Indie Game of the Week 425: LumbearJack

As we dwell once again with the grim reality that the site's blogging and other user creation tools are about to disappear (albeit perhaps only temporarily) I find myself once again struggling to summon any motivation for my continued writing here. Good thing I gave myself a total softball this week to assuage any stress I might otherwise be feeling (recovering from some dental surgery earlier this week might also have contributed to same). LumbearJack is about a friendly grizzly bear lumberjack who normally helps the other forest folk by chopping down trees (in moderation) for their firewood or whatever else they might use the timber for. Artful nude wood sculptures maybe. However, rather than his usual cutting down trees, in this game he's cutting apart various manmade machines, structures, and vehicles (which if we consider criminal law would make him less of a lumbearjack and more of a domestic bearrorist) of an evil corporation that has moved in to deforest and despoil the beautiful nature of the place. The goal is to simply rid this natural beauty spot of their presence, one axe rampage at a time.

Immediately, this game gave me vibes of Donut County. Not just because of the lo-poly, cel-shaded visuals, its environmental message, and the prominence of cute woodland critters with an axe to grind (figuratively or literally) but in the way its progression works. Each stage requires you chop down everything that is causing the nature to decay, restoring it in patches as you continue your work, but also to take the trash material you collect to reinforce your axe in order to destroy larger vehicles and buildings that would otherwise prove too much for one bear to handle. Most items neatly bisect when you chop them but the larger types will just shrug off your axe blows until the latter's been upgraded. This often leads to destroying everything possible, upgrading your chopper, and then taking down everything else once your axe has had its new makeover. As with Donut County there's an element of the way Katamari Damacy would gate parts of its levels until you reached a certain progression point, but unlike Katamari the levels are too short and so bereft of items that there's really only ever a single critical path you must follow to the letter rather than the more free-ranged and varied aspect of the Katamari series. Of course, Lumbearjack is not the type of game that has (Bandai) Namco money to throw around and having this "conservation of props" aspect (in conjunction with its conservation of nature message) gives it more of a puzzle game feel as you work your way up the upgrade chain as efficiently as possible.

Of course, I say "efficiently" but there's no time trials or limits or anything to hurry you along here. Returning the world to nature is to rid it of stressful notions like "time is money", leaving each level an arboreal Eden where the rescued animals lounge around and even the humans you essentially rescue from their drab corporate jobs rediscover their joie de vivre, taking up sports or hobbies or other relaxing ways to pass the time. Each level does rate you on humans saved, bear traps removed (they can be sneaky), and whether or not you fully restored the nature of the place before moving on: however, these are all collectible type of accomplishments rather than something skill-based or time-based, and tend to be pretty easy to earn on top of that. In fact, the whole game's breezy vibe very much extends to its limited difficulty and short levels, making it suited for those of a younger age in addition to those looking to take it easy by being a bear that chops things in half with an axe, which just sounds like the calmest state of being imaginable.

There are times where the levels do go for something a bit more varied than simple destruction, however. Some levels have you play through what is effectively a golf course or a tennis match, in both cases you're not destroying things directly but batting bombs around to where they can do the most damage. Other levels might have you manipulating levers to escort an animal to safety or set up a chain reaction. Typically, the main goal of any level is to rescue whomever it is that needs rescuing—invariably a different animal wearing nothing but a T-shirt, observing the ancient funny animal tradition of Donald Ducking it—and you are free to leave at any point after, leaving you some space to clear up any remaining tasks if you feel like it. Beyond those levels and the occasional new costume, unlocked as you progress across the game, there's not a whole lot else to its progression. With only 20 levels in total it's over pretty quickly too, but I suppose there's such a thing as bowing out while you're ahead and still flush with ideas.

On the whole, LumbearJack is one of those games that feels over in a flash but was time well spent regardless. A game that fully understands its limitations and is only as long as it needs to be to explore all the concepts it has for level design and its central conceit. It's cute, it's got a positive message about eating the rich (by which I of course mean "keeping the planet beautiful"), its casual gameplay is accessibly simple yet somewhat varied, and its only real failing besides the length is that it can be a little tricky to be accurate when trying to line yourself up next to smaller objects to split them in twain. There were a few bugs here and there too but I'll just give the game and its developers the benefit of the doubt and assume that's just the EGS curse at work: Epic is far more focused on finding games to give away and Fortnite hats than they are on actually patching anything in their system or ensuring they have their full suite of features (like achievements) carry over from the superior Steam/console versions. Well, with freebies you can't really grumble too much. This was a good one, and it's left me feeling compelled to do my due diligence and try Bear and Breakfast someday to see which is the more wholesome cartoon ursine simulator.

Rating: 4 out of 5.