Wooden Sen'Sey by French studio UpperByte was a surprise. I'm not covering everything in the backlog I've been playing lately, much of it barely works or has enough content to say anything. The few in these old Bundle Stars (pre Fanatical) bundles really are low tier indie content.

This... This was a lot of actual fun! Right up until the very last section of the game. I'll get to that later, but for now, lets look at Wooden Sen'SeY!

You are Goro! The village chief. And one day some bozo shows up and takes all your shit. Revenge it is, time to learn how to use your weapon and walk left with the 'Q' key. On later learning this is from a French studio, a country with an AZERTY layout, this decision starts to make sense. For as QWERTY users though I had my hand in an odd position until I remembered I'm on a PC and could remap it.

Ahhh, much better!

Anyway, you can slash your weapon rapidly as a fighter. The third stroke having a more powerful attack. Standard stuff, right? Right.

The special attack here, and one you will be using a lot, is the "drop-attack-double-jump-slash". Normally these are all different commands in games, and the idea of combining it worried me at first. But it works. It is glorious to pull off and keep the baddies at a distance (many will try to avoid it), using it to launch yourself over obsticals, or just see if you can climb into areas our of the main path. Doing so normally rewards you with a bonus too, so it is worth a little exploring.

Aside from that you also have a grapple and chain. Great for knocking out flying enemies, like those fucking bats in the cave level. Or swinging around the level above all the danger and bypassing a lot of trouble. Great stuff.

There's a mechanical feeling of Trine 1 here. And... Well... Far more so at the end.

Visually your character looks like a carved wooden doll. Most of the enemies having a similar feeling early on. Though this eventually turns to a lot of robots and mechanical appearances and this charming look is lost. Texture fidelity does not work as well at this point.

Slashes and particles are all stylised ink drawings and Japanese symbols popping up. I don't understand enough Japanese. I can say "This language is difficult" and write the symbol for "Cat" (Neko). It could all be nonsense and pseudo script, it could be telling me I'm a stupid Australian, who knows... I don't want to bother my friends or coworkers.

One really striking level in the mid game changes everything to be a black silhouette cast against a red sky. This is really striking, and one of the most fun levels in the game. Long enough to be fun, but not repeated to wear out its welcome.

Shades of 70s/80s cinema that reached SBS are here for the SFX. It's all done with comical barks and shouts (hi'ya!). And while the soundtrack is not that memorable, it has a great synthy and pounding beat for most of the game. While the underwater level is much more chill and muted to go along with the slow pace.

Oh yeah. An underwater level. An underwater level where I did not want to gouge out my spleen in frustration. I don't give star ratings, but I'd have to add one point just for that if I did.

So... Why did I hate the end. And what does it have to do with Trine ?

The final level is a chase level. You need split second timing and perfect jumps.

Trine 1 did the same thing. Back then I didn't have many games. Certainly did not spring for all the bundles like I have over the last 6 years. So if I played something, I played it until it was done... My patience is much more thin now.

Devs. Please. I beg of you. If you design a game that allows players to take a slower methodical path through your game, do not change everything up to a twitch level right at the end. At the very least, add something in early.

Yes, I know. I know. There's a time attack. And a leaderboard even shows the top runner when you complete a standard level. Evem a "challenge the devs time" feature.

But not all of us play like this. If you are going to let me play slowly. If you are going to let me explore. Then I'm going to do it. And when you allowed me to do this, I loved it. This game is great fun! Really! It may only take about two hours to complete it, but they are a fun two hours.

Wooden Sen'Sey is a great fun little game. The extra parts are not for me, but if you like platforms and want a style change, and love time-attacks, then I do recommend giving it a go.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars (Action Heroes)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 16 April 2021
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

OS: Windows Vista / 7 / 8 / XP
Processor: 2.0 GHz CPU (Dual Core recommended)
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: ATi Radeon HD 2400 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 700 MB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible