PrairiePirateYo pays new games on his New Game Nights, which often happen on Saturday nights. Streams start at 8pm EST on selected Saturday nights. twitch.tv/PrairiePirateYo
3 of 5 stars
Among Trees is a sandbox survival game from FJRD Interactive (https://www.amongtreesgame.com/) which was released in late 2021. The game is very beautiful and chill to play but marred by some bad game mechanics and the fact that it has been abandoned by developers.
Since I started gaming more seriously two years ago, I’ve found that my favorite genre of games are ones focused on survival, exploration and building. So, when I spotted Among Trees in my Steam queue, I was intrigued enough to choose it for streaming on my New Game Night.
The Good Stuff
If you are looking for a chill survival game with beautiful aesthetics and UI/HUD, Among Trees is a fun game. It doesn’t throw a lot at you in the form of constant mob attacks or having to recover lost resources. There is plenty of foraging and exploring. Love how the game gives botanicals (flora) the attention they deserve in a survival game. The crafting menu, equipment slots, and health bars are easy to see and use.
The aesthetics of the game feel realistic, in a cartoon way that doesn’t venture close to the ‘“uncanny valley” of creepiness. It does feel like you are out in the woods, where resources are scarce and danger is there, but in a realistic way. There is a bear, but this isn’t Valheim where you are being attacked by something every five minutes.
The Disappointments. This Part Will Talk About Bears
Let’s start with the smaller issues and move up to the big problem with this otherwise fabulous game. There are different game modes. I picked the survival mode, so I could stream what an average player would experience. Survival is supposed to be about survival, so finding resources is supposed to be a challenge. But after the first could of hours collecting nearby resources, it became hard to find anything. I decided to try fishing, because that’s what you normally do in these games. Plus, I had to feed an adorably cute, hungry red fox.
I may not be familiar with fishing mechanics in most survival games, but I have played one fishing simulator and am familiar with the mechanics. Fishing in Among Tree started as comically difficult and after 30-40 minutes spent catching one fish, rage quit inducing. I thought maybe it was just me, but other player reviews complain about the fishing mechanic.
I was also expecting that Among Trees would be more of a building game, especially when it comes to building your main house. But it requires you to gather resources for house additions. You don’t build the additions; they just appear once you have the right number of resources. Even with a set building design, it would be more fun to craft the various parts, instead of just collecting X number of wood planks and BOOM, there is your new kitchen addition.
Let’s talk about the bear. One of the main mini bosses in this game is a bear (maybe multiple bears) who is patrolling an encampment that has some important resources. When you get to the 5- or 6-hour mark of playing this game, defeating the bear becomes pretty critical, as you have to do this to access resources necessary to make additions to your house. I tried taking on the bear several times, all of which ended with me being mauled to death. I managed to sneak and steal some resources, but it you need to get all of the resources from a camp, you’ll have to fight the bear.
This situation felt very sus to me, so I looked at reviews of the game on Steam. Lots of players praised the vibe of the game but shared that the bear is unbeatable. Maybe this is the case because the game was released in beta mode and the developers subsequently stopped developing the game? I looked at the achievements stats for the game on Steam. Looks like only 12% of the players defeated the bear, which suggests either a broken game mechanic, problematic combat coding, or unfinished game play coding.
While defeating the bear is no crucial for enjoying the game for hours, this busted part of the game is part of the reason for my rating of Among Trees.
