The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna

I desperately wanted to like The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna; from the opening of the game my senses were firing from the visual treat on my eyes, and when the narrator started telling the story, I could feel the beginnings of an exciting tale. But it wasn’t long before the sheen from such a powerful first impression began to fade. The story tries to be cohesive, but it quickly descends into a dark tale revolving ostracisation and finally slides into something so far-fetched it completely ruins the experience.

I have mixed feelings about The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna. I like the environments and sound design, but I feel like a game in this genre should really have a gripping story. The game just didn’t deliver for me in this area, but I can’t say I wouldn’t try out another walking simulator if I thought the story might fit my tastes better.

‎In many cases, the ‎‎Walking Simulators‎‎ have deliberately opted for a narrative totally focused on telling the player ‎‎a succession of events previously designed‎‎, and concerning a single story, and not so much on offering other videoludic narrative possibilities branched through decisions or choices on the part of the player.‎

The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna is a short walking simulator that may take the words ‘Walking Simulator’ a bit too literally. With a hollow story that feels unfinished, long pauses between any narrative development and repetitive design, it’s difficult to recommend this game when there are many others in the genre that do much more with a similar runtime.

This game is full of weird parts and one of them explains exactly how I feel about The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna. Near the end, you suddenly have a cutscene about a toilet. It explains that a toilet can be a metaphor for life and that the smart thing to do would probably be to stay there for a short time. Now as with many things in this game I had no clue why this part was in it but I understood the toilet reference. As with my two hours of boring myself with this game I only wanted to flush it down the toilet and never think about it again. This is the kind of game where I am forced to finish it for review reasons. Two hours of walking, more walking, walking, some more walking. Two hours felt like an eternity, when the credits finally started to roll, I got even more depressed as there was still a short encore section. Yes, dear readers. I sacrificed my precious time for playing and writing this so you can stay far away from it.