Within a Deep Forest

Retro Gamer criticized the game's story as "schlock", but described its gameplay as "fun", calling the game in general "atmospheric, eerie, and sometimes very challenging". The publication noted the high amount of effort put into the game, comparing it to retro games such as Cauldron II (1986). Andrew Gray of PC PowerPlay praised the game as an "excellent freeware action-adventure", due to its "beautiful" music and atmosphere, although felt the game's difficulty would case "much frustration". Retro Maniac called the game one of Nifflas' best works, praising the game's controls. James Murff of Big Download called it a rare art game that also contained engaging gameplay, and a "classic that manages to be both incredibly hard and very affecting at the same time". Commenting on the game's high difficulty, he noted that the game was proof that "you don't need to mangle games to create art: great, emotion-invoking games were there all along". Jan Tomášik of IDNES.cz rated the game highly, describing the difficulty as challenging but perfectly balanced. He also noted that the game had "great" graphics and music that established an "indescribable" atmosphere.