The Treehouse Man

Love it

Fantastic little game. Waaaay too slow, but does give you a few things to ponder while the slow levels occur. If you're into interesting games with creative mechanics and great vibes, go for it.

I find it hard to recommend this game to people that like to try and complete 100% of the Achievements.
However if you like platformers and real time bullet dodging give it a try.

The atmosphere is very nice however the game get's a bit slow and repetitive.
Late game enemies have very annoying attacks.

The Man House Tree is a really good game. You should play The House Tree Man.

What fun The Tree Man House is.

really, its good. Play it. Beautiful game.

Enjoying the tempo of this game... one part reflex-testing dodging and then one part contemplative damage assignment. There's lots of very good narrative story to keep the game interesting, too.

The game uses uncomplicated controls... just a jump and directions... but it there is enough challenge for me, who lacks super reflexes. I had to revisit some levels to gain resources for later levels. Many would complete the game without that timesink, but wow, I am glad the developer made it available. How many platformers have me only able to complete half the content?

Wishing this developer had continued making video games.. This one and Gloom had great gameplay, narrative, and an interesting worldbuilding that lacks in many other indie games.

Played on an Ubuntu desktop computer with an 8BitDo SN30 gamepad

Deliciously different game. Turns meet real-time; bullet hell meets meditation; sharp pixels weave into smooth curvatures. It's monochrome but colour-coded; and the characters look both creepy and cute... In the end, this seemingly tiny game evolves into an epic journey of overcoming against all odds. It may sound Frankenstein but actually, it alloys into a pretty solid, seamless adventure.

Difficult - yes, but no less addictive, and its difficulty well contributes to the narrative rather than exists for its own sake. Will especially resonate if you're going through your own challenges in the good old real world - but make sure to get it to the end, even if it seems at some point that the game can't offer anything new. It deffo can and it does.
Well-worth its full price.

Interesting idea, boring execution.

Each battle takes far longer than it needs to, which is a problem when the vast majority of the game is spent battling. Enemies always attack one after the other and the game loves throwing groups of 2-4 of the same enemy at you, so you'll be spending a lot of time dodging the same attack pattern for 30 seconds straight between every turn. The combat would be a lot more fun and varied if groups of enemies combined their attacks for a single more challenging pattern each turn.

The upgrade system isn't particularly interesting. Each weapon and companion gets one upgrade each, but I never actually found a reason to switch off two of the weapons that were unlocked by default. That upgrade doesn't ever actually do all that much, and most of the weapons and companions you can unlock are worse than what you have access to from the start. They have gimmicks or some sort of procedure to using them, but that doesn't actually make them any more effective.

The narrative is a fairly straightforward commentary on faith and religion. It's fine for what it is, but it's not particularly subtle. I would have probably enjoyed it more if there was less combat diluting it.

"The Treehouse Man" is a slow paced, eerie and somber gameplay mix of platforming, resource management and rpg-adventure with nice pixel graphics and a haunting score.

A great story about a dwindling, boatfaring forest-fae-cult and their endeavour to stop the corruption that has taken over their land, playing with somewhat deep allegories about determination, desperation and blind zeal.

Even if some game mechanics can wear out at times and some upgrades to your ship seem superior to others I would wholeheartedly recommend this one!

-Nice art.
-Interesting gameplay.
-Great atmosphere and music.
-Interesting story.

The only negative aspect I can give is that the encounters start feeling a bit repetitive after a while since each area only has a small roster of enemies, but the base gameplay remains enjoyable.

Just finished and got 100% completion. Incredible game.
Loved every minute of it. It's amazing how you can make super simple games that fun.
Also got 100% on Gloom. I'll buy any games you make, cause, seriously, they are super clean.
9 out of 10 easily. Short but beautiful story. Just think some extra strategy on the boat and skill tree could be improved.
Super recommend it.

I can't in good faith recommend this to others. Its got a fantastic art style. Gameplay leaves a lot to be desired though... especially if you're an achievement hunter. I normally dont consider myself one to value achievements but occasionally get sucked in and when I saw I had just one left before I finished I went for it but the achievements, specifically the ones for taking no damage, are taxing and will require repetition which exposes the flaws in the game. Repeating levels over and over, with no means to expedite the process. The game is essentially the same from the first ten minutes to the last and while for a period of time it can be fun to work towards that next upgrade most of the upgrades don't help you with the achievements... now would I say its worthwhile if you're skipping said achievements? sure maybe... but maybe not. I think theres better games out there and I enjoyed a fair bit of the game but it overall felt like a bit of a slog... it was just simple enough and short enough to put on inbetween other things but I think the devs other game, Gloom, is substantially better than this although that too is not without its faults but it feels much more skill based and enjoyable.

A few months ago I found myself looking at this game's store page, much like you are right now. Should I wishlist it or not? It really doesn't sound interesting, the art style is nothing out of the ordinary, and what's with the boring title? But then I remembered the hallowed commandment: Thou shalt not judge the game by such things, for only playing it gives you the full picture. So I wishlisted it. Months later, I got to the bottom of my wishlist, where this game was waiting for its time. I bought it, and played it, not expecting much.

Well, I'm glad I listened to my other voice! This game is unique and very fun to play. Even the story, simple as it is, has something going on for it.

If I had to describe the gameplay in one sentence - "Sorta FTL turn based rpg mixed with bullet hell". You explore regions, where you regularly get into fights, in which you choose your action for the turn, and then dodge enemy attacks with simple but effective platforming. After it's over, you get experience points and money, and eventually more exotic resources which you can use to upgrade both your character and your boat. It's incredibly fun and engaging. Just-one-more-region effect is very much present here.

As for the other things? The story, the world, the music? Well, the story is simple: the forest is being corrupted, so you, a newly born child of the forest, are sent as a last ditch effort to reach the fabled Treehouse Man to sort things out. What follows is a bit of a discussion on the nature of human agency, faith, and reason. It's nuanced enough to avoid being completely trite, and let's just leave it at that.

The world and the aesthetic are just interesting enough to draw you in. But they're not stellar, not going to lie. The music gets repetitive a little too often. But the game is so fun you don't really care.

Oh, and the final boss is a masterpiece of game design. Like, this should be in textbooks. It feels like the whole game is building up just for this one moment, almost.

So yeah. Get it. Even if you think it's not your cup of tea. It's great, and worth it even at full price, I'd say.

I almost, almost liked The Treehouse Man; but it is just too half-baked.

The art direction and aesthetics are wonderful. There are multiple systems and aspects of the game that are good or great at their core, but there are just as many that are plainly underdeveloped. Most importantly:
-Enemy variety is there, but literally about 2 mechanics aside, enemies will wait their turn to attack one after another. There is so much potential in the combat system to have concurrent enemy attacks and you're given just enough that it's all the more frustrating - the game also knows it could do it, it simply chooses not to.
-Balance between player combat options is poor. Multiple weapons are blatantly worse than others in the vast majority of situations.
-Although there is no indicator for the pacing of a river (how many events are left, how long until next event), it is clearly constant and I began to anticipate it.

The result is that too often what should be a creepy drift through the atmospheric dark forest becomes tapping your foot waiting for the next combat to start because you know it's about 5 seconds away and it'll be 2-3 of 1-2 enemies whose patterns you already have a procedure to handle. I should be worried that 1x enemy A and 2x enemy B will be much tougher to handle than 2x enemy A. I've never dealt with both their attacks at once! Instead i'm worried that 1x enemy A and 2x enemy B will take longer, and yes, there's more chance of taking damage because I have to run my dodge procedures more times.

It is rare that a piece of media feels too slow for me, I like a lot of glacial and tedious things. But there are enough clear things to tweak in the treehouse man that, as time went on, they wore me down and slowed the tempo too much.

Absolutely Phenomenal.
An indie game that pays attention to its most important aspect - the mechanics. Movement, combat, progression, talents, items, attacks, companions, they're all absolutely perfect. Just complicated enough to make you think about your choices without being burdensome, and the design of the boat is 10/10. For those who haven't played, you have a large bottom surface and a smaller second surface, which is all you need to navigate the well-thought out array of enemy attacks and moves. Then you have two lanterns, where you can store your powers, but the position of the lanterns can great affect which enemies you're able to hit.

Truly a game built with love and a careful eye for balancing. The art style is definitely appealing as well and overall just a fun game to play. The final area introduced some really cool enemies and new mechanics. Then there was the boss - I could write an essay about how amazingly well done that boss design was. It truly felt like you spent the whole game training to fight it, while also feeling novel and dramatic.

I do have some suggestions, but I don't really think it's fair to call them negatives, because this game doesn't NEED more than it already has, but they're worth mentioning.
- The jump puzzles are good, but there's only two of them. Having a little more variety would be nice.
- The name of the game sounds real dumb. And the overall plot, while fine, is a bit lackluster. Thankfully, it doesn't detract from the experience. And the boss was so good I was able to gloss over the ending.
- The characters are fine, but the clown really threw me off. His whole deal is bringing back humor to the forest, yet every time he speaks he sounds like a depressed amnesiac.
- I love the 4 regions and their styles, but if they have names I have no idea what they are. So I ended up just calling them the green, red, blue, and final regions. A little bit more naming would be nice.

Fantastic game. It's cheap. Go play it now.

It’s a great simplistic game that can be described as turn-based slow-paced bullet hell where you dodge projectiles between your turns in a platformer-style gameplay with, actually, only 2 platforms. The visual style with audio creates great atmosphere while you are slowly progressing through the forest.

The game is relatively short, somewhat 3-5h of gameplay, but if you’ll stay to grind achievements, which actually fun here to do, then you can double the time, approximately. The slow pace of the game can be a little bit of annoying once you’ll go for achievements since it starts to feel too slow, but that’s only for replaying and grinding, story-wise you won’t notice this as it creates proper atmosphere.

Worth notice the game is also not only provides variety of kit like different attacks or companions, but also stimulates it by introducing different enemies with different projectile logic what feels great in such simplistic game.

If you're a lover of weird fantasy in the vein of Clark Ashton Smith, Darrell Schweitzer, or Lovecraft's Dreamlands Cycle, the concept of this game will score points right off the bat: you're a member of a forest-dwelling fairy race, newly summoned from a magic well by others of your kind, and immediately given the task of captaining the last holy paddle boat in search of the mysterious Treehouse Man -- who will hopefully lend a hand in purging the forest and its branching rivers of a terrible monster crisis.

The gameplay is satisfying but slow; this can add to the dreamy feel of your journey, but can also turn you off if you're not in the mood, and it did take some time for it to really click with me. It mainly consists of piloting the Hallowed Boat upriver and engaging various baddies in semi-turned-based combat. During your free phase, you use items from your chest and aim your magic lanterns at foes, and during the enemy phase, you dance around upon the narrow confines of the deck, avoiding enemy projectiles in a sort of leisurely bullet hell waltz. Even though there's no sprinting or dashing, and the bullets don't exactly zip across the field of play, dodging these Undertale attack waves while staying onboard can get pretty tricky. It's quite cleverly designed, really.

The Treehouse Man's got a great, hazily mystical fantasy world in back of it and a satisfying gameplay system that, if you give it time, will shine for you like a "fantastically gibbous moon." The more I played, the more I loved it. If you find yourself bored at the beginning, mute the soundtrack and put on some music of your own.

The concept of the game is amazing. And if you don't mind a slower paced game then I would 100% recommend.

However as the game currently is, for me personally, there is WAY too much downtime. When you are actively playing the game it's very good. But unfortunately a LARGE portion of time you spend in the game will not be spent actively playing. It will be spent waiting for arbitrary time delays in between turns, and slowly floating down the river from encounter to encounter.

I'm hopeful that the game is updated at some point to fix this in some way, because as it stands, at least for me personally, the game is unbearably slow.

If you are wondering if this game is as good as it looks, then the answer is YES! I intend to update this review after I have beaten the game, as this is the kind of game that only really starts after you have unlocked everything. However, I needed to recommend it right now.

To preface, I loved this studio's previous work, Gloom. I know it was rough around the edges, but I thought the world-building and atmosphere (and music) were top-notch.

With that said, I would definitely recommend this game. I feel the dev has really hit his stride. The game works to his strengths, with a great, ethereal soundtrack, gloomy (and sometimes beautiful) graphics, and genuinely interesting world building, which leaves you wanting more but does the clever dance of not QUITE telling you what's going on. It's a feast for the imagination.

Gameplay-wise, I had a blast. Whether intentionally or not, the combat takes a lot from Undertale's "turn-based bullet hell" module, in which you get turns with your boat and then must dodge enemy attacks. The tightly-controlled enemy health allows you to plan and calculate your turns carefully, and each weapon, companion, and character upgrade feel interesting and rewarding.

I would highly recommend this game, even if you don't think turn-based bullet hells are your thing, if only for the atmosphere alone. It took me about 7 hours to beat, and I honestly enjoyed every minute of it.

Side note: The existence of certain characters from Gloom makes me hope this is all an interconnected world. I would adore seeing more games that feature other levels from that game be expanded on, since (if it IS interconnected) this is certainly a very interesting way to expand upon the forest level.

The Treehouse Man is an interesting blend of flavours, some platforming, bullet hell, rogue-lite elements, rpg/upgrade stuff. It's a unique experience. You're this little dude travelling through the swamp on your boat, and you have random enemy encounters. Fighting the enemies is a mix of platforming/bullet hell and turn-based strategy. Comparisons could be drawn to Rabi-Ribi, Undertale or the dev's previous game Gloom, but really this has its own feel. You die quite often but use your collected currency/xp to upgrade your boat and your skills for the next run; it's a really satisfying and addictive gameplay loop.

Music and art is on point, the game feels really polished and smooth.

Having completed the game in about 10 hours, I will say that it was a really unique, challenging and thrilling experience, well worth the full price. As you venture deeper into the swamp, the encounters and bosses become harder, but you're always able to grind up a few more levels and items or to try different combinations of weapons/companions/skills to experiment; there's a lot of room for creating your own style of play. The story is fascinating and the world/environments are strange and immersive. I look forward to getting those steam achievements and doing another playthrough. This is a really good game, I would give it a high recommendation.

This game is somewhat reminiscent of Undertale because it combines bullet-hell with gameplay from other genres, such as turn-based attacks, platforming, and some roguelite inspired mechanics. You can expect about 5 hours of content if you just want to beat the last boss, but there are several fun achievements to grind. It's made by the developer of Gloom which was a roguelite that seemingly took place in the same universe. While there are some randomly generated elements in this game, such as enemy encounters and consumable items, it's not a roguelite because your progress is saved between the missions. You can level up and spend points inside a skill tree, buy upgrades for the weapons, and find new companions that give passive and active bonuses. Not only the concept of this game is very unique and refreshing, but it also has an enjoyable narrative, amazing atmosphere, and a fantastic soundtrack.

There are 4 areas in the game, each featuring a different aesthetic, new enemies, and 6 similar missions per area. My only issue with the background design is that the game uses a lot of white colors, but the bullets are white as well (can be hard to see some attacks). Each location changes some parts of your camp, bringing new characters and expanding the lore. Also, there are several boss encounters that may have multiple forms. Your ship can carry up to 2 active abilities, not including a super attack (you have 8 weapons to choose from). The ship can also carry up to one companion that gives a passive and active bonus, there are 8 of them hidden around the world. The store inside the camp sells upgrades for each weapon and companion, although I only found a few of them to be effective. Unlike Gloom, this game probably does not have as much replay value, but I think it's a very unique experience.

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