Riverhill Trials

About

Riverhill Trials is a single player platformer game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Watercolor Games and was released on April 12, 2018. It received neutral reviews from players.

You wake up on a strange planet and you don't know how you got there, but you'll soon find out that the forest is alive and you must overcome its challenges. In Riverhill Trials nothing is what it seems, its dynamic environment will challenge and test you.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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58%Audience ScoreBased on 38 reviews

music14 positive mentions

gameplay7 negative mentions

Beautiful and unique artistic design with colorful, immersive environments and well-done stylized graphics.
Excellent and soothing soundtrack complemented by funny and engaging voice acting.
Active developer support and updates addressing bugs and improving gameplay based on community feedback.

Gameplay suffers from clunky and imprecise controls, input lag, and frustrating first-person platforming mechanics.
Numerous bugs and technical issues including collision detection problems, disappearing assets, and checkpoint glitches.
Lack of customization options such as audio volume controls, mouse sensitivity, and no settings menu, impacting overall user experience.

music
26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
54%
34%
12%
The music in the game is widely praised for being soothing, immersive, and well-suited to the vibrant visuals, with many describing it as a standout feature. Some users noted its resemblance to royalty-free tracks and expressed a desire for better volume controls to balance music, voice, and effects. Overall, the soundtrack significantly enhances the game's atmosphere and player experience despite minor production critiques.
- “This is a jumping parcour game in a very large, colorful world with decent graphics, awesome music tracks, and the world has these dynamics going on which makes the area mystique and beautiful.”
- “Well done soundtrack that blends well with the artistic design of the game.”
- “The music is extremely soothing and further helps you to get into that feel of immersion.”
- “Music sounded like a weekend project without a proper goal.”
- “One of my friends who bought it wished there was an option to turn off voice or individual sliders for music and voice, but I understand that's probably harder to add retroactively on Unity games.”
- “Or if there are any, they are completely drowned out by the music.”
graphics
21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
57%
14%
The game features stunning, colorful, and stylized visuals that many players find beautiful and atmospheric, contributing significantly to its relaxing and immersive world. While some note minimalistic or simple graphics, the overall art style is charming and well-crafted, often considered a primary highlight of the experience. However, a few feel the game prioritizes showcasing graphics over gameplay depth.
- “I thought that I could minimize some of the lag problems by changing the graphics settings, but I was playing at the lowest resolution and you have 3 options for the graphics quality: beautiful, gorgeous, and fantastic.”
- “I really love the game's art style and the views and graphics are generally spectacular.”
- “The graphics and models of the game have a well-done stylized feel.”
- “I thought that I could minimize some of the lag problems by changing the graphics settings, but I was playing at the lowest resolution and you have only 3 options for graphics quality: beautiful, gorgeous, and fantastic.”
- “Pretty colors, but not pretty graphics.”
- “That being said, the game feels more like a showcase for the graphics than an actual game.”
gameplay
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
33%
47%
The gameplay is widely criticized for being bland, unfinished, and poorly executed, especially the platforming mechanics which feel frustrating and lack variety. While the game’s beautiful visuals receive praise, the gameplay often feels like an afterthought with broken elements and design issues, though some find the challenging platforming rewarding when overcome.
- “Platforming gameplay is very challenging from the start and it gets even harder as you progress, but it makes you feel good every time you surpass an area.”
- “I've often said that first-person games aren't always an ideal medium for platforming mechanics, and many parts of this game prove that.”
- “I only played for a short while, but had a decent amount of issues with bugs, along with some quality of life issues and some more general gameplay design issues.”
- “Feels like an unfinished walking simulator with bad platforming mechanics stapled on.”
- “Broken engine translates to bad gameplay.”
- “A key reason I didn't enjoy the gameplay aspect of this game was because the flying platforms moved at the exact same speed as the player, without varying speeds.”
optimization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
User opinions on optimization are mixed, with some praising the game's good performance and efficient optimization, while others criticize it for clunky, slow performance and occasional issues such as the narrator's poor audio quality. Overall, optimization quality varies across different aspects of the game.
- “Very good optimizations.”
- “The game looks very good, is optimized pretty well, and feels like it should be great.”
- “Really good optimization.”
- “It's clunky, it has bad performance and it's super slow.”
- “The only thing that breaks immersion is the poor performance of the narrator, though luckily he doesn't talk a lot.”
- “Narrator's poor performance.”
humor
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
80%
20%
The humor in the game is generally light and understated, providing basic motivation without being overly serious or forced. While some find the comedy effective and enjoyable, others feel it falls flat or forced. Overall, the voice acting and subtitles contribute to a humorous tone but could benefit from more content.
- “I read all the reviews and I was a bit skeptical, but all the bugs people complained about have been fixed. I enjoyed the music and the voiceovers. It is funny and to the point, and it looks very, very good—better than Zelda and Firewatch.”
- “Funny voiceovers.”
- “The voiceover and subtitles are pretty funny, could've had more.”
- “It feels like forced comedy which makes it not funny at all.”
stability
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game experiences some persistent minor glitches and technical issues, though none appear game-breaking, and recent patches have improved stability. Despite the developer's limited engagement lately, the game remains playable and enjoyable overall.
- “The platforming, quality control and the general technical side of this game are the weaker points. The developer hasn't shown up for some months now, so it's not clear if any of the bugs and glitches are going to be fixed.”
- “There's still glitches here and there, which I relay to the devs as I find them, but it's very much playable and enjoyable.”
- “Still a lot of small glitches, though I haven't found anything game-breaking since the lightning-fast patch after my last review.”
story
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The story in this game is minimal or nearly nonexistent, which some players feel suits its focus on atmosphere and setting, creating more of a brief, dreamlike experience than a narrative-driven one.
- “I loved the scenery and setting, but there wasn't much story; it felt more like a short, pleasant dream.”
- “Story is, er... well, not really what this game's about.”
- “No story.”
atmosphere
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The atmosphere is generally described as relaxing and enhanced by pleasant visuals and subtle background music, though some find the overall experience unengaging due to lack of excitement and imprecise movement.
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users find the game visually appealing and recognize the effort behind it, but feel it may not evoke strong emotional engagement unless you enjoy methodical platforming and collecting challenges. For fans of thoughtful platformers, it offers enjoyable and worthwhile gameplay at an affordable price.