- Dear listener,
Tonight I bring sorrowful news,
The band known as The Forest Quartet
Has lost their singer and saxophone player, Nina...
The Forest Quartet is a puzzle game developed by Mads Vadsholt, director of the Danish indie company Mads & Friends.
In the dawn of the passing of their lead singer, Nina, the Forest Quartet - a four-person musical band based in Denmark's Rold Forest - is in mourning. The remaining members of the band, their cellist JB, pianist Kirk and Sebastian the drummer, are struggling to survive their future while dealing with their own personal demons, but decides to hold one last concert to honor their friend.
But Nina isn't ready to move on, with her soul escaping into the woods a week after the night she died, as she attempts to relive her moments of being alive in a calm, peaceful stroll in a serene, musical-themed game. You control Nina, of course, and managed to help your former bandmates move on from beyond the grave.
I hope you find a way out of the darkness...
- The Alcoholic: Kirk the pianist seems to have become one after Nina's passing. In one scene Nina (as a ghost) looks through Kirk's window and sees him sitting dejectedly near his piano, with multiple bottles around him.
- Always Night: The entire game takes place at night.
- Blackout Basement: Some parts of the woods are in complete blackness, with visibility limited to a circle around Nina.
- Concert Climax: The game ends on a high note, with JC, Kirk and Sebastian holding one last concert in Nina's honor, oblivious that Nina is watching all the way. Satisfied, she then passes on.
- Dead to Begin With: Nina's death kickstarts the plot, since the player assumes the role of her spirit.
- Friendly Ghost: Nina is a spirit who wants to help her friends overcome grief and depression from beyond her grave.
- Ghostly Glide: Since Nina literally doesn't have a body anymore, she spends the whole game floating all over the place. There are certain limitations however, where she can't hover over platforms and needs to have some solid ground beneath her.
- Moving Beyond Bereavement: Nina may have accepted that she's dead, but not her bandmates. And it's up to her to help JB, Kirk and Sebastian move pass their grief.
- One to Million to One: One of Nina's later powers allows her to disperse into hundreds of butterflies made of light before reforming.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: For Nina? She travels by floating everywhere, can possess musical instruments to relive her moments of being alive, disperse herself into light particles, and can't pass through walls.
- Quieting the Unquiet Dead: When the game is completed and Nina have mended the damages in the lives of JC, Kirk, and Sebastian, allowing them to get together and perform one last concert for her; the final cutscene then shows Nina moving on as the Disappears into Light.
- Supernatural Light: Since Nina is now dead, her only source of illumination is herself, where she emits an ethereal orange glow 24-7. She can even use her light to ignite lampposts.
- Tube Travel: Nina can travel through pipes by dispersing herself into scores of butterflies and reforming at the other end. More than one stage requires her to move between pipes constantly.
- Unfinished Business: Nina needs to help her former bandmates and besties move on from mourning her death, and take care of their personal regrets, before she can pass on peacefully.
