Summer is gradually coming into its own and I am trying to spend more time outdoors. The evenings become warmer, and the rich sea breeze dispels melancholy and clears your head of unnecessary thoughts. At such moments, you want to choose a game repertoire for yourself that will match this serene atmosphere and prolong this mesmerizing moment. The Forest Quartet was a great addition to my evening as it flowed smoothly into the night. I opened all the windows in my house so that the night air could penetrate into all corners of my home, brewed a thermos of hot tea and went to study the tragic history of a young musical group.

Philosophy has long lost its sacred meaning and has quietly become a part of our lives. The ancient philosophers were never able to find answers to the questions that plague humanity, and only left us long, lengthy treatises with their reasoning. What is a sense of life? Who created people? Why is the human lifespan so short? Unfortunately, these questions will remain unanswered.

Time is a silent killer from which it is impossible to escape. The clock beats a rhythm, accelerating with age and dooming a person to plunge into dark thoughts. However, there is no need to talk about constancy, because the human body is fragile and susceptible to various factors. It was the incurable illness of the lead singer of a group called “The Forest Quartet” that became the reason for the collapse of the group. For a long time, this jazz group broke records in all the charts, and people specially came to the forest thicket to listen to their performance on wooden stages. The peculiarity of this team was their unity with nature, because they literally settled in a dense forest, practically not visiting noisy cities.

The inspiration for "The Forest Quartet" was the future soloist of the group named Nina, who for a long time searched for unusual musicians throughout the country and invited them to join the young group. The four friends quickly found a common language and began creating music. They were inspired by the sound of centuries-old pine trees and the splash of water in a stormy stream. Having moved away from civilization, the musicians seemed to have discovered a second wind in themselves and cast aside unnecessary thoughts. Nina sincerely loved her friends, but her illness soon began to manifest itself in a bad way.

After several years of fighting for her life, the disease finally took its toll and the girl dies surrounded by her closest people. This event unsettled the musicians and “The Forest Quartet” ceased to exist. Each of the group members felt cold and melancholy, as if the sun in the sky no longer warmed them, and the forest had lost its ability to inspire. A year after Nina’s death, good news spread around the world - The Forest Quartet is going to give a farewell concert in memory of its soloist and invites everyone to join them. People flocked to the forest from all sides of Denmark, and some fans even flew in from other countries to honor the memory of the beautiful Nina and listen to their favorite compositions again.

The Forest Quartet is a casual puzzle game in the style of gloomy Scandinavian forests, where narrative rules everything. We will play the role of the spirit of Nina, who leaves her refuge and goes for a walk through the night forest. We find the famous wooden stage where the group performed, but the participants themselves are nowhere to be seen. Each of them accepted Nina’s death in their own way and now our task is to help them overcome the crisis and unite again to give a concert. Gameplay involves solving various puzzles throughout the levels to progress through the story. All puzzles are somehow related to energy, so we will have to master the work of otherworldly generators and learn how to conduct closed electrical circuits. The gameplay is segmented into levels where we have to solve complex puzzles to achieve a result.

The world of The Forest Quartet is filled with music that embodies different emotions and experiences. This way we can listen to the theremin live and enjoy jazz compositions that perfectly convey the mood of the game. The visuals here are minimalist, but the combination of the atmosphere of gloomy Scandinavian forests and meditative gameplay really touches the soul. The plot won't tell us everything directly, so we'll have to listen to interview snippets and watch character dialogue. At the end, we will be able to attend a live concert of a jazz group already familiar to us and get acquainted with their work.

The Forest Quartet is a short narrative quest where puzzles are not the main component of the game. We will have to delve into the tragic story of a talented musical group and help them survive the misfortune. Despite the short running time of one hour and simple puzzles, I was still able to enjoy the gameplay and get into Nina's story. This quickly puts you at ease and creates a pleasant, friendly atmosphere where even people who don’t know each other quickly find a common language. I was glad to walk through the Scandinavian forest at night to listen to the sounds of the theremin and beautiful female vocals to my heart's content. If you enjoy short narrative quests and don't mind using a little ingenuity to solve puzzles, then The Forest Quartet is definitely a great addition to your evening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0gph1J_vHg

interesting story and even creepy sometimes.
the puzzles are simple but entertaining...
sometimes I felt a little meh about the dialogues tho, this whole "I'm a complex artist" narrative makes me tired

7.62/10