About

If there is a game that truly lives up to its title, this would be it. Green Hell was developed by Creepy Jar and released on August 29, 2018. It is currently available on all major platforms. It is a story-driven survival game as well as the biggest challenge I’ve had playing a game in a while.

Story

You play as Jake Higgins who goes into the Brazilian Rainforest to research a tribe with his wife Mia. The game begins and it happens to be Jakie Poo’s birthday. The end of your birthday ends up with you being chased off a cliff by natives. You have no recollection of what happened and are stranded in the rainforest with everything you can imagine hungry for human. You piece together the events of the past to figure out the mystery of why you were even there in the first place. The only problem is that Jake is slowly going insane. So yeah, that’s tuff.

Gameplay

To sum up the gameplay I think it’s best to share my first experience with the game. I started my first save, completed the tutorial, and thought the game would be a breeze. I got cocky and as soon as the game let me free roam my curious self started touching everything and got bit by a venomous snake, then grabbed a frog and got poisoned by it as well leading to my death almost immediately. I then started again and made progress but when I needed to eat, I ate everything I had, got food poisoning, then got bit by a snake and died. After hours in the game, I finally got used to It and was making a shelter to save, and on the last log, a jaguar jumped out of the bushes to kill me instantly.

This game is all about management, management, management. I learned very quickly not to lose track of the different nutrients you need to take in, your energy and health levels, your sanity, and your inventory itself. Nutrients are broken down into fats, proteins, carbs, and water. If any one of these gets too low, you’re going to feel the effects very quickly. To make matters worse, when the game starts you have no idea what foods help which nutrients or if you eat it if it’ll kill you. The different mechanics add up, including a way to inspect yourself for cuts, scrapes, or any other tissue damage that could occur. It seems extremely tedious but, in the end, it’s very rewarding when you can keep up with the pace.

Crafting is done very well. You make most things just through experimentation, but when you make progress through the game it adds more “recipes” at different plot points in your journal. Most tools you make are primal since you don’t have supplies. You’re limited to tools such as spears, stone blades, axes, etc. This can make combat interesting but for the most part, I felt that the game offered everything needed to survive with there still being a challenge.

Progression is very freeform in the fact that all you really do is explore and try to figure out why the hell you’re in a rainforest. You explore areas, figure out their secrets, then move to other areas, and repeat the process. This is how you get to the story parts of the game where it really shines. It has an amazing two-sided story. There are two endings you can get based on what actions you choose to take in the game. The story has playable scenes that are initiated from you getting high with a tribal drink you stumble upon a recipe for. So that’s pretty fun.

Overall, the gameplay experience was very challenging but fun. Things can spiral out of control but If you rush, but it rewards those who take their take and pay attention.

Other stuff

Graphics are very pretty, perfectly suited for the game’s atmosphere. Everything is shiny and reflective since it is in the rainforest, which makes for a very stunning forest and setting, but a little strange when it comes to looking at yourself or other people because it just seems a little bit off. The other animals in the game look great too, just the people are sort of off, putting to me.

Sounds are A tier in this game. Most sounds are purely ambient because it’s the rain forest. It really adds to the emersion of you being inside of a forest completely alone. There are certain sound cues for various dangers in the forest, for example, snakes, that did a great job at adding natural sounds that you would hear, but also giving you a quick scare. All in all, the sound quality and design were very good and added greatly to the experience.

Wrap it all up

To conclude, Green Hell was a very good chance of pace from the current games I have been playing. It stands out in its own genre of survival games as one of the best around. I thoroughly enjoyed the slight horror twist to the mix since it got me hooked to keep playing and I am very happy to have played and keep playing Green Hell in the future.