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Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forestby Different Tales2020 Fantasy Unity
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(based on 1 rating)
1 review — 1 member has played this game. It's on 3 wishlists.
Rage Gets Things Done
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest throws you deep into a primeval wilderness in the center of modern Europe. It’s where the protectors of nature wage their ancient, neverending war against the forces of destruction.
You play as Maia, who comes to Poland hoping to trace her family roots. Trying to learn more about her ancestry, she will discover her family’s dark secrets and reveal hidden truths about the last wilderness of Central Europe.
Visit real-world places of mystery and power. Explore local legends and traditions. Discover the fascinating world and history of the Polish-Belarusian borderlands. You will witness how nature clashes with technology and greed. Can it survive without our help?
Discover the Legendary RPG System
For the first time ever, you will be able to experience Werewolf: The Apocalypse on your computer.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest adapts the mechanics of the legendary title from the World of Darkness universe, emulating the experience of a classic role-playing session.
* An immersive narrative that can measure up to the best mystery novels.
* Beautiful, distinctive collage art that combines hand-illustrated characters with pictures of real places to inspire your imagination.
By making tough choices that often bring dramatic consequences, you will affect your character attributes: Rage, Willpower, and Health. This impacts your ability to perform certain actions as well as change the range of available choices and the presentation of the world. The game will analyze your behavior and determine what kind of werewolf you are.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is a beautifully written, deep, and balanced experience. It’s tailored for World of Darkness veterans and newcomers looking for an accessible entry into this rich, acclaimed universe.
They teach you to fear rather than to be angry, but fear solves nothing.
Anger is there for a reason, to shield and protect you.
Anger is the part of you that cares.
Rage gets things done.
Heart of the Forest (or HotF for short) is one of a recent series of works set in the World of Darkness tabletop universe, along with two Vampire: the Masquerade visual novels (Coteries/Shadows of New York), VtM - Night Road from Choice of Games, and some other games I haven't played probably. Those games were about vampires; this game is about werewolves. The mythology and continuity are taken very seriously (I would guess; I'm not that familiar with WoD).
The most ready comparisons for this game would be the aforementioned VtM visual novels and Night Road. Like the VtM visual novels, this game really excels at atmosphere. The art, the music, the sounds, and the writing all cohere to create a deeply creepy atmosphere. It works extremely well at transporting the player to the forests of the werewolves, at instilling the game's desired emotions into players' minds. As a game written in Ink, it is more interactive than the visual novels, but somewhat less so than Night Road. There is a simplified version of the Werewolf: the Apocalypse character sheet (as opposed to the full character sheet in Night Road and none in the VNs), with delayed branching based on stat checks.
The game is a little short for a commercial game (much shorter than Night Road and slightly shorter than the VtM visual novels), and you don't really spend a lot of time being a werewolf; it's only in the last third that you transform. The politics of environmentalism and family history are the primary themes of the pre-werewolf story. And that story is really good! It has interesting characters, complex political conflicts, and an engrossing, potentially supernatural mystery that all fall by the wayside when the werewolves show up. In fact, I would almost have preferred a whole game in that vein. Discovering that you're "just" a werewolf destroys some of the mystical aspects of the story; it slots you into a rigid classification system with highly specified rules and logic (thanks to the TTRPG). I feel like the authors just wanted to write a story about the Puszcza Białowieska, and had to add werewolves to satisfy their investors.
But the werewolf story is pretty good too. I didn't know much about the WtA universe before, and I feel like I do now. The most interesting parts to me were when you first transform, and go into a frenzy without knowing what's going on. And then you're introduced to the werewolf classes and subclasses and factions and have to take a test to pick a class. And then that's it; you get an epilogue after picking a faction. I kind of wish there was more, but I don't know how it would continue.