Ratings and Reviews by Gantenkiel

Abstract:
You are a Borinoi in love, setting out to do something stupid. Desperate to win the heart of your beloved, you break into the house of your rival at night. When you realize that you're not the only one doing stupid things, and that some are even out to kill, you start to investigate the source of the mysterious events.

Comment:
"Der Angstbaum" clearly is a plot driven game, there are no puzzles in a classic sense. Instead, there's a gripping story which is explored mainly by walking around and having conversations.

The plot unfolds before the player step by step through well written, detailed descriptions. The game is relatively short and maintains a dense atmosphere all the way through. The plot benefits there from the independently created fictional background of the Borinoi and their way of living (text available in the game).

All technical aspects of the game design have been solved nicely. Martin Oehm's TAM provides a comfortable parser, and the author added rich in-game information and a hint system (TIP).

Now that I played through this game the second time, I like it just as much as when I first played it way back then, when its prose oriented style helped spark my interest in German IF. Thanks Jens!