The Willow Man

The game has a number of issues that make the game effectively unplayable. Dodging's invincibility frames are effectively meaningless as they exist for such a small part of movement that hitting them is effectively RNG. The sanity restoration mechanic that stops the screen from being filled with random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is possibly RNG as it requires you to spam the U button until you restore a section, and if it isn't RNG it means that it sometimes just doesn't work on if you are able to restore sanity. If you don't restore sanity you are going to have various images spawn covering the screen, have a reduced field of vision that gives you pretty much no time to run away from the monster, have your dodges stop working (This also happens at low health), and are going to be inundated with even more noise then is already caused by the cacophonous background noise that is way too loud even when you reduce the sound of it. Furthermore, blocking is next to useless as if you block you are guaranteed to take more damage then you would take from running away due to blocking removing the knockback. All of these issues caused by the monster wouldn't be such an issue if it didn't spawn within roughly t…

This game is not good, but i can see some good in it. It was made by a new-ish solo dev, so i won't be too harsh. Let's get the negatives out of the way: The gameplay is very clunky, it's buggy (i got stuck twice and it required resets), the dialogue is bad (expected, writing is hard) but it's also full of typos wich make it feel like it's a low effort game and i don't think that's the case, and the animation is very limited. Now with the positives: I think the sprites look nice. I respect the ambition the dev had for the gameplay. This could have been a simple "hide and seek" horror game but they decided to give it boss battles, blocking and punishing, a dodge roll, a sanity meter. None of it is well executed but i admire them for trying. The music is good, a few times i found myself thinking "that's a nice tune". The Willow Man himself is a cool character and a good concept for a monster, i like him. Unfortunately, i can't recommend this game for it's price. if it was a free game (or a lot cheaper) i would have recommended it so the dev gets more feedback. There's potential here and i'm interested to see the dev improve, they have some good concepts but are lacking in ex…

For a first time title this isn’t a bad showing, it has many of the elements that make a game great, boss fights, multiple enemy types, a challenging game loop that forces you to think ahead and manage your health, great witty writing that holds your attention, an attempt at combat mechanics that actually comes in handy and not just for show, jump scares, a very good sound track. This attempt is great! There’s something here for everyone to enjoy, with two twist endings that will leave you wanting more from this developer. I enjoyed the art style, the villain, the supporting cast of characters that you actually want to save, its not bad at all. There’s even an implied sanity meter where its your responsibility to keep your character from becoming disoriented and I found myself loving that mechanic getting her to calm down, the stress is very realistic. Anyhow the developer assumes that you should know where you are going at all times and assumes prior experience in exploration based horror titles, you seek out keys to unlock doors, solve puzzles, trigger cut scenes, talk to npc’s, and run through the mansion seeking out clues as what to do next to advance and uncover more of the m…