The Garage Made It to Heaven Too #57: Woodle Tree Adventures

It's 2017, and it's really time to buckle down and tackle this Steam backlog. The first game of the year is...

Woodle Tree Adventures is, well, I'll let the creators take this:

I'm not exactly sure how an art style can be described as catchy, but in any case it's patently false. It hasn't caught on at all. As for unique, the art style pretty much boils down to "Super Mario 3D Land, and not much else".

 Despite the forgettable and trite factors of its art style, the graphics are the best thing about WTA. It's full of flat but colorful textures with simple geometry, that sort of works in a minimalist way.

Anyway, once you ,manage to start the game (after avoiding pressing any of the 90% of buttons that will close the game immediately), you are given your quest from this Deku Tree lookin' motherfucker.

Come here woodle boy, I have tears here in my van.

So he tells you the world is thirsty and you have to go around collecting tears, Dude there's a waterfall right behind you, go get some of that.

Anyway then you go to your Tree house.

*cough*

From here you can enter one of the levels.

Once the game starts, you are assaulted with horrible camera issues. And I mean, like, serious fucking problems. It's like if the Lakitu Brothers spent all of Mario 64 playing hide and seek with Mario. It will constantly get stuck behind parts of the level, seemingly point away from your character, and sometimes when you die it will change to a different, worse angle and stay locked that way. With no way to manually move it. It's camera roulette and you always lose.

This isn't some modern art masterpice, this is an actual screenshot of a camera angle provided by the game.

Try making that tricky jump while the camera is pointed at the ground half a mile away.

Say you've collected two of the level's three tears and are almost to third, and the camera shifts in the middle of a jump and you die. Well you just get brought back to the nearest checkpoint. No big problem. So you just try that jump again an-oh goddamnit the camera pointed at the sky for no reason and you fell again. Well you just get brought back to the nearest check-AWW WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SHIT. This is the beginning of the level! Well, the game, seemingly randomly, forgets checkpoints you've reached and puts you half a level back, maybe two thirds or maybe all the way. Maybe with a new camera angle that makes it impossible to see your character. It all feels like the game is pulling shitty Halo skulls from a hat constantly and throwing them at you.

Aww damn I got the "Character is invisible"one again. 

Making your way through the handful of requisite snowy/sandy/beehive levels doesn't take too long, for better or worse (it's better). The game is about an hour long, and about 50 minutes of those are fighting with the camera. After a more-lengthy-than-you'd-think credit sequence, you're shown this screen

And you just stare at it waiting for it to go away before you realize you have to close the game to proceed.

It's my pleasure, Woodle Tree Adventures.