Game Moment #7 - Forbidden Forest
As I was creating the index to the "Game Moments" articles, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that There Was No Seven. So I'm now rectifying the matter - here is the legendary lost Game Moments Number Seven. It's a classic game, now in Technicolor! -- Jay

My best friend from Junior High School through pretty much the end of public education was a fellow geek named Kevin McCarthy. Though we went to the same school (Eugene Burrows Junior High, in Maryland), we lived pretty far apart. He lived out in the boonies of Accokeek, MD - a place with large homes, large properties, and large potholes in the roads. We spent nearly every weekend together - which generally meant we ended up alternating at who's house we spent the weekend, as we lived too far apart to make trips back and forth an insignificant event.

We'd spend our time watching really horrible fantasy movies (they were all horrible sub-"B" movies back then), playing Dungeons & Dragons, spending our money at the arcade, and hang out with other friends in the area. And we'd play videogames on our home systems. Kevin and his twin brother Corey had an Atari.

Eventually, I got a Commodore 64. Right before one of Kevin's visit I managed to get my hands on a couple of new games. One was Summer Games, by Epyx. The other was a little quirky hard-to-find title that everyone seemed to be talking about: A gem called "Forbidden Forest".

Entering the Forest
As we typically did, Kevin and I stayed up late playing multiplayer or hotseat games. We gave Summer Games a good workout, though as we got tired and punchy we derived the most amusement out of making the high-divers do belly flops. Then, just before calling it a night (or so we thought), we booted up Forbidden Forest.

We were greeted by some eerie, cool music and a cinematic opening that wasn't too that wasn't too common in games at the time. It showed a forested scene with something flying in the background. As the flying creature came closer, it filled a large chunk of the screen (it's in 3D!!!!!) and it was clearly a DRAGON. So things were getting interesting.

The graphics were blocky and not exactly even state-of-the-art for the time period. But it was one of the worlds first 3D "third-person shooters" for computers (if not THE FIRST). You controlled this lone archer (we assumed he was an elf) in some forest, atop a hilltop. You could run left or right - we always assumed that it was in a circle, because you'd eventually come to the same spot. The forest had LANDMARKS - like an old shack that I always wanted to walk to, but it was forever just out of reach due to the linearity of your avatar's movement. There were certain spots with better visibility that I favored for dragon-hunting.

But unlike other "side scrollers," your character could fire into the screen, or off at an angle, down the hill and deep into he forest. You had to stand still in order to fire your bow, which made you vulnerable for a critical second or so. Some monsters would spawn nearby in the forest, charging you at an angle from the trees. Others would appear further out, deeper in the forest and down the hill. You'd get these giant tree-jumping frog things that would leap up off on the horizon as tiny, untouchable things.... but you knew that in a couple of seconds they'd be landing on your head. And the dragon! He'd appear a tiny little thing in the distance - but if you didn't kill him as he approached, you'd be running for your life as he'd come at you from the side breathing fireballs. The only way to avoid certain death was to change direction suddenly as he was chasing you, running beneath and behind him as he flew past.

The cool thing about the 3D experience of this game was the SCALE of some of these monsters - something that has been lost in most modern 3D games (except those wonderful MMORPGs, where collossal dragons still live). These monsters appeared off in the distance... and even dozens of yards away from you they appeared much larger on-screen than your little elven archer. When they did get close, you could easily see just how epic these things were. The giant snake's HEAD was as big as your archer. Your little dude, all alone with his bow and limited supply of arrows, was facing down a forest full of Godzilla-sized monstrosities.

The monsters came in waves. In one wave you had to kill swarms of spiders that would emerge in ones and twos. In another, you'd have to face down a single (but nasty) dragon. In another, hordes of giant jumping tree-frog-thingies would be leaping from somewhere in the distance to rain down on you. In another - one of my favorites - a gigantic specter out in the distance was summoning skeletons to attack you. You could only clear out that level by shooting the specter right inside his hood into his unseen face, after which he'd let out a creepy electronic wail and discorporate.

And after every level, your archer would do a funky dance to victory music. Sorta like they do in the Final Fantasy games, but looking more like an epileptic seizure.

It made for an incredibly compelling and immersive experience. At least circa 1983 or so. It was so immersive that Kevin and I didn't notice that the late-night gaming sessions had gone much much later than expected.

Dark Passage Into Night
One other cool immersive element of Forbidden Forest was that time would pass during the game. Day would fade into twilight, twilight into night, the stars would come out, and the moon would slowly cross the sky. The trees would lose their color, becoming more grey-and-blue in the moonlight. And inevitably, the final, climactic encounter would happen during the darkest night, when an mysterious storm would come through, lighting up the sky with pixellated lightning bolts.

The final boss was the demon lord Demogorgon. He'd lurk out on the distance - a shape towering over the trees. He'd get a little bit closer when you stood still. In the darkness, you could almost never see him - you could only catch glimpses of his sillhouette as he'd blot out the stars behind him. Occasionally he'd be illuminated by a flash of lightning - but only for a brief moment. Every time you stopped running (to take a shot, for example), he'd stay in place only a few brief moments, and then he'd teleport away. But each time, he'd creep a little bit closer. You could run all night long... but eventually, you'd have to stop. And that's when he'd get you. His gigantic head would descend, filling half the screen, and supposedly devour you. And that was the end.

We never did manage to kill Demogorgon that night, though we tried. Repeatedly. Endless numbers of dragons and skeletons and spiders were dispatched on our way to battle the ultimate evil, but every time we got there the demon lord would defeat us. There was a trick to it, I later discovered. The up and down joystick movement controlled the arc of the arrow, and you had to hit him just right. All of the other monsters could be killed without such fine control, but Demogorgon required more.

We tried everything everything else that night. At one point we tried running for a long time, watching as the sky turned yet darker and the stars dissapeared in what was perhaps storm clouds, and then re-emerged. We hoped that if we battled Demogorgon until morning that the early morning sunlight would make him easier to see and vulnerable.

And Then The Dawn Came
The dawn never came to Forbidden Forest that night. Once Demogorgon appeared, the land was bathed in eternal night. After enough time, the stars dissapeared, perhaps covered by thick stormclouds (the lightning had to come from somewhere, right?)

But after many, many times being devoured by Demogorgon, the sun came in through the window of the family room, dispelling the magic of the all-night battle against the forces of evil. With the sunlight, the fatigue from playing this game (and others) all night long hit us like the proverbial ton of bricks.

We were exhausted. It was time to crash, for a few hours anyway. The Ultimate Evil would be waiting for us on another night.

Labels: Game Moments, retro

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