Isabelline Fallow lived with her sisters in an isolated corner of a world that had begun to forget itself. Soon, it forgot her sisters as well. Now Isabelline walks in her sleep, every morning a new road home, every morning that home a little different than she remembers it. In her dreams, a shadow twists in agony through the smoke-steeped orange sky. With 80+ hand-drawn pixel art backgrounds, explore and solve puzzles across 3 main areas and a hub world, as well as various dreamscapes and secret locations.
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Fallow is beautiful, every part of it. From the pixels, the music, and every written word. The game is just a beautiful piece of art.
This game gets to me emotionally a lot, I replayed it so I could explore the sealed door areas and do everything there was left in the game.
This is a game about being abandoned and harmed by the world. There's an intense overwhelming and suffocating loneliness to this game that genuinely makes me cry. Every line of dialogue and musical track builds onto this as you explore a vaste deep empty and lonely wasteland.
I really love Ada Rooks' work a lot, her work just hits really close to home for a lot of reasons, and this is one of my favorite things she has done.
This game gets to me emotionally a lot, I replayed it so I could explore the sealed door areas and do everything there was left in the game.
This is a game about being abandoned and harmed by the world. There's an intense overwhelming and suffocating loneliness to this game that genuinely makes me cry. Every line of dialogue and musical track builds onto this as you explore a vaste deep empty and lonely wasteland.
I really love Ada Rooks' work a lot, her work just hits really close to home for a lot of reasons, and this is one of my favorite things she has done.
Stunning
This game is an excellent exploration game with a story of escapism and not belonging. It has great writing, music, and art making a very good even if a short experience.
Ada Rooks work means a lot to me.
Ada Rooks work means a lot to me.
If you have played this game and have not finished the sealed door/red squares areas, I HIGHLY recommend doing so. They feel like Fallow's Hand in Killer7- dubiously canon, but still painting a clearer picture of the world. There's a guide on Steam if you don't know how to access them. On that note, the first bit of this review will be free from major spoilers for Fallow and its hidden areas.
________________
I finally got around to playing the Sealed Door areas of Fallow, thanks to a Steam guide. When you enter, the text onscreen tells you that these areas are outside the boundaries of the story. Although they may be quite literally "out of bounds", I'm going to say this now- they are 100% necessary to the full experience of Fallow. I don't know what I was expecting from the cut content, but it certainly wasn't something this meticulously designed.
When you walk through that door (the one in Vivianna's glade), you're instantly dropped onto a small island. It seems ethereal, a misty refuge from the depressive atmosphere that's built up by the third day of Fallow. There are no objectives (at least, not at first). There are no directions. You just... walk. And the game opens up around you. Some people would compare this to Yume Nikki, but once I began to explore the waypoints on the island, I was thrown from sight and sound so much more unpredictably than that game. Fallow is a game that often relishes in its quietness, which makes its more dynamic moments (like Alburn Manor) stand out sharply. Outside of its boundaries, Fallow becomes a mesh of jarring textures and noises that become more and more abrasive as you delve deeper and deeper into Isa's mind. As the lines start to blur. As this seemingly disconnected world starts to bleed into my perception of the game as a whole.
OK SPOILER TIME DO NOT READ BELOW IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED PAST THE SEALED DOOR PLEASE
____________
Finally, I can talk about the meaty stuff! I won't pretend I fully understand every scrap thrown at me by the (surprisingly cohesive) cut content in Fallow, though I think I know more about the world than when I went in.
This is gonna be kinda all over the place because I have about 200 thoughts in my head right now.
It's so strange when you're walking around and you realize that you're on the other side of the barriers of the main game. The little paths that were always visible, blocked by trees or rocks that I assumed were just normal video game boundaries. The map Ada created for Fallow is far larger (and more complicated) than what you can see during the course of the main game. It was one of my favorite surprises this game threw at me. I LOVE when developers put effort into shit even if most people will never even know it's there. There's a whole world crumbling and abstracting around you, which is a wonderfully meta way of playing on the themes of the main story.
Speaking of surprises, I can't believe that it's entirely possible to miss the "dancing ghost room" (as I've been calling it) where Ada sings to you. It's the only time in Fallow that you hear a voice. That fact alone makes for an enchanting moment, nevermind Ada's wonderful musical ear. AND IT'S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO MISS IT, EVEN IF YOU GET ALL THE RED SQUARES.
Though these outer areas feel like a depiction of Isa's mind or the crumbling society that the Fallow sisters hid from, they also seem to be a more direct conversation between Ada and the player. Case and point, the hidden library full of dev notes.
The very, very blunt final note to mother that you find in the Abandoned House feels like a real message to someone's mother. I wonder if it is.
So much of this area exhibits a complete mastery of subtextual storytelling. Each vignette is littered with evocative imagery, whether it be from NPC dialogue, notes, or just the eerie atmospheres. The use of negative space is impressively effective. Don't even get me started on the music. These unused tracks get me in my feels, as with just about everything else here.
For an example of that storytelling, can we talk about Angel for a second? The very, very brief interactions you have with them and Paige in the city (which I am confident is part of the city where Isa used to live. I may have shat my pants when I realized that) paint such a vivid image of the horrible awkwardness of revisiting people from a place where you were traumatized. Confiding in and yearning for Angel for only a moment to have her disappear like that, it's horrifying. And that's what these areas are. Real-life horror. No scares, no monsters, just the unrelenting terror of a world without someone who loves you. My stomach hurts.
Listen to The Tower of the Furnace II from the soundtrack. You can find it on Bandcamp, along with all of Ada's other tunes. Let it soak in. Maybe listen to it twice.
The dialogue between the Fallow sisters found in the red squares is some of my favorite in the game. It hits on a few themes and leitmotifs that you hear in many of Ada's musical projects. I can't help wondering why they were left out, along with Vivianna's message to Isa before the final day.
These were the couple hours I needed to fall all the way in love with the world of Fallow, even if they don't serve a conclusion. When I finished up, I exited to the main game with as many answers about the ambiguous fate of Isa and her sisters as I went in with. Hell, there's hardly even a "finish", only a final room that unlocks when you collect all the seven red squares. That final room is a VERY Fallow conclusion. No dialogue, only a mysterious machine with faint ghosts of the Dynen spinning overhead. It left me with a much more resolute emotion, however, and a desire to play through the game again with the new perspective from this "cut content". Yeesh. The only thing this content is cutting is my heart, wide open.
I'm going to break down crying if I talk about this game more, so I'm gonna end this here lol
________________
I finally got around to playing the Sealed Door areas of Fallow, thanks to a Steam guide. When you enter, the text onscreen tells you that these areas are outside the boundaries of the story. Although they may be quite literally "out of bounds", I'm going to say this now- they are 100% necessary to the full experience of Fallow. I don't know what I was expecting from the cut content, but it certainly wasn't something this meticulously designed.
When you walk through that door (the one in Vivianna's glade), you're instantly dropped onto a small island. It seems ethereal, a misty refuge from the depressive atmosphere that's built up by the third day of Fallow. There are no objectives (at least, not at first). There are no directions. You just... walk. And the game opens up around you. Some people would compare this to Yume Nikki, but once I began to explore the waypoints on the island, I was thrown from sight and sound so much more unpredictably than that game. Fallow is a game that often relishes in its quietness, which makes its more dynamic moments (like Alburn Manor) stand out sharply. Outside of its boundaries, Fallow becomes a mesh of jarring textures and noises that become more and more abrasive as you delve deeper and deeper into Isa's mind. As the lines start to blur. As this seemingly disconnected world starts to bleed into my perception of the game as a whole.
OK SPOILER TIME DO NOT READ BELOW IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED PAST THE SEALED DOOR PLEASE
____________
Finally, I can talk about the meaty stuff! I won't pretend I fully understand every scrap thrown at me by the (surprisingly cohesive) cut content in Fallow, though I think I know more about the world than when I went in.
This is gonna be kinda all over the place because I have about 200 thoughts in my head right now.
It's so strange when you're walking around and you realize that you're on the other side of the barriers of the main game. The little paths that were always visible, blocked by trees or rocks that I assumed were just normal video game boundaries. The map Ada created for Fallow is far larger (and more complicated) than what you can see during the course of the main game. It was one of my favorite surprises this game threw at me. I LOVE when developers put effort into shit even if most people will never even know it's there. There's a whole world crumbling and abstracting around you, which is a wonderfully meta way of playing on the themes of the main story.
Speaking of surprises, I can't believe that it's entirely possible to miss the "dancing ghost room" (as I've been calling it) where Ada sings to you. It's the only time in Fallow that you hear a voice. That fact alone makes for an enchanting moment, nevermind Ada's wonderful musical ear. AND IT'S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO MISS IT, EVEN IF YOU GET ALL THE RED SQUARES.
Though these outer areas feel like a depiction of Isa's mind or the crumbling society that the Fallow sisters hid from, they also seem to be a more direct conversation between Ada and the player. Case and point, the hidden library full of dev notes.
The very, very blunt final note to mother that you find in the Abandoned House feels like a real message to someone's mother. I wonder if it is.
So much of this area exhibits a complete mastery of subtextual storytelling. Each vignette is littered with evocative imagery, whether it be from NPC dialogue, notes, or just the eerie atmospheres. The use of negative space is impressively effective. Don't even get me started on the music. These unused tracks get me in my feels, as with just about everything else here.
For an example of that storytelling, can we talk about Angel for a second? The very, very brief interactions you have with them and Paige in the city (which I am confident is part of the city where Isa used to live. I may have shat my pants when I realized that) paint such a vivid image of the horrible awkwardness of revisiting people from a place where you were traumatized. Confiding in and yearning for Angel for only a moment to have her disappear like that, it's horrifying. And that's what these areas are. Real-life horror. No scares, no monsters, just the unrelenting terror of a world without someone who loves you. My stomach hurts.
Listen to The Tower of the Furnace II from the soundtrack. You can find it on Bandcamp, along with all of Ada's other tunes. Let it soak in. Maybe listen to it twice.
The dialogue between the Fallow sisters found in the red squares is some of my favorite in the game. It hits on a few themes and leitmotifs that you hear in many of Ada's musical projects. I can't help wondering why they were left out, along with Vivianna's message to Isa before the final day.
These were the couple hours I needed to fall all the way in love with the world of Fallow, even if they don't serve a conclusion. When I finished up, I exited to the main game with as many answers about the ambiguous fate of Isa and her sisters as I went in with. Hell, there's hardly even a "finish", only a final room that unlocks when you collect all the seven red squares. That final room is a VERY Fallow conclusion. No dialogue, only a mysterious machine with faint ghosts of the Dynen spinning overhead. It left me with a much more resolute emotion, however, and a desire to play through the game again with the new perspective from this "cut content". Yeesh. The only thing this content is cutting is my heart, wide open.
I'm going to break down crying if I talk about this game more, so I'm gonna end this here lol
Ada Rook has been on my radar since I discovered her wonderful music back in 2020. On her itch.io page, I found four free games that were all fresh takes on classic RPGmaker exploration games. Ada's art has always been haunting in a way that's not spooky, but remorseful. In her games, she creates ghost-town-esque landscapes that tell stories with their atmospheres as much as their text. I've played everything on her itch at least a few times... except the Fallow demo. It had always struck me as the most forgettable piece, especially next to the wonderful Lacuna III. When Fallow's full release was announced, I was still hyped, though I didn't even bothering getting around to it until this year.
Right off the bat, I think the most distinguishing thing about Fallow is its art. The game's muted, earthy palette is used to paint vivid desolation, colored with the amazing animations on small items and character sprites. It's crazy to know that ONE PERSON created all of these intricate little 16-bit tidbits. The second thing that immediately stood out was the music. Ada Rook's quieter compositions of previous experimented with unique combinations of acoustic instruments like banjos and digital distortion, and her game is in full force here. "Fallow Residence" chokes me up badly. All of the pieces communicate an intimacy that pairs with the tattered landscapes and story very, very well. And let's talk about that story, because it's the main attraction here.
Many games of this fashion use their music, art, and whatever story they have in service of a vibe. I think Fallow's an interesting take, because while its story is certainly VERY ambigious at parts, it seems to be the focal point of the experience. I saw many scenes of direct dialogue and exposition between its "characters". I say "characters" in quotes because these scenes take place in retrospect, and only two of the characters from these flashbacks are present in any capacity during the game. Post-apocalyptic stories tend to be about the wild events that happened after, but Fallow solely meditates on everything that led up to the end of its world. The story is about a group of found-family sisters called the Fallow family, who have "chosen" to live as exiles on the outskirts of society. They maintain a property in the woods until the girls begin to mysteriously disappear. It sounds like a premise for your typical mystery. In reality, Fallow is more of a mellow-drama (not a melodrama). Your interest in the story is less derived from something typical like "find the source of the disappearances!" and is more about growing to understand the land the Fallow sisters inhabited, and the pain of Isa, the sister whom you play as. The entire game manages to communicate familial trauma, loss, and regret in a way that feels exclusive to it. It's not radical, it doesn't grab you by the collar and shake you. Even its melancholy isn't suffocating. You will sit with Isa and listen to the hurt she carries with her, metaphorical chairs rocking on the front porch of her day-to-day. It's written in a way that gives the impression that this game could not have come from any place other than lived experiences.
The actual gameplay loop of Fallow consists of exploring to find memory shards, solving the occasional puzzle, and then observing the little changes the world takes as the days progress. The atmosphere is so engrossing that I felt startled when the smallest details changed, despite a near-complete lack of any horror elements.There are a limited amount of days, and when you run out, the world ends.
There's no point in spoiling anything more- if that story sounds at all interesting to you, the game is only a few hours long and is stuffed with compelling sights. There's even a (barely) hidden section in the game containing a massive amount of scrapped content for you to explore. The fact that you can 100% Fallow in 5 or 6 hours has made its $20 price tag highly controversial, but it is 5 hours spent in a world that's beautifully scarred, subtly tragic, and one of the most impressive exploration games since Yume Nikki. Absolutely worth the price tag.
Right off the bat, I think the most distinguishing thing about Fallow is its art. The game's muted, earthy palette is used to paint vivid desolation, colored with the amazing animations on small items and character sprites. It's crazy to know that ONE PERSON created all of these intricate little 16-bit tidbits. The second thing that immediately stood out was the music. Ada Rook's quieter compositions of previous experimented with unique combinations of acoustic instruments like banjos and digital distortion, and her game is in full force here. "Fallow Residence" chokes me up badly. All of the pieces communicate an intimacy that pairs with the tattered landscapes and story very, very well. And let's talk about that story, because it's the main attraction here.
Many games of this fashion use their music, art, and whatever story they have in service of a vibe. I think Fallow's an interesting take, because while its story is certainly VERY ambigious at parts, it seems to be the focal point of the experience. I saw many scenes of direct dialogue and exposition between its "characters". I say "characters" in quotes because these scenes take place in retrospect, and only two of the characters from these flashbacks are present in any capacity during the game. Post-apocalyptic stories tend to be about the wild events that happened after, but Fallow solely meditates on everything that led up to the end of its world. The story is about a group of found-family sisters called the Fallow family, who have "chosen" to live as exiles on the outskirts of society. They maintain a property in the woods until the girls begin to mysteriously disappear. It sounds like a premise for your typical mystery. In reality, Fallow is more of a mellow-drama (not a melodrama). Your interest in the story is less derived from something typical like "find the source of the disappearances!" and is more about growing to understand the land the Fallow sisters inhabited, and the pain of Isa, the sister whom you play as. The entire game manages to communicate familial trauma, loss, and regret in a way that feels exclusive to it. It's not radical, it doesn't grab you by the collar and shake you. Even its melancholy isn't suffocating. You will sit with Isa and listen to the hurt she carries with her, metaphorical chairs rocking on the front porch of her day-to-day. It's written in a way that gives the impression that this game could not have come from any place other than lived experiences.
The actual gameplay loop of Fallow consists of exploring to find memory shards, solving the occasional puzzle, and then observing the little changes the world takes as the days progress. The atmosphere is so engrossing that I felt startled when the smallest details changed, despite a near-complete lack of any horror elements.There are a limited amount of days, and when you run out, the world ends.
There's no point in spoiling anything more- if that story sounds at all interesting to you, the game is only a few hours long and is stuffed with compelling sights. There's even a (barely) hidden section in the game containing a massive amount of scrapped content for you to explore. The fact that you can 100% Fallow in 5 or 6 hours has made its $20 price tag highly controversial, but it is 5 hours spent in a world that's beautifully scarred, subtly tragic, and one of the most impressive exploration games since Yume Nikki. Absolutely worth the price tag.
played oct 30th for rpgmaker october
really wanted to like this more than i do but as it is, the most i can feel for it is that its ok :( VERY deft use of the engine, great visuals n sound (ada rook made this game n did the soundtrack) and i like its texture. and i don't actually outright dislike alot of what the story is doing. it's just that i can't find a lot of enthusiasm in me for it overall. stuff abt navigating memories of a community/found family you feel abandoned by, vaguely alluding to external factors of precarity n marginalization and embattled interpersonal frission; it's fine and pretty articulate in its adriftness, neither overly blunt abt being what it is nor trauma hijacking per se, but i do think i like...wish it took a step back from itself more than it does, rather than favoring the personal experiential side of things. this game has a good voice, i just wished it cut deeper than it does w it. ending is nice tho and some of the postgame stuff is cool, and i could maybe explore it more someday (reminds me of anodyne 2, on this note that is another game not unfamiliar w this i also have mixed feelings abt, but that game has a stretch i think is genuinely stunning, here its just that there's less buildup to be disappointed in)
really wanted to like this more than i do but as it is, the most i can feel for it is that its ok :( VERY deft use of the engine, great visuals n sound (ada rook made this game n did the soundtrack) and i like its texture. and i don't actually outright dislike alot of what the story is doing. it's just that i can't find a lot of enthusiasm in me for it overall. stuff abt navigating memories of a community/found family you feel abandoned by, vaguely alluding to external factors of precarity n marginalization and embattled interpersonal frission; it's fine and pretty articulate in its adriftness, neither overly blunt abt being what it is nor trauma hijacking per se, but i do think i like...wish it took a step back from itself more than it does, rather than favoring the personal experiential side of things. this game has a good voice, i just wished it cut deeper than it does w it. ending is nice tho and some of the postgame stuff is cool, and i could maybe explore it more someday (reminds me of anodyne 2, on this note that is another game not unfamiliar w this i also have mixed feelings abt, but that game has a stretch i think is genuinely stunning, here its just that there's less buildup to be disappointed in)