NEO Scavenger is a turn-based, post-apocalyptic, survival roguelike with perma-death. I also now sometimes fondly call it a Procedural Death Michigan. It's mean, immersive, annoyingly addictive and seems to strongly dislike players wearing right boots (left boots are fine).

Basically, you scavenge around (and die after the building crumbles on you), fight other people scavenging around (and die valiantly with monkey wrench in hand) or try to talk to them (and die a turn later by drinking a celebratory made-it-through-the-turn sip of poisoned water), try to kill creatures that would like to eat you almost as much as you'd like to eat them (and die hungry), craft items to help you survive (and die warm because your fire alerted every deadly thing around), keep track of your hunger, thirst, diseases and injuries (and die very informed) or try to get to the seemingly last big hub of civilization (and die trying to get there; or trying to get in; or after you get in; or on your way back out).

In short this is a game where you try to make it through the day while figuring out what has happened to your hero and the world - and die trying. I really don't want to spoil this too much for you, but rest assured, whether you prefer dying by traumatic brain injury, blood loss, cholera, dehydration or an angry mob, there are enough options there to suit everyone's tastes. And if that doesn't sound fun to you, go away, I don't like you.


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NEO Scavenger is the chess of survival games, if chess came without an instruction manual and forced you to scramble to understand its rules. It's all about making tactically sound moves, about the constant weighing of risk-reward decisions, but without ever feeling certain you made the right choice. Very much like real life in that way. The gameplay mechanics, while seemingly unforgiving, are actually there to remind you that you are not a badass superhero, just an average person thrown into a huge mess. Combined with the deliberate obfuscation of the player stats, this feeling of vulnerability makes the game surprisingly immersive. It's an exercise in role playing and player driven choices based on gut feeling rather than number crunching.

Quite realistically for an average Joe, going in situations guns-a-blazing will rarely be rewarded, running away and hiding your tracks from a bunch of stray dogs may. The combat is a constant dirty struggle of trying to get the upper hand while dancing around your opponent, surprisingly complex and rewarding for something delivered with a few buttons and a bit of text. But even with great equipment and a character with decent combat skills, every fight you survive will leave you weakened, hurt, tired and more vulnerable to the next threat that comes along. In that way, the combat, as well as the deeply simulated survival and sickness mechanics, enhance the constant feeling of being exposed and alone, afraid and uncertain in the middle of a hostile world. You are never allowed to feel safe. You are never allowed to hunker down, build a huge base, put fences around it and kill everything that dares come through. Throughout the game, the mechanics drive you to keep moving on, keep surviving day to day, keep doing mundane inventory management, and keep trying not to die. And almost always failing.

But dying here isn't always a bad thing. Since you can't really improve your skills, (though you can add to them in a limited way) you need to die to improve, to learn, to realize how to make better choices next time. You even need to die to learn more of the world, simply because you can never uncover everything in one playthrough. Which brings us to the story.

Behind the immersive atmosphere and the fun, unforgiving gameplay mechanics, hides an interesting, complex, well-written story and huge amounts of lore and flavour text delivered both in long screens and in tiny bites literally everywhere you look. The story will never beat you over the head with what you should do next (and it's fair to say you should remain doubtful when it seems to do that), so it is perfectly ignorable if you just enjoy the sandbox game. But it's worth getting into, and it's also worth remembering that every time you think you know all the possible answers to a question, there's likely more there to discover, if only you do things slightly differently next time (by having a different build, carrying different items, making different choices, going down a different path, uncovering different information). The mystery of the story is a sprawling, complicated puzzle, one you will not solve easily, even by finishing the game the first few times.

If it looks as if I'm ignoring the game's flaws, it's because to be honest I enjoy the game too much to notice them most of the time. That said, the UI could be friendlier to newcomers (which is a polite way to say it's pretty unintuitive); thankfully it's perfectly serviceable once you get used to it. Also, while obfuscating stats is an interesting and perfectly valid design choice, obfuscating some of the less intuitive game mechanics is simply an annoying hurdle to climb over when you first start out. In more technical matters, the cookie-based save system (one of the few elements there to constantly remind you that this is still a flash game) can be a real pain, the game doesn't play well with many commonly used modern resolutions and the process of adding mods is a bit too archaic and involved for most players these days. Even more importantly, there is a very valid argument to be made about how well a perma-death roguelike game with unforgiving mechanics can still make for a deep story-based experience that is more enjoyable than frustrating.

But even with all its problems, as you may have gathered I think this is a great game: the perfect flawed little gem, and in my head already a cult classic.

NEO Scavenger is a turn-based, post-apocalyptic, survival roguelike with perma-death. I also now sometimes fondly call it a Procedural Death Michigan. It's mean, immersive, annoyingly addictive and seems to strongly dislike players wearing right boots (left boots are fine). Basically, you scavenge around (and die after the building crumbles on you), fight other people scavenging around (and die valiantly with monkey wrench in hand) or try to talk to them (and die a turn later by drinking a celebratory made-it-through-the-turn sip of poisoned water), try to kill creatures that would like to eat you almost as much as you'd like to eat them (and die hungry), craft items to help you survive (and die warm because your fire alerted every deadly thing around), keep track of your hunger, thirst, diseases and injuries (and die very informed) or try to get to the seemingly last big hub of civilization (and die trying to get there; or trying to get in; or after you get in; or on your way back out). In short this is a game where you try to make it through the day while figuring out what has happened to your hero and the world - and die trying. I really don't want to spoil this too much for you, but rest assured, whether you prefer dying by traumatic brain injury, blood loss, cholera, dehydration or an angry mob, there are enough options there to suit everyone's tastes. And if that doesn't sound fun to you, go away, I don't like you. ----- [h1]And here's some actual analysis[/h1] NEO Scavenger is the chess of survival games, if chess came without an instruction manual and forced you to scramble to understand its rules. It's all about making tactically sound moves, about the constant weighing of risk-reward decisions, but without ever feeling certain you made the right choice. Very much like real life in that way. The gameplay mechanics, while seemingly unforgiving, are actually there to remind you that you are not a badass superhero, just an average person thrown into a huge mess. Combined with the deliberate obfuscation of the player stats, this feeling of vulnerability makes the game surprisingly immersive. It's an exercise in role playing and player driven choices based on gut feeling rather than number crunching. Quite realistically for an average Joe, going in situations guns-a-blazing will rarely be rewarded, running away and hiding your tracks from a bunch of stray dogs may. The combat is a constant dirty struggle of trying to get the upper hand while dancing around your opponent, surprisingly complex and rewarding for something delivered with a few buttons and a bit of text. But even with great equipment and a character with decent combat skills, every fight you survive will leave you weakened, hurt, tired and more vulnerable to the next threat that comes along. In that way, the combat, as well as the deeply simulated survival and sickness mechanics, enhance the constant feeling of being exposed and alone, afraid and uncertain in the middle of a hostile world. You are never allowed to feel safe. You are never allowed to hunker down, build a huge base, put fences around it and kill everything that dares come through. Throughout the game, the mechanics drive you to keep moving on, keep surviving day to day, keep doing mundane inventory management, and keep trying not to die. And almost always failing. But dying here isn't always a bad thing. Since you can't really improve your skills, (though you can add to them in a limited way) you need to die to improve, to learn, to realize how to make better choices next time. You even need to die to learn more of the world, simply because you can never uncover everything in one playthrough. Which brings us to the story. Behind the immersive atmosphere and the fun, unforgiving gameplay mechanics, hides an interesting, complex, well-written story and huge amounts of lore and flavour text delivered both in long screens and in tiny bites literally everywhere you look. The story will never beat you over the head with what you should do next (and it's fair to say you should remain doubtful when it seems to do that), so it is perfectly ignorable if you just enjoy the sandbox game. But it's worth getting into, and it's also worth remembering that every time you think you know all the possible answers to a question, there's likely more there to discover, if only you do things slightly differently next time (by having a different build, carrying different items, making different choices, going down a different path, uncovering different information). The mystery of the story is a sprawling, complicated puzzle, one you will not solve easily, even by finishing the game the first few times. If it looks as if I'm ignoring the game's flaws, it's because to be honest I enjoy the game too much to notice them most of the time. That said, the UI could be friendlier to newcomers (which is a polite way to say it's pretty unintuitive); thankfully it's perfectly serviceable once you get used to it. Also, while obfuscating stats is an interesting and perfectly valid design choice, obfuscating some of the less intuitive game mechanics is simply an annoying hurdle to climb over when you first start out. In more technical matters, the cookie-based save system (one of the few elements there to constantly remind you that this is still a flash game) can be a real pain, the game doesn't play well with many commonly used modern resolutions and the process of adding mods is a bit too archaic and involved for most players these days. Even more importantly, there is a very valid argument to be made about how well a perma-death roguelike game with unforgiving mechanics can still make for a deep story-based experience that is more enjoyable than frustrating. But even with all its problems, as you may have gathered I think this is a great game: the perfect flawed little gem, and in my head already a cult classic.