Freddie Trims a Tree

5 You have been warned
Since no one seems to have enough interest to review this old-time indie game by Philip Williams, who is apparently either dead or Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw as an 8-year-old, I suppose it’s long overdue for an honest analysis. Unfortunately, I can’t be the one to give it that, since I’m on a Mac and can’t be bothered to run Vista on my Gateway. Instead, I believe I can provide an accurate estimate as to this game’s quality through the descriptions provided on Philip’s website and the screenshots posted here: Made as a ‘spiritual prequel’ to his Chzo Mythos series, Freddie Trims A Tree revolves around the plight of the titular Freddie the Fox in his quest to decorate a Christmas tree for Mrs. Wolfington, who may be his mother and/or a serial killer with down syndrome judging by her Joker makeup and blood seeping through her living room carpet; this would explain why she asks Freddy to decorate her Christmas tree with a bloody hatchet, a dirt-encrusted bone, two stepstools, a shoe, a dictionary, a ham radio, and for some reason, Christmas lights. Experience exhilarating action as Freddie strips down to his jammies in the home of a complete stranger and debates the most tasteful placement of ornaments the size of his skull; perhaps they are skulls, actually. It’s not the first time Mrs. Wolfington’s entertained little boys offering to ‘shovel her walk’. It is with this in mind that Freddie notices the bloody carpet, which he flings aside before prying up the floorboards with his hatchet (I have been told that this actually occurs) to find the corpse of Daddy Skunk hidden beneath, bringing about the horrifying revelation that (SPOILER ALERT) Freddie is the clone of the bastard child of Mrs. Wolfington’s immoral interspecies marriage, who was abused and murdered as a child, and whose soul is trapped within her Christmas tree, released only once every year – on Christmas Eve – to kill those he pleases . In horror, he smashes through the wall of the house and runs home, “fir coat” in tow, slamming the door shut and locking it with a sight of relief before realizing that his house has no door. It was he who was the door. All in all, this is a surprisingly decent game; while the story may be outlandish, rearranging the bleached skulls into curse words never gets old. Since homosexuality had yet to be invented in 1996, what may be dismissed as “furry fare” in our time was a brilliant feat for the point-n-click adventures, at least until game developers realized that it was much more fun if the things you clicked on exploded shortly afterwards. However, Christmas has aged somewhat more gracefully, so when you’re stuck wandering through the underground torture dungeon trying desperately to USE HATCHET on LOCKED GLASS DOOR, I’LL NEED TO FIND ANOTHER WAY OUT, you can do so to the jolly MIDI tunes of the holiday season.

Happy Holidays!