There are games that try to impress players with complex mechanics, while others keep things simple. A Game About Chopping Trees falls into the second category, delivering a relaxing gameplay loop centered around one thing: chopping wood. While simplicity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the game currently feels like it needed a little more time in the forest before being released.
A beautiful world to spend time in
The first thing you’ll notice is just how good the game looks. The developers clearly spent time making the world visually appealing instead of only focusing on the gameplay itself.
The forests are vibrant, the lighting looks fantastic, and the atmosphere is peaceful from beginning to end. Walking through the environment is genuinely relaxing, and the graphics help create an enjoyable experience. Plenty of indie games overlook presentation, but that certainly isn’t the case here.
The gameplay loop runs out of steam
The biggest problem is that there simply isn’t much to do.
Your entire adventure revolves around chopping trees, carrying the logs to the sawmill, collecting your payment, buying upgrades, and repeating the exact same process.
There is nothing wrong with a simple gameplay loop, but I expected far more from a game that looks this good. Hidden locations, collectibles, side activities, random encounters, or even small objectives would have made exploring worthwhile.
Instead, once you’ve experienced the core loop, you’ve essentially seen everything the game currently has to offer. That becomes repetitive much faster than it should.
Performance still needs work
Performance is another area that could use some extra attention.
The game isn’t unplayable by any means, but it still has rough edges that deserve polishing. Improving stability and optimization should be one of the team’s main priorities before expanding the game any further.
Polish the game before adding more
One thing I found disappointing is the current update strategy.
The developers regularly release hotfixes while also adding new achievements almost every day. Personally, I’d rather see every existing issue ironed out before spending time adding achievements or small pieces of content that nobody specifically asked for.
A polished experience should always come before expanding the feature list.
There is still potential
Despite my criticism, I don’t think this is a bad game.
The developers recently published a roadmap covering the period through August, with three planned updates already scheduled within roughly a month. That gives me hope they understand the game still needs work and are committed to improving it.
Because of that, we’ll be stepping away from the game for now and returning later to see how those updates change the overall experience.
The foundation is already there. The visuals are excellent, the atmosphere is relaxing, and the core idea works. It simply needs more activities, more things to discover, better optimization, and a stronger reason to keep playing after the first few hours.
Pros
- Beautiful graphics and a relaxing atmosphere.
- Easy-to-understand gameplay.
- Developers are actively supporting the game.
- A public roadmap shows future content is already planned.
Cons
- Gameplay becomes repetitive rather quickly.
- Very little to discover outside the main gameplay loop.
- Performance still needs optimization.
- Development focus currently feels misplaced, with new achievements arriving while existing issues still need attention.
Final Thoughts
A Game About Chopping Trees has all the ingredients to become an enjoyable cozy game. Its visuals are among its strongest features, and they immediately make a great first impression. Unfortunately, that excellent presentation raises expectations that the gameplay cannot yet match.
We’ll definitely return once the roadmap updates have been released. Hopefully, the additional content and improvements will give players more reasons to stay in this beautiful forest.
Rating
7.0 / 10
