Forbidden Forest is an action-horror game created by Paul Norman for Cosmi Corporation and released for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit in 1983, and re-released for the PC in 2000.  I think all versions bear mentioning, however for the scope of this review, I would like to focus solely on the C64 version, as this is the only version I've played.  Not exactly a landmark title, but nonetheless, Forbidden Forest is a game of note, if not for its interesting gameplay, then for the excellent aural experience.  While SID chip-flavored tunes on the C64 have always had a strong following (with good reason), the excellent music tracks for Forbidden Forest are an excellent early example of why they are popular.  The game could have simply been titled, "Forest" and as long as this music played during the title, it would convey the same meaning:  There are some bad things waiting for you in this forest.



The game follows a unnamed man who ventures into the hidden forest with the goal of slaying the Demogorgon. However, during his travels he also ends up killing hordes of giant insects, arachnids, wizards, and dragons, before confronting said monstrous beast.  And what weapon does our protagonist choose to arm himself with for this endeavor?  A bow and quiver of limited arrows. Seems like a bad idea, but this is one of the games more interesting mechanics. As you walk to the right, you must draw and nock an arrow from your quiver by pressing the fire button. You shoot by aiming with the joystick and loose the arrow by pressing the fire button again, but in order to shoot another arrow you must press the fire button again. Now in modern terms this isn't impressive, but it does add quite a bit of tension and difficulty, as well as a touch of realism.  Nothing in Forbidden Forest is more frustrating and heart-stopping than taking careful aim at an approaching spider, bee, or skeleton only to realize that you do not have an arrow at the ready. 

Then comes the next stand-out part of this game: The gore. When a creature gets its jaws on you it clamps down and chews viciously, spraying blood everywhere.  Well maybe not chewing as much as jittering around on the protagonist...kind of hard to tell actually.  And the music -- if you thought that the intro music was dark, the music played while dying conveys your failure not only to kill the monsters but displays the punishment you suffer as a result in no less than six seconds.  And if you manage to kill the required amount of baddies in a level?  A victory dance ensues (accompanied by victory dance music).  Yep.


So the sound and gameplay are good, but what about the graphics?  Actually not bad, considering the era this game was created in (and its humble beginnings, see second-to-last paragraph for details).  While the monsters are pretty simple and their animation is a bit limited, the main character moves and aims very smoothly, which is a blessing. The surroundings scroll by in two parallax layers nicely, but the real star here is the day/night cycle.  You start the game at midnight and as the game progresses stage by stage you can observe the moon slowly move and dip below the horizon, to be replaced by the morning sun.  Once again, not an impressive thing in this modern age, but considering the time (and the genre) this a nice addition.  The game can get a little blocky, though, much as one would expect.

Forbidden Forest was released on both 5.25" floppy disk and cassette tape.  The cassette loading...  I really wish everyone could experience real-time loading of a cassette game just once to see what it is like.  Forbidden Forest was the first cassette loading game I played and I fell asleep during the process, waking up some time later to the difficulty selection screen before the game starts.  Below you will find a Youtube video of me loading the game from tape.  Originally the video ran a hair above ten minutes, but since I like you all so much I sped it up about four-hundred percent.  I've also added the theme for Forbidden Forest, so you can get a taste of that....enjoy! 

(And for the record, total loading time from typing "LOAD" to finally arriving at the difficulty select screen is nine minutes, twenty seconds.)


There is an interesting anecdote about Forbidden Forest in regards to its creation.  The author, Paul Norman, a musician turned game programmer (with aspirations of film making), apparently fibbed about his C64 assembly language skills to get a job creating games.  Forbidden Forest was his first creation.  This process took two months, during which the company was bought entirely by Cosmi Corporation.  While the Cosmi bigwigs were tramping around, snapping up whatever looked profitable, they noticed Norman and his game.  They were so impressed with what they saw, he was snapped up on the spot (along with the office furniture, as Norman tells it).  There is a full interview conducted with Norman on the Game Talk interview section of C64.com.  A direct link to the HTML version of this can be found here.

Of the small amount of games that I've reviewed, Forbidden Forest is owned by only a few people in the RFG community, which was part of the reason I wrote this.  So to those that haven't, I implore you to give it a go.  It is an early C64 game, but I feel that it still holds up.  If you don't own a functioning platform to play it on (a likely problem), there is a free online version of the game on Kongregate  that is blessed by the original creator, Paul Norman. So please, give it a try.  It is one of those titles that proves that some of those old 8-bit computer games still have interesting mechanics and gameplay.

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