• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Holy woods!!!

Hollow Woods is a short (40-50 minutes was the time I needed to finish it) surreal first person game made with Unity for the #hps1jam event, and available for free on Itch.io, but now I guess you want to know what is this game about:
In Hollow Woods we start waking up after a car incident in a middle of a ring wade with wooden chairs. And nearby there are three red... ghosts? So we grab our trusty axe (wait... we have an axe? Oh, better than nothing!) but they seems to be immortal and also harmless, so we talk to them (pressing E, that is used to activate/interact) and... the adventure begins!


Do not worry, these creepy guys are harmless AND they also provide some useful informations about the game. Talk to them or you will wander aimlessy!

Anyway the game is simple: Zellen (won't tell you who is he!) will tell you that you need to find two hourglasses and put them in a precise location to open a portal and leave the place. Guess what? It's what we have to do, we are trapped here and we have no other choice!

Hollow Woods is set in a world that is everything but hollow! It's a weird land with a mansion with a giant sitting on it, an area with floating balloons and a huge purple teddy bear, and a desert with huge rusted cogs and a strange red building. And monsters everywhere, of course! These creatures goes from giant red horned beetles to zombies armed with daggers or guns, spitting plants, and strange little humanoids with trunks like some sort of elephant.
Some creatures are fast, some are slow, some can shoot, but all of them will let you earn experience points that are useful to learn levels and increase the hit points, that in the beginning are just seven. Anyway this did not seem to augment the damage output, so it was only partially useful.

Luckily you can't die. Uhm no, you may die but you will always be resurrected at the circle of chairs, with just 7 hitpoints and all the potions you had at the time of death. Oh yes, there are potions scattered aroung that are used pressing "Q" and they respawn exactly like the enemies so you may collect lots of them. And in my experience you will need them!
The main character can run, jump and swing the axe, and it's important to learn how the opponents attack in order to avoid them and counterattack. Besides this it's necessary to explore this bizarre world (there is no map, just a compass, but I do not think it's easy to get lost! The map is not that big) to find these two items and open the portal to go home...

That's it!
Well other things that really stood out was the music (especially on the main menu) and the peculiar graphics. It's a short game, but had some style, even if I was a bit fed up after hearing the constant sound of the footsteps of the protagonists, a sound that never changes despite walking on different materials (earth, sand, brick, stone) so it will haunt you during all the game.


Why so serious? That wall is suspicious... I'm sure he's hiding *something*!

Final Verdict
Hollow Woods is an interesting surreal game, I had fun with it (and from youtube it seems I was not the only one!) still it's not a game without some problems that I will list here: first the hit detection is a bit weird, sometimes I was certain to hit the enemy, and no matter what it was invincible, other times it looked a bit random. Then there is the fact that the last part is really difficult swarming with an endless parade of enemies and a demonic giraffe (my index finger was sore after SO much clicking)... I really do not know how I was able to finish the game. Annnd last thing do not expect an ending cutscene since the game will end rather abruptly.
Well as abruptly as it began!

So if you like surreal/horror games you may like it. So take your axe, remember to speak with the red ghosts to learn what to do... and start exploring!


Posts

Pages: 1
Wow, thank you for playing and rating!! I'm just now seeing this, but I appreciate it, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Yeahh. Nice game I liked a lot the surreal setting, final combat was hard! Still I did it.
Pages: 1