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Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest (HotF) is a Visual Novel (VN), so there's not too much to expect in terms of actual "gameplay", however, unlike most VNs, the game does have a couple of RPG-systems, including meters for your Rage, Willpower, and Health, as well as character stats, and a social sim portion with all named characters and some factions, adding a lot of depth to your decisions. I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of changes my second playthrough introduced early on, based on some simple differing choices I made.


This wouldn't normally be a section you'd expect for a VN, however, given the additional systems and values, there is the risk of losing your Health (although I never managed to actually do that), and, more importantly, the constant threat of being out of Willpower in crucial moments. Willpower is a resource that gets restocked whenever you reach one of your Goals, and can be used for "difficult" actions. Since there are more possibilities to use it than there are to gain it, you'll have to take consideration on which choices are worth it for you. Sadly, it is often unpredictable when you should use it and when you should save it, and there is one particular section where you have to spend Willpower for each of several characters, if you want to learn more about them.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2287024877


The game's story follows Maia Boroditch, a young American of Polish ancestry, who travels to the Polish town of Białowieża to discover more about her roots, after being haunted by strange dreams about the local forest. Once there, she discovers that most locals clam up as soon as her last name is mentioned, and also learns about the protests against the ongoing logging of the Białowieża forest (referred to as Puszca). Very early on, your choices determine Maia's main goals and motivations, which is where the game truly starts to shine. Whereas the game becomes a little more linear near its end, you can make thousands of different choices that influence the progression of the plot in small and big ways, throughout the first acts, offering a lot in terms of replayability. Additionally, you have a character sheet that reflects how your choices affect Maia and her relations to others. A lot of the times, Maia's actions, both the automatic ones and some of the available choices, are influenced by her current Rage, her relations to characters in the scene, or her other traits, like Cunning, Analytical, or Brave, adding to each playthrough's variety.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2287002689


HotF combines hand-drawn art with photographs of townscapes and buildings and stylizes them in a very artsy way, before adding dynamic effects. Whether or not this style works for you, is highly subjective, of course, but I enjoyed its unique flair, for the most part.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2287046831

Music is used sparingly, but fairly effectively for the most part. Instead, the game uses ambient noises in most scenes that mange to both capture the mood, in a very realistic way, and react to any changes, caused by your actions. From rustling leaves, chirping crickets, and hooting owls, to screams, angry shouting, and the howling of the wolves, everything fits very nicely, and works to the game's benefit. Interestingly, in the game's settings, you can choose one of two tracks to play for the end credits. The calm "Safe World" by Polish artist Rogi Clush wasn't quite for me, but would make for a good conclusion to a low-violence playthrough. However, the song "Ваўкалак" ("Vaukalak"), by the Belarusian folk band Irdorath, is such an amazing track (about Werewolves) that I'm still listening to it as I'm writing this.


While I am a big fan of the World of Darkness franchise of fantasy tabletop games, I had mostly come into contact with the Vampire: The Masquerade branch, and didn't know too much about the Werewolf: The Apocalypse lore. Luckily, the game manages very well to highlight certain terms, allowing you to hover over them for an explanation. That, coupled with the fact that the game's protagonist is new to the world of the Garou (Werewolves) herself, mean the VN is perfectly suited for newcomers and veterans alike.


Nothing to report. No crashes, no bugs, no glitches.

Tested with the following setup:

🔀 Supports [Alt]+[Tab]: Excellently

Since the default font, much like the art-style, is somewhat stylized, the game offers two alternative fonts for ease of reading, allowing you to choose between sans-serif, and OpenDyslexic.


For 12,49 € / 14,99 $, you'll get at the very least 2 hours, if you're a really fast reader, but completionists are probably looking at somewhere around 15-20 hours, as the game features countless different branches and five unique endings. To be perfectly honest, the game is worth it for me, based on the quality of writing and the many options that actually change things, but it is probably best to wait for a bundle or discount.

Classic:
Buy the game, play the game.
No paid DLCs, items, loot boxes.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest offers a gripping narrative, anchored in real life events, but infused with the gothic fantasy of the World of Darkness. With realistic and individual characters and relationships, plausible motivations, and branching narratives with actual consequences to your actions, this VN does everything right. Given the short playtime, you may want to get it at a discount, but you do want to get it if you're into the World of Darkness, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and/or Visual Novels. Even those among you, who are fans of the more well-known Vampire: The Masquerade franchise, may take this chance to expand their WoD horizon.

Give in to your primal Rage, and the Devils in the Detail will fight by your side.

The writing is fantastic.

The art is beautiful.

This is a shining example of how interactive fiction can make a story more engaging. I hope the see more like this in the future.

While I'm giving this one a thumbs up, it's a very qualified thumbs up, I'm afraid. Much as I love the lore of the World of Darkness, this one fell just short of where it needed to be without being a total failure.

The setup for the game is ideal: environmental protest in an isolated Eastern European village while your protagonist with lost family ties to said village comes in on a bus. The player has plenty of chances to build relationships with the various people they run across, from the girl they're riding in on the bus with to the local authorities and media to the strange folk and spirits who call this place and the primordial wood around it home. All of these are given enough character and nuance to hint at the blush of life. Nor is this just flavoring for the player, as sadly happened with Coteries of New York and Shadows of New York. Each of your choices feed into whatever ending you wind up with in the end, which can range from victorious to tragic. The rough but exquisite drawings and sound design of the game adds atmosphere to the proceedings that do much to encourage the player to stick around.

So with all this going for it, where does it fall apart? With the story's pacing. While Earthblood showed the perils of leaning too heavily on the action-adventure angle of Werewolf The Apocalypse, this game commits the opposite sin of focusing so heavy on character and build-up that it also forgets to tell a satisfying story. Yes, some build-up is necessary for the early chapters, as you are just feeling your way into what's really going on. But ideally the character's First Change should have come by the first act, not the end of Act 2 as was the case here. It causes the rest of the game to feel lopsided as a result. You wind up just getting started in your life as a werewolf when the story suddenly just...stops. This feel like a first draft where so much effort was put into creating atmosphere that the authors forgot that they had a word count. The result is a rushed story that just doesn't satisfy in its conclusion, whatever that might be.

I say that last without malice. Contrary to what some people believe, writing is a terribly hard business. Indeed, the writers here are to be commended at their deft weaving of real-world locations and concerns along with making a decent supporting cast that keeps the player/reader invested. Seeing how they got so much of it right is why I feel bad even mentioning where I felt it went off the rails. But it's because I believe in this team's ability to improve that I give this game my recommendation. I KNOW they can do better the next time.

I think it is going to depend on the age and reading exp of who is consuming the game. If you are slightly more advanced in both this may not end up being a great journey. It is a visual novel, so writing is key, and as it treats itself seriously it had to be criticised as such. This is where things do not live up to for me, plotline is young adult level, characters are even worse, no depth, no complexity. An interesting idea of immersing a story based on some factual events in fantasy surroundings, ends up being a cliche covered in cheese.

<REVIEW UPDATE>
Well, as promised, I played through it again to see if my opinion would change. I made a couple different choices to fix my ending (and get the right Totem), but honestly, my opinion is still "no".
If you want, here's a breakdown:

It's five days long, day 1 and 2 are all as a human, until the night of Day 2, where you have your First Change.
Day 3 is all exposition on who and what the Garou are.
Day 4 is one very short mission, which serves as your Trial for the sept.
Day 5 is the climax, where the story ends.

So in a 3-hour run of a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game, you spend about 40% of it as an actual werewolf, and while I obviously haven't done EVERYTHING, I was disappointed with the number of times I actually got to do anything with the new powers it grants you.

What's especially galling is that in days 1 and 2, you choose different places to go on a map screen, and have multiple scenes with a lot of different people, but 3-5, when you're becoming or have become Garou, it's pretty linear, and you just make decisions as the game throws circumstances at you. Compare 3 map prompts on days 1 and 2, each, to I think 1 on Day 3, and none on 4 or 5.

So in the end, you have an extremely short game that contains fairly little of what the source material has to offer, and ends about an hour after it makes you the thing it promises to let you be.

I was hoping it would be episodic, and I've heard people talk about DLC. I will say, if they support the game and come out with more scenarios or continuations, maybe THAT will be worth it, but for the first time, I am updating a negative review to confirm it as negative. And that sucks. : /

Post whinge: Also, I was pretty aggravated that my first time through, the game made me spend Willpower points just to TALK to my new packmates on Day 3, to get some world building and fleshing out characters (which is the POINT of Day 3), and then got the climax so fast that there weren't enough prompts for me to REGAIN that Willpower, so my ending sucked. The more I thought about that the night I first played it, the more annoyed I got.



<ORIGINAL REVIEW>
Ahhhh... I'll come back to this one and try it some more, but right now, I don't think it's worth it.

First off, anyone complaining about "SJW" stuff in the story/narrative:
A) You're a few years behind in your terms
B) Have you... READ Werewolf: The Apocalypse or The Forsaken? The whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ POINT is about saving the planet, and the deleterious effects humanity especially has on it. This was counterculture/protest culture back when it first came out back in ninety-ONE. Idiots.


ANYWAY
Ambiance and graphics were really, really cool, and I was definitely settling in for a good, hopefully long story. Then, the in-game day I had my First Change, I hit "pause" to get a drink and noticed the progress bar was at 75%. "Surely," I thought, "that just means 75% of this CHAPTER. When I get to the next one, it'll roll over back to 0." Then the next chapter started, and I hit pause again. 83%. "Huh. Uh, so... Oh! Maybe it's episodic!" I confess, I had not read a lot of the stuff on the store page; I bought this sight-unseen, because my sister and I have talked about a W:tA game since V:tM - Bloodlines came out, and I was super excited, even for an interactive novel.

But what it came down to is my story ended after I was a werewolf for.... two... in-game days? There were TWO shift prompts, and neither of them called for Crinos, really? So no combat, no thrilling fight scenes, nothing like that. I'll grant: MAYBE THERE IS if you play it differently. I was a Philodox, apparently (I was hoping for Ragabash, and yes, I AM using as much in-universe terminology as possible), and while I was disappointed, I was going to see where my choices took me. But it was basically 50% being a person in an unfamiliar town, and then "Congrats! Your a werewolf! Here's a vision quest scene! Pick your tribe! This is your auspice! You're not a cub anymore; you're a full-fledged member!" <Literal next day> "Okay your story is over; hope you had fun!"

I'm sure replayability is the objective here, but, like, seriously, I was hoping one playthrough of 3 hours would be at least MAJORITY a part of the Garou world, not pre-First-Change human. : /

I'm disappointed, but I hope we will get more. This has inspired me to try the Coteries of New York game and its expansion. I hope those are longer. WoD has never gotten enough video game love.

I just wish the Werewolf game I wanted since 2002 didn't leave me so cold. Maybe I played it wrong; I don't know. It stings, but I can't recommend it in good conscience.

This is pretty disappointing if you're a fan of World of Darkness, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, or just werewolves in general. First, I'll get the few good things out of the way. I really dig the UI which is basically a visual novel style with a RPG character sheet. I also appreciate that the story is based off an actual event and incorporates some of Poland's folklore.

Now for the bad stuff. It's very short, lasting anywhere from one to two hours, depending on how fast you read and make decisions. That would be a single chapter/session in an actual RPG campaign. While the story is coherently written, it reads like a short young adult novel directed at rebellious preteen girls. There is no character creation or choice whatsoever, so you're saddled with the unlikeable Maia—a selfish, rude American girl with an anger problem. As for the other characters/allies, they aren't much more interesting. I consider myself very liberal and open-minded and these poorly-written, hollow characters made me eyeroll and facepalm quite a few times. There's the literal man-hating lesbian from an all-female feminist werewolf tribe, a cowardly male from a pacifist tribe, and a cross-dressing straight man who is only characterized by the LGBTQA+ pins and patches on his jacket and the fact that he looks like "a heroin-addicted rockman". This is nothing like the Werewolf: The Apocalypse RPG I played a decade ago. Aside from the terrible characters, in most of my playthroughs I barely ever got the opportunity to use werewolf abilities. In fact, one of the options for solving the main conflict was to have Maia flash her boobs at a minister. What the f*ck is going on here?!

The art is ugly, messy garbage too; it looks like someone hired the people who use to do album artwork for Marilyn Manson and The Goo-Goo Dolls.

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Werewolf: The Apocalypse -- Heart of the Forest is a creepy and dark visual-novel adventure with choice-based consequences that allow for multiple branching paths and outcomes. The story is quite well written and the flow works pretty well. The many situations that develop differently based on the player's actions and also accrued statistics will give this game the replay value that it needs despite having a relatively short story that will vary on your reading speed and choices. My first run through took around 3 hours, and I imagine that replaying some sections I might be speeding through some sections trying to see all of the possible paths and endings. I have yet to do that kind of exploration to know just how dramatic the outcomes will be of course.

Nevertheless, it's a visual novel, so let's talk about some areas of a VN that are important to consider:

1. Visually the artwork is impressive, dark, creepy, and really cool to look at. There were a couple of times that I was seriously creeped out. There's not a lot of scenes or art plates in this game, but there are a lot of areas where the details and colors work just right to put you right where the game wants you to be.

2. The writing is not the best when it comes to a story or dialogue. The characters are typically fairly short in their discussions. Most of the words are in the narrative, which is fine, since you are playing/reading from a first-person narrative by the protagonist, whose background, present, and future unfold as you play/read.

3. The music sets pretty good overtones and draws out tensions in this game. It was something that I was not actively paying attention to, but did notice the variations and themes even when I was not trying to listen. The sound effects are simple and effective, and the limitations in quantity made each one that much more palpable.

4. There is no voice acting in this game. Done well, it would certainly add an extra dimension to the quality of the game; done poorly, it could ruin some of the atmospheres. I am perfectly fine reading through everything without voice acting. But I know that a lot of people would want to have that as an option.

5. The typical visual novel will have a protagonist character whose moods and actions are fairly set, but still have variable options in choices. This game uses a rage counter that will alter the choices or passive dialogue progressions. The character is a blank slate until you choose from the get-go how much rage you start with. Plus, the different character stats you accrue over the course of the game will define the protagonist, thus making this very flexible.

6. The support cast of characters are a bit weak overall in this game, I know this allows for additional mystery, but too little character development plus a decent number of support characters can potentially confuse the reader/player during the first or second time through the story. You can befriend characters and see their different dialogue and actions depending on their friendliness. Thus there will always be variations, but it felt a bit lacking in general.

7. Topic research was clearly done extensively to present the lore in this game. It's necessary for a topic that so many people are enthusiastic about while many others have little to no knowledge at all. I fell into the latter category and felt that playing through this game was rather educational for my own insight into the mystic world of werewolves. It was a fun learning experience.

You only need a mouse. I did try a controller and the right joystick moved the cursor while the right trigger acted as the click, so that works as well.

For a VN without voice acting and such a short story overall to have the price tag of $14.99 is a bit high. From the amount of variable content, I imagine it would take several different run throughs in order to see everything. Overall quality of the game is worthwhile. I will be taking it through at least a couple more times by following a completely different protagonist set of options from my initial.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse -- Heart of the Forest is a fun visual novel for fans of the genre or those who want to experience this dark and creepy story/world. It does contain some visually and mentally disturbing scenes so make sure you are prepared for those. The story itself is a bit short though and so the price does seem a little high. I do wish that the support cast had a bit more individuality and development.

Score: 7.5/10

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

I was really looking forward to this game so am sad to be giving it a negative. Negative's almost slightly harsh, I'd give it a star rating of just below average, but as that's not an option, I'm going to come down on the side of negative for the following reasons.

(Warning: I've tried to keep most major spoilers out of this review, but it's not entirely spoiler free.)

VN's are railroaded to one degree or another. There's no getting around that, but I do have a problem with being given choices that are immediately dismissed and the choice I didn't make is what you go with. If they're integral to the plot, either don't give me a choice or at least pretend it made a difference and get creative on how to cancel it out later.

All of the characters are under developed, and there's so of them thrown at you. IMO too many for such a short game, especially as a lot of the eco-warrior crew could have been condensed into a fewer number of better rounded characters that each got more screen time. I don't think I got to really, really know any of the characters that well. I didn't feel anything for them. I didn't much care if they liked me or not on the whole. Most of them just seemed like stereotypes. I actually couldn't quite remember who the person who seemed to be gunning for me later in the game was as they made so little impression, which is not a good sign.

The worst offender was probably Anya. She seemed to be there to enthusiastically support anything you said (unless the story line wanted to go another way) even when it didn't make sense. How many people do you know that would respond with something along the lines of "so cool!" when you start rambling about talking to the forest and it having a special task just for you. She's a university exchange student in her early twenties who you convinced to go with you instead of doing the normal tourist thing. That's really about all you're told about her. There's nothing there to suggest she'd be open to wholeheartedly supporting these sorts of concepts. If it had have been established she was really into everything new age, wore a tonne of crystals, loved nature, believed she had a spirit guide and consulted psychics on important life decisions regularly, THEN her unquestioning support of your statements might be understandable. She also does a 180 where one minute she's whole heartedly into going to the protests and likes some of the people there, but all of a sudden she's worried about you going out there with them. Again, no real reason given for her change of mind. The main plot trumps character consistency and development more often than I'd like.

Even with your own character, things not essential to moving the plot along seems to get brushed over. I mean out of the blue you've just become a freaking werewolf and then participate in something very traumatic right after this discovery. There SHOULD be some major angst/confusion/amazement/experimentation etc here but there's really not. There's an option for a token "I can't do this" scene (spoiler- after a momentary whinge, you decide you actually can) and a few dream references, but asides from that you kind of just seem to wholeheartedly accept that this is your life now, and now it's time to move the plot along and save the world! I mean most people would need to grapple a lot more with the new reality of the situation that that, but I guess you seem to be the chosen one so....

Speaking of which, the enemy seems to appear directly to you in exactly ONE short dream reference. Maybe if you go down a different path you see more of it, but this is the main antagonist in the story that you're supposed to be fighting. WHY isn't it turning up everywhere?

You're the chosen one. This is pushed hard. Everyone will go along with what you want whether or not it makes sense and regardless of how much they might have been arguing among themselves prior to this... just because?

Not a deal breaker but it does need another proof read especially with random tense changes and correct usage of words like "is" and "are" (example: "police is hostile" should be "police are hostile.") It also has a few spelling errors. One that popped up a few times was "draught" when I'm guessing they were talking about "drought".

I hate delayed text scrolls. There's no reason to make people wait for the next sentence of option to appear. You can bypass it to an extent but clicking repeatedly on the mouse, but I found I accidentally clicked on options more than once doing this.

Wasn't a fan of the artwork which consists mainly of photos (and some other images) with blocky filters on them and then cut and pasted roughly into a frame to make it clear that's been done, but that's a personal choice. The ambient sounds were generally very good though.

The story line jumps weirdly in places without seeming to link up smoothly. (I'm not sure if this is just how it is written, or a consequence of story lines merging strangely.) I also got a bit annoyed that you're kind of expected to guess correct actions to pass in places instead of your alignments playing a large role. I mean a fail state should happen if you try to do something you have no skill in, but not in a random guessing game or if you probably can't win it because you used something like willpower to find out aspects of the story just previous to this with no warning that you might need to keep it. It's almost geared towards not exploring for answers and just sticking to the plot line. The story line really struggled to keep my interest a lot of the time.

The ending is really anticliamatic and rushed. It seemed to be building towards something with an agent of the enemy being recognised and both sides lining up for a confrontation as you'd expect but then... well can't really say anything specific without spoiling it, but it sort of just wraps up without any drama. (Maybe this changes with other choices, but I was really disappointed in the ending I got that just seemed to rush through in a way that didn't make sense to a conclusion.)

It's also really short. Only took about 3 hours to finish.

Anyway, if you're a fan of WOD and VN's you could give this a go, but I wasn't personally a fan.

Honestly, I love WoD and Werewolf in particular, but this story is so heavy-handed with narrative once you make any decision. One decision can lead to a series of forced choices that quickly diminish your attributes, which makes the game less than fun. Often the choice you make really doesn't reflect what you were likely going for - which is classic railroading - that just goes on to punish you by stripping attribute after attribute. I love the setting, I love the premise, I love the genre... but the overall execution of this game is really poor.

For the record this engine is rock solid. No crashes. No blips. Flawless. Lately that's deserving of kudos. Great work! Seriously the developers deserve kudos on this.

Heart of the Forest is an interactive fiction with lots of characters. You take the lead of an American woman named Maia who has been called by the forest to save it. I really wanted her to find love, but couldn't quite make it work in the limited timeframe of the story (2-3 days). The story grammar and spelling are mostly right with only ~2 minor mistakes / missed words... so kudos again to the editors. However, when you progress in the game to a new page (act within a chapter?) it's very easy to lose the plot. Especially if you pause for more than a few minutes. Which of those 6 people introduced was which? Thankfully there is a character sheet with a small list of characters shows both your status with them and a small description of who they are. Unfortunately not enough to remind you who they are. Are they tribe X? Tribe Y? How should you feel about them? Yes, the character sheet also shows other stats, but these don't seem to be used anywhere. Occasionally they would raise / or lower but it wasn't clear how that helped/hurt my progression.

When these stats and characters alignments toward you change or when character stats increase/decrease you will get a popup but it's not clear if it went up or down... or which action caused it to change. This is because the popup feels delayed and pulls you away from the text. This also forces you to lose your place in the text because just as the popup displays the text moves. It would have been better if this was generated in line with the text. If the change is for primary stats (visible in the top bar at all times) it is fairly clear if you stare at it for a few seconds which also takes you away from the text.

Mechanically the core of the game is about choices/actions. These choices are stacked [Aggressive, Balanced, Peaceful] and most of the time the cost of the choice is listed using -/+ and an icon. This also acts as a helpful visual cue for why you can or can't choose it. However there is sometimes a cost where they don't tell you about in advance particularly around character interaction. Some might be fine with that from a narrative perspective but the choices provided are often so vaguely worded that the result is the *opposite* of what is intended.

As you read the narrative you are given large clumps of meaty text. This is a huge win over the next, next, next progression of the other game in the World of Darkness (WoD) setting - VtM: Shadows of New York. However, Shadows of New York also helped you get to know the characters better by putting them on screen when they were speaking. In this game they give you only vague representations of some of the characters and it is up to you to guess which sketch is which character - assuming they are even shown. If you are too old to sort out all the characters and memorize any interactions with them to help decide your next steps then you might be as frustrated as I was.

Most of the game you will be managing your stats. In my case willpower was constantly at 0. Sometimes I got lucky and briefly popped higher, but mostly I just sat at 0. I picked balanced in the beginning and perhaps if I had chosen something else I might have had the same issue with a different stat. There is a whole world to interact with and every action seemed to drain Maia's will to live. In fact, "Willpower" is so limited and so often used that you will be forced into other actions that are frustratingly against the role you are playing or simply automatically fail your current action. I'm not sure if the game is unbalanced or simply if it was the intent to force you to act more irrationally.

The last third (or chapter?) of the game is when you finally set your character on a path by selecting a tribe and then the game just ends. Character creation finished? This is the biggest problem - the game is too short. The first few chapters felt like a slow to gradual progression but the last chapter seemed to jump ahead in leaps and bounds (in both events and time). What happened? Did they run out of time to develop the story? They put a lot of effort into the game engine (Unity + Ink according to the credits) but this game needed more story.

It's a great start to a great game and I enjoyed my time with it. However, in total this is a 2-3 hour narrative character sheet generator... for 2-3 character's (all named Maia). It's a great one to be sure, but still just a character sheet generator. I want so much for this to be the *beginning* of something great and I hope that they release more and longer stories soon! World of Darkness should also re-use and evolve this engine with more skills. More everything. Go buy this game... and maybe they will make more of it!