Cypress Tree Manor is one of those games that makes you click the X button in frustration, cursing and swearing, only to double click on ‘run.py’ again seconds later (still muttering expletives).

For this reason alone, Nils Fagerburg should consider it a success.

The basic premise of the game is that there are zombies loose in an old manor house. Despite the popularity of the zombie meme, I’m getting a bit tired of all the zombie-based games these days. The real challenge in Cypress Tree Manor is getting past your fellow survivors. An individual zombie by itself poses little threat to an adventurer armed with a shovel or a chainsaw.

The real difficulty in Cypress Tree Manor is the win condition: search the many crates, bins and chests in the house and find the bunker key, then get to the bunker downstairs (which only has room for 1). Your computer opponents will murder each other (and you) on their way to find the key and get to safety.

This isn’t to say Cypress Tree Manor doesn’t have issues: on top of being fairly hard, it is controllable only with vim-keys. While this reviewer grew accustomed to the control scheme fairly quickly, it would be nice to see controls extended to the numpad. Additionally, it is possible for the game’s (admittedly bad by the author) random level generator to create unsolvable levels: see the screenshot included. However, in my 20+ games before writing this review, I only noticed this happening once, so I would guess it is pretty rare.

There’s also a strange AI glitch where some enemies will simply walk back and forth in place. This can be really irritating if you’re trying to kill them off. It’s a tribute to the design of this game that these bugs and limitations aren’t an immediate turnoff: but the gameplay and humor endeared themselves to me immediately.

Cypress Tree Manor has plenty of good stuff too: the zombies die leaving pools of ascii blood. The weapons include hammers, chainsaws, and shovels, and you can find chocolate chip cookies and sausages lying around. The title art and “you die” screens are hysterical (by the way, your brains were delicious).

If you’re looking for a complex dungeon crawler, this isn’t it. But if you’re looking for a way to kill 5-10 minutes while waiting for your coffee to brew, you should consider checking out Cypress Tree Manor. Don’t expect perfection; it was, afterall made in just 7 days. And don’t expect to win everytime either.

Cypress Tree Manor - Website