#werewolf the apocalypse heart of the forest

[walterkov]

Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest (2020) Different Tales @giftober 2023 | Day 19: Green

[thecuddlymuffintop]

I'm now streaming Werewolf the Apocalypse: Heart of the Forest over on Twitch. Please feel free to either watch here or join me there with the following link:

Twitch

[blighted-elf]

For those who haven’t seen it yet...

World of Darkness Collection is now available on Humble Bundle! Pay what you want, get books and video games, support the charity 🦇https://t.co/2NAMlc6yr2 

[mysteamgrids]

Werewolf the Apocalypse: Heart of the Forest

[hateandowls]

Don’t know if I ever recommended Heart of the Forest on here but if you like Werewolf: The Apocalypse you should totally play it.

It’s really fun.

I did so well.

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

OMG you play Werewolf: The Apocalypse!?

Yes I do. I've played Heart of the Forest and I'm working on Earthblood.

[roboticthing]

Blood blooms from its neck like a beautiful flower.

[insomnianoctem]

The only thing I didn’t like about Werewolf The Apocalypse: Heart of the Forest was the pacing. It started slow and intense and quickly escalated with a million things happening and then it ends

Would’ve liked the pacing from the beginning to have gone throughout the game

[splathousefiction]

Whose your favorite werewolf?

New let's play is live

[mikahorror]

was going over an article before i sent it & it almost had this picture

right before hitting share i went "...oh that's a boob"

[first-impressions-gaming]

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest

Developed by Different Tales

Published by Walkabout Games

Release Date 2020 (differs from platform to platform)

Tested on Xbox Series X

MSRP 14.99 USD

“This is a game about Rage and how it helps we do things that need to be done as well as things that we later regret.

Sometimes both.

How do you feel about this?”

This is the opening statement of the game, a bold one, once this window welcomed me there I reckoned that this would be an intense walkthrough.

As a visual-novel, the game’s UI is kept to minimum, there are only two menus besides the main screen, which are ‘Journal’ (explanations about characters, their personality and background and a bit of lore of the world you’re in) and ‘Character Sheet’ (info about you, your personality points, your relation to other individuals, your goals). I like this minimal user experience, the only screen you gotta interact with is in front of you all the time and you are going to use only one button and D-pad on your controller throughout the game.

When it comes to game mechanics, they are plain and straightforward as the rest of the game. You will have three main traits, which are Rage, Willpower and Health. You will be losing and earning points for these traits when you are making choices. Sometimes you will lose one point from Rage to make a choice, or will be earning one point for Willpower as a consequence of a choice. We can briefly talk about these traits, Rage allows you to overcome challenges but the more points you have in your Rage the harder it gets to restrain yourself during actions. Willpower can be used to prevent outcomes of High Rage. When it hits zero, you’ll be unable to perform mental and social actions. When your Health hits zero, you’ll be unable to perform hard physical actions.

The game is -pretty much- based on your Rage level because it determines how the events unfold, how you react to those events or rather how the story advances. The game has 5 chapters (excluding Prologue and Epilogue chapters) and I preferred High Rage in 3 chapters, and Mid Range in the rest of the game. High Rage can be tempting most of the time, since High Rage choices provide you with more action-centred decisions, such as ripping someone’s head off or swearing. Yet, you’ll pay the price of having High Rage, your actions towards your closest friend, Anna, could be rude and mean and this can put distance between you two, this can be applied to any character. You can become even more solitary with High Rage, but it can be rewarding in that sense making you more powerful.

Before diving in the plot, this has to be mentioned that, I strongly recommend playing this game with headphones on. As far as my experience goes, soundtrack and background art of the game match beautifully and immerse you into the game. For example, in Prologue chapter you are in the forest and the background music is dark and eerie in line with almost gothic narrative. When you’re in the bus in Chapter 1 and you arrive your home, the slick transition from background sounds and voices that can be found in a bus to a house in the forest surrounded with rooster’s cock-a-doodle-do, dog’s barking, birds’ chirping and owl’s hooting. You would not be this immersed if you played the game with speakers, and it would not do justice to charming voice and sound engineering.

The game is set in modern day Białowieża, Poland near the border with Belarus. To avoid spoiling the plot, you are playing as Maia Boroditch who goes to this small border village to investigate her family’s history and her roots. She explores and discovers more than she bargained for actually. As the protagonist, there is a visible distance between you, as the player, and Maia as the character you are playing as. I would have expected more of a deep-down psychological familiarity with her, it feels like we are getting to know her as other characters do. The game does not present us with anything more than that. The writing of the game sometimes falls flat, it could feel like a teenage-drama TV series produced by CW. It does not get too cringe, just that the narration may get repetitive, talking about same thing over and over in different conversations and it becomes a bit boring to be honest. There are zero plot-twists and turns in this game, I never said ‘Oh, I did not expect that!’, it is just a visual novel as I previously discussed. The story would not stick to you long once finishing it and it takes around 3 hours to complete the game. Of course there is replay value in it considering that you can go High Rage or Low Rage personality. The ending of the game is decided by your actions and choices, as it is claimed. However, when the game was approaching to final moments I did not feel like it. I was trying to give a different direction to the ending but the game ended somewhat abruptly, as if the developers called it a day and did not continue writing a couple of scenes more.

More or less, this title offers you subpar-enjoyable experience for about 3 hours provided that you enjoy yourself playing visual novels. Otherwise, you will find this game dull and unexciting, and I cannot blame you for that.

[walterkov]

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest

[psychotic-nonsense]

"I'm sorry."

It's the first thing Steve says after everything.

After getting Vecna Cursed. After nearly dying. After a hallucination of Eddie saved him. After running through a looped forest. After finding sanctuary in Steve's memory of that Starcourt bathroom. After Eddie reveals himself as Eddie.

It's the only thing he can think of. It's not big enough to fit everything, but it's the only thing that fits in his mouth.

"Don't be."

Maybe that's the only thing Eddie can think of too. The only thing Eddie can bear to say.

Because don't be can't stop Steve's eyes from watering when he sees the vest in his closet. Don't be can't stop Steve's feet from dragging him to the cemetery every evening to clean Eddie's graffiti-covered tombstone. Don't be can't stop Steve from sitting beside Wayne and listening to him talk about the Eddie he remembers. Don't be can't stop Eddie's body from showing up in Steve's dreams, nor Eddie's corpse from his nightmares. Don't be couldn't keep the pain away enough, didn't stop Vecna from latching onto it while Steve was walking alone in the woods.

Don't be isn't enough for what Steve wants to hear. But even stuck here waiting, hoping, for someone to get Steve out, there just isn't enough time.

"I miss you."

"...Why?"

Eddie says it back so quickly, so quietly, like it's just unfathomable to him. Maybe it is, considering their last memories. But their eyes meet and he looks just as sad, just as longing, as Steve.

"You were my friend."

Steve can't help but say it like that. Like they were friends for years instead of days. Like Eddie was that important to him in their final moments. Like his heart really aches for Eddie every second of the apocalypse.

Can't help but say it like he means it.

"I wish we could've had more time..."

Steve's voice cracks a little there as he turns away, hiding. It's all he wants. It's all Vecna used to entice him with. It's all that's keeping him going, to finally fulfill the last request Eddie made. It's all he has left to feel close to Eddie.

The Eddie that's sitting right next to him, silent, his sight weighing on Steve's skin. Conscious and aware and the real Eddie. Trapped in Vecna's head as a backup power source, yet who still risked everything to come save Steve. Who Steve will never see again because killing Vecna means killing Eddie for good, and his heart doesn't want it, is begging for another solution...

But for once, his broken head overpowers his shattered heart.

"Maybe we did."

Eddie takes Steve's hand. Meets Steve's surprised look with his own small smile of hope. They're both suddenly tearing up, eyes glistening with life in this gray stall.

"Maybe in another world, we got a second first chance. A first second chance. Maybe even a third, or fourth. Maybe in a different life, we had everything we wanted. Because you, Steve Harrington, are too good for me to be doomed to meet just once."

And for a moment, Steve sees it. Feels it. Versions of them connected through the universe.

Little kids playing in the lake. One with bruised skin and shaved hair, loud but unfathomably lonely. One with a bruised heart and soft eyes, timid but stubbornly hopeful.

A rockstar with glittering chains, center stage in the spotlight. A set of eyes in the crowd or behind the curtain, watching only him.

A werewolf and a vampire, two cryptids of horror, meeting in the dead of a full moon night to feel safe with the only other one who understands.

A future where they won, where the only death was the one that mattered. A process of healing and learning, coming home to a family every single day.

A world without pain, without their hell, where two high schoolers found freedom from their shackles and company in each other. Hiding away together in the dark corners of the town.

Steve even sees other versions of them. Versions that he knows were originally never supposed to meet, yet forces so much greater than them pulled them together.

A metalhead drug dealer, constantly getting into trouble with one nail-bat-weilding cop.

A criminal's fugitive nature leading him to a rugged trailer park, and the dangerous owner within one such home.

An eccentric king in an old coliseum, always choosing one particular warrior as his champion.

A young programmer being pulled away from his work by sobs above his apartment, running upstairs to check on the law student that recently moved in.

Two actors, finding an easy friendship in the months of filming one season of a show that would change their lives.

In that moment, Steve's overwhelmed by the closeness he suddenly feels with the soul beside him. Falling into tears, he pulls Eddie into a tight hug, holding him so so close to convey everything he can't say. Feeling Eddie hold him back, hearing everything Eddie can't say in return.

Familiar music comes on outside the stall. Robin's voice calls out to him, telling him to come home.

And when he does leave, Steve hopes that someone out there will understand that he never can. Because here in Eddie's arms is the only place that will ever truly feel like home.

"Thank you... for everything, Eddie."

Thank you, Steve. For everything and more..."

--------------------

- List of AUs, in order, after, "Versions of them connected through the universe": Childhood Friends / Rockstar!Eddie / Werewolf!Steve & Vampire!Eddie / Eddie Survives / No Upside Down & High School

- List of Multiverse Steddie AUs, in order, after, "...yet forces so much greater than them pulled them together": Eddie x Gator / Baron x Michael / Geta x Sean / Keys x Eric / Quinn and Keery

[spiribia]

my OLD werewolf lore from my mid teens that I frankensteined together out of so many disparate pieces of my other stories that I eventually gave up on it because I realized I had made an untenable monster

- near the beginning of time, Life (represented by the elk) and Death (represented by the raven) warred with one another over a neutral territory between their domains. to settle with a bet, they created a third, neutral entity between them called Nocturne (represented by the wolf) to guard this unclaimed domain. should Nocturne choose willingly to be a living entity in the world, the territory would be ceded to Life - should Nocturne choose instead to die, the territory would belong to Death. Nocturne scandalized both primal forces by choosing neither, yet yearning for the experiences of both. forever occupying the narrow corridor between Life and Death, Nocturne reached to live vicariously through the living, viewing the world through the eyes of countless human hosts. this pact was the origin of lycanthropy. therefore, werewolves are shunned by both Life and Death, perpetual outcast to all things.

- people are born werewolves when their parents are werewolves. because they are fragments of Nocturne borrowing time on earth, werewolves reach a point in their human midlife where they feel a primal instinct calling them home. they journey to a rift in the world, open a gateway, and disappear back to the neutral realm between life and death, entirely vanishing, and leaving behind any children they may have had at the time, usually to be raised by other late-staying werewolves, or by human allies in the loop.

- werewolves are considered a sort of bogeyman by society. I was using it as a closeted gay metaphor, but by the end of 'development' I was really second guessing whether it was suitable as one because of the muddled messaging my 'toss everything into the soup pot' worldbuilding style was creating.

- an environmental apocalypse occurs when a protagonist is a child, ravaging north america in floodwater. an isolated city is the only known major settlement. the protag transforms into a wolf for the first time in the water, almost drowning to the current. she had no prior introduction to what she was.

- the city blames the werewolves for the apocalypse, considering the apocalypse divine punishment. meanwhile, werewolves are forcibly being taken into custody to be exposed to treatments to be 'cured'. many of them die in this process.

- the protagonist discovers that the president of the city is not actually trying to cure werewolves, but knows of their ability to vanish into the rift. The president believes that this dimension that the werewolves vanish to is the only piece of the old world that remains, as it must have been untouched by the apocalypse. Wanting the old world back, the president is conducting distressing experiments on werewolves to try to force them to open the portal so enormously that the realms will converge. The protagonist discovers a vast machine in the heart of the city, fueled by Nocturne's energy, that was constructed to try to bring about this rejoining.

- the protagonist realizes that the rift has opened by the president's activities. As it stands, all werewolves in the massive radius will be returned before they are ready to be. Humans that are not werewolves will simply be incinerated by the portal.

- the protagonist walks the Nocturne energy trapped in the machine all the way through the forest to the rift. The rift is like drowning under the sea. here, having a near-death experience from the stress of the ordeal, the protagonist would speak to the raven avatar of Death and discover that the known conception was wrong. werewolves were actually beloved in origin, of the two oldest gods' affection for each other and for the intentional child they made together. Nocturne was made by weaving the elk and the raven together, creating a dark gray, densely feathered quadruped that over time iterated further into its own being. wolves are guided by ravens and sustained by the bodies of elk. they lead life to death and vice versa, bridging their domains. they were always on purpose designed to be a part of earth.

- the massive wound threatening to swallow North America closes

[transpathfinder]

‘‘i looked down and saw my hands covered in a dark substance. i was naked. a sticky, glistening film of liquid was clinging to my skin. i could feel it on my face, in my hair. blood.

... there was a whisper. the word resonated in my head - Garou’‘

art of werewolf: the apocalypse - heart of the forest

[linuxgamenews]

Uncover Supernatural Conspiracies in Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory plots its dark fantasy thriller visual novel game onto Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the creative talents behind developer Different Tales. Coming to Steam later this year. Ready to uncover some supernatural conspiracies and battle deadly forces? Different Tales, working with Paradox Interactive’s World of Darkness, is due to bring us Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory. This fantasy thriller, visual novel, and tabletop RPG mash-up is set in the World of Darkness universe. The game is coming to Steam for Linux in Q3 2024. You can also get a taste of the action in the demo soon. Get to know Samira, an Afghan werewolf and refugee. Her story is intense — she’s on the run from her homeland and faces a life - altering tragedy. In Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory, you’re due to explore a world where evil comes in human and supernatural forms. All while digging into the horror and secrets hidden across Warsaw. Will Samira drown in despair from her past? Or will she unleash her rage and fight for a better future? It’s up to you to decide.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory | Official Announcement

If you like Heart of the Forest, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory picks up the saga with familiar faces from the Bialowieza forest. While bringing in new characters and landmarks in Poland. Dive into the rich universe of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, where the lines between humanity and monstrosity blur. With a mix of dark fantasy thriller visual novel and also RPG mechanics. Due to guide Samira through her journey. Due to confront inner demons and real-life monsters. What You Need to Know:

Complex Hero: Explore Samira’s inner conflicts as she battles between despair and rage.

Thrilling Plots: Uncover sinister secrets in the werewolves’ world with two distinct story paths. Each with its own challenges and outcomes in Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory.

Real-Life Settings: Travel to popular landmarks and explore the wild landscapes of Poland and Afghanistan.

Shift into a Werewolf: Intimidate, shape, or decimate anyone in your way.

Visual Novel Meets Tabletop RPG: Experience a blend of story - driven gameplay and tabletop RPG mechanics.

Legendary World of Darkness Lore: Based on the new W5 core book mechanics. The game also captures the essence of classic role-playing.

So, are you ready to rage? Mark your calendars for Q3 2024 and prepare to dive into the dark and thrilling world of Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Purgatory. And don’t forget to check out the demo on Steam soon. Coming to Linux, Mac, and Windows PC.