At the inception of this blog, I made a promise that I would review and expose the deficiencies of a web-page claiming to be devoted to games involving trees. Tree Games, a site that made me jump in jubilation when I first visited it, turned out to be nothing more than a hodge-podge of games that merely use trees as a background, and never take into account that a virtual dendrologist might, at some point, pop in for an inspection. Let’s look at a couple of the so-called ‘tree games’ offered by this site.
The first game I had the bravery to test is called Jumpy Monkey, here is a typical screenshot:
There are trees, certainly, but they are unidentifiable hunks of green and brown. The ‘monkey’ (My virtual zoologist colleague was as stupefied as myself.) is guided via keyboard from platform to platform in order to climb to out of the forest. At least, I believe this is the goal, as the game is entirely in Japanese.
Lack of identifiable trees, and the ‘monkey’ jumps from platform to platform rather than tree to tree, gives this game a 2/10 rating.
The next game I had the nerve to test is called Forest Challenge, and it sounds very promising and has a very woodsy loading screen. I was quite excited until I clicked the play button and what greeted me was the following:
Yes, fellow tree enthusiasts, it is a mini-put golf game set in a forest, or rather, set in a brown field with several shrubs growing nearby. My notions of a game involving intense themes of forest survival vanished quicker than the Amazon and I once again sat in disappointment cursing the name Tree Games.
I cannot go on.
As I write this, I am clutching a wooden bowl of Yerba Mate extract, trying to calm myself, my head full to the brim with the thought that anyone would have the gall to attempt to pass off these horrific flash games as games involving trees in any capacity. Certainly, the website is designed like a tree, and the Google ads on the trunk do their best to promote tree-related businesses, but despite it all, I give this site my worst possible rating:
Do Not Bookmark
I will now cuddle up with a good book made of 100% post-consumer material and ponder why life must be so frustrating for us virtual dendrologists.
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