And let's face it: aside from its mild humor, that's exactly how it plays out...

Forest thumbs its nose at a superior freeware offering: Slender: The Eight Pages. In that title, you wandered around a wooded area, collected sheets of paper, and avoided the titular sharply dressed entity originating from creepypasta stories. If old Slendy caught up with you, it was lights out. You had one chance to nab the notes, and failure resulted in starting over. With each item collected, the challenge grew tougher.

Myriad freeware and cheapo games aped that one, creating a short-lived sub-genre referred to as “Slender-like:” games where the player similarly collected items while trying to give a demonic creature the slip. Titles like Eyes: The Horror Game, The Note, and Haunt come to mind... Enough of them bled from the fresh wound started by Slender that the category was fit for a proper parody.

A proper parody...



Forest follows this line of logic, plunging you into immense woods filled with almost nothing. Seriously, if you thought wandering around in Slender was bad, you're in for real torture here. If you stray from the main road, you will aimlessly traverse this terrain until your eyes bleed, hoping that you stumble upon one of seven collectible pages. Or hell, you'll hope to run into anything, really: an empty building, a shipping container, a hill, a cemetery... Whatever will break the tedium.

So what do you chance upon after some time? A fire hydrant. In the middle of the forest. Also, you locate various other things, like tractor tires, bricks, cola cans, and toilets. As it turns out, these items serve as weaponry, which you can lob at the forces of darkness. All you have to do is look for a page and get started in earnest.

Maybe.

Some day.

After a lot of searching.

Don't give up.

I know you've been playing close to an hour, but you'll locate one soon.

I promise.

Oh! You found a... vending machine? Yeah, you get money in this outing, which you can use to purchase more cola to lob at foes.

Ages later, you find your first letter-emblazoned sheet of college rule. You snag it and immediately the Slenderman himself appears. Your first inclination might be to cry copyright infringement, as if that will scare him away, until you realize this title is a parody and thus probably subject to fair use policies. So what else do you do except complete this comedy's setup with a punchline. You throw a toilet at Slenderman.



See? Isn't that funny? You threw a toilet at Slenderman. He exploded. Haha.

Okay, now that the game has spent its joke, what next? Why, the rest of the content remains the same. You continue to wander in an attempt to locate the other six pages, constantly dogged by Slenderman or the grim reaper, both of whom you take out with a well-placed random object. So in other words, the proceedings play out similarly to every other Slender-like, except now you can throw things. It leads us to a critical question: is it really a parody or just another cheapo indie horror with exactly one joke used to excuse all of its other instances of stale design?

For instance, combat isn't engaging in the least. When a boogeyman appears, he sits still and stares at you. Meanwhile, your health quickly deteriorates. Your options at that point consist of readying a weapon and tossing it or running backwards.

In the former case, it takes too long to set up a strike. All the time you spend pulling out an item and aiming leads to your hit points draining faster than you can amble away. So what, really, is the point to combat when it proves to be more of a liability that simply escaping? Seriously, if you 'S' key your way out of a situation, you only lose stamina that recharges just as swiftly as it depletes. After a while, your foe despawns and you continue with your quest. Still, with your energy dropping so quickly, the game becomes nearly impossible to win.

Sadly, this title threw so much weight behind its weak humor that the rest of the adventure falls apart quickly. It leaves you wondering if it intended to be a sincere (albeit comedic) attempt at a game or merely a novelty. Unfortunately, things like humor and novelty have been used in the past to dismiss a game's lack of substance. However, they do little to mask the notion that what you're playing is a one-note offering that sours after a few minutes. That sums up Lost in a Forest perfectly.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (October 24, 2023) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.