Finger Trees

Finger Trees is a dark, first-person action-horror game set in a dystopian world where everyday objects talk and a mysterious sickness is rotting artificial skin. Players must travel through different worlds to save various versions of their family from the infection caused by the ominous Finger Trees, battling endless hordes of corrupted beings while uncovering the truth behind the decay.

Finger Trees: Review

Introduction

In the saturated landscape of indie horror games, Finger Trees emerges not as a polished AAA contender, but as a visceral, unfiltered descent into a nightmare born from grief and existential dread. Released on December 20, 2023, by the enigmatic Bry Guy Studios, this $2.99 Windows-exclusive first-person shooter (FPS) defies conventional expectations. With its surreal premise of traveling across parallel realities to save alternate versions of your family from a rotting “artificial skin” sickness and its hordes of “finger tree” monstrosities, Finger Trees positions itself as a meditation on loss, identity, and the fragility of existence. Though developed on a shoestring budget using Unreal Engine 4 and targeting modest hardware, its raw ambition and psychological horror elements carve out a niche that demands examination. This review argues that Finger Trees, despite its technical limitations and brevity, delivers an unsettling and thought-provoking experience that lingers long after the final shot, cementing its place as a cult artifact in the annals of experimental horror gaming.

Development History & Context

Finger Trees is the brainchild of Bry Guy Studios, a fledgling indie developer with no prior documented titles, operating as a one-person or small-team endeavor. The studio’s vision, articulated through the game’s Steam description, is unapologetically niche: to create a “dark FPS” centered on a bleak, psychological narrative. Released into a bustling December 2023 gaming calendar dominated by behemoths like Alan Wake 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Finger Trees arrived virtually unnoticed by mainstream critics. Technologically, it was built on Unreal Engine 4 and PhysX, capable tools but not cutting-edge for the era. Its minimum specifications—a modest AMD FX-9830P processor and Radeon RX 460 GPU—reflect a conscious decision to prioritize accessibility and performance over graphical fidelity, a pragmatic choice for a budget title. The gaming landscape at the time saw a surge in psychological horror and experimental indie games (e.g., Lamentum, Bram The Toymaker), but Finger Trees‘s surreal, body-horror themes set it apart, positioning it as a product of the “dark indie” subculture that thrives on Steam’s storefront. Its development appears driven by a singular, uncompromising artistic vision rather than market trends.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The narrative of Finger Trees is a tapestry woven from threads of grief, parallel universes, and corporeal horror. The player character is already dead in their original world, where their family has succumbed to a mysterious sickness. This affliction is rooted in “artificial created skin” that begins rotting, suggesting a dystopian bio-engineering gone awry. The core plot thrusts the player into “bridge worlds”—alternate realities where living counterparts of their family exist. These versions are doomed unless the player intervenes, creating a desperate, multiversal race against time. The mission is twofold: perform a ritual to “remove the sickness from your corpse,” freeing the soul to “rebuild your body,” and then fight the “endless hordes of the sickness born from the finger trees” to save each family iteration. This framework is laden with thematic weight. The finger trees, likely grotesque, arboreal manifestations of the infection, symbolize the invasive, inescapable nature of decay and trauma. Grief is rendered as a physical affliction, a sickness that corrodes both body and soul. The constant traversal between realities interrogates identity: Who is the “real” you when you are a dead soul inhabiting a rebuilt body? The game’s dialogue—conveyed through “everyday objects talk[ing]”—adds a surreal, Lynchian layer, implying the world itself is infected and sentient. This creates an atmosphere where the environment becomes a character, whispering warnings or taunts, blurring the line between hallucination and reality. The narrative’s minimalist presentation forces players to infer lore through environmental cues and fragmented descriptions, a bold choice that amplifies its psychological impact.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Finger Trees operates on a core loop of exploration, combat, and soul-reclamation, presented through a first-person perspective. Its primary innovation lies in the “mind worlds,” where players switch control between two separate characters navigating dark corridors. This dual-character mechanic is a standout feature, requiring strategic coordination to bridge gaps and evade the finger tree hordes. The combat is straightforward FPS fare—players shoot, dodge, and survive against waves of enemies—but the enemies’ grotesque, tree-derived designs (implied by the lore) inject a visceral horror element. Character progression is non-traditional; there are no RPG-like skill trees or loot systems. Instead, advancement is tied to narrative milestones: performing the soul-ritual, rebuilding the body, and successfully rescuing family members across worlds. The game’s brevity, highlighted by its mere three Steam achievements and estimated playthrough time of 11–35 minutes, suggests a tightly focused experience. The UI favors minimalism, with “direct control” implying a lean interface that avoids cluttering the screen, preserving the oppressive atmosphere. Procedural generation, noted in user tags, adds replayability by randomizing enemy placements or level layouts in the mind worlds. However, this same mechanic can lead to uneven pacing, with some runs feeling chaotic or others overly predictable. The ritual mechanic—freeing the soul to attach to a new body—serves as both a narrative checkpoint and a gameplay reset, allowing players to persist after defeat but grounding each iteration in the story’s central themes of decay and renewal. While the systems are simple, they are thematically cohesive, with every action reinforcing the game’s bleak, cyclical nature.

World-Building, Art & Sound

The world of Finger Trees is a masterclass in atmospheric dread, built on a foundation of dystopian surrealism. Setting-wise, it blends mundane environments (implied by the “everyday objects” that speak) with grotesque, body-horror transformations. The “mind city” corridors are claustrophobic and labyrinthine, designed to evoke psychological unease, while the “bridge worlds” likely feature decaying urban or suburban landscapes overtaken by the finger tree plague. The art direction prioritizes mood over technical prowess, leveraging Unreal Engine 4’s capabilities to create lighting that casts long, distorted shadows and textures that evoke rot and decay. The finger trees themselves—described through lore rather than direct visuals—presumably merge organic wood with decaying flesh, a motif that permeates the visual language. Color palettes are desaturated, dominated by sickly greens, browns, and blacks, amplifying the sense of decay. Sound design, while not extensively detailed, is inferred to be equally impactful. The “disturbing imagery” and “profanity” in the mature content description suggest a cacophony of squelching, cracking, and guttural vocalizations from enemies and the environment. The talking objects likely deliver cryptic, unsettling dialogue through distorted audio, enhancing the game’s psychological horror. Together, these elements forge an oppressive atmosphere where the player feels perpetually watched and hunted. The art and sound work in harmony to make the abstract themes—sickness, identity loss, familial bonds—tangible and visceral, ensuring the world is as much a character as the player or their family.

Reception & Legacy

At launch, Finger Trees received minimal critical attention, with no reviews documented on Metacritic or major gaming outlets. Its niche subject matter and low price point relegated it to the fringes of the Steam ecosystem. However, among players, it cultivated a small but fervent following. Steambase reports an 83% “Very Positive” player score based on six reviews (five positive, one negative), with users praising its unique premise and unsettling atmosphere. Common user-defined tags—”Psychological Horror,” “Psychedelic,” “Gore,” “Immersive Sim”—highlight its appeal to horror enthusiasts seeking experimental narratives. The negative review likely targeted its brevity or technical roughness. Commercially, its $2.99 price ensured accessibility, but sales figures remain undisclosed, suggesting a modest impact. Legacy-wise, Finger Trees is too recent to have exerted widespread influence, but it occupies a unique space in the indie horror canon. Its dual-character mechanic and parallel-world narrative could inspire smaller developers exploring surreal concepts. Its raw, unpolished approach also exemplifies the “bedroom horror” movement, proving that profound psychological impact can arise from limited resources. As time passes, it may gain cult status among fans of body horror and existential storytelling, remembered less for its gameplay and more for its audacity in confronting grief and decay in such an unflinching manner.

Conclusion

Finger Trees is a flawed, fragmented, yet undeniably potent piece of interactive horror. Bry Guy Studios has crafted an experience that prioritizes atmosphere and theme over polish, resulting in a journey that is as intellectually stimulating as it is viscerally disturbing. The dual-character mechanic and parallel-world narrative offer memorable innovations, while the themes of grief, identity, and corporeal decay resonate with a raw emotional honesty that belies its budget origins. However, its technical limitations, brevity, and minimalistic presentation may alienate players seeking traditional action or depth. Ultimately, Finger Trees is not a game for everyone; it is a demanding, divisive experience that rewards patience and a tolerance for ambiguity. Yet, for those who embrace its bleak vision, it offers a haunting meditation on loss that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant. In the grand tapestry of video game history, it stands as a testament to the power of indie experimentation—a small, thorny branch on the tree of horror gaming that, while easily overlooked, bears fruit of unsettling significance. Verdict: A flawed but essential cult artifact for connoisseurs of psychological horror.