Wishing for a neutral review option right about now. After nearly 40 hours of playtime, I feel like I've given the game a pretty honest shot. I wanted so badly to like it more than I did, I just keep telling myself to push through and eventually, I would have more fun once I got past some of the more grindy parts but that moment never came for me. Between the frustrating reproduction of trees rocks and weeds in the fields each season change, the repetitive dungeon layouts so similar to each other that I found myself backtracking constantly, the lack of decent harvestables, the fact that processed goods are often worth less and the confusingly difficult to trigger cut scenes with NPCs, I just found myself having a different experience than I'd been hoping for. It's not without its charm, of course. The animals in the Sahara are great, particularly the mammoths, the NPCs are very pretty, and the character and home customizations are great But the grindy nature of things made it difficult to enjoy in the end. I'd give it like a 6/10 Maybe it's just not for me.

I am starting this off by saying it's not a bad game, I just can't really put a finger on what I feel is wrong with the game.
My lady and I play this in co-op and I was excited at first to see we share a lot of items, and the rewards are given to both people.
There is just something wrong with, pacing I think? It's not slow like stardew valley, where you always are trying to move forward with new technology and money, trying to build the town, etc. In this game.. you have the clan contribution, but I just don't think it really invests me.
So the first issue is some of the contribution "milestones" don't mean anything to the player. Like "Laundry" which as far as I can tell right now, does literally nothing for us. Or a "southern contribution box" that just has another box to the south of your area, within a 5 secondish walk time. That really means nothing to the player, so most days I either felt like I was roaming around aimlessly, or spamming the fishing so I can get more contribution points.
The next issue is that the people you talk to just feel...soulless? For some reason I am really not invested in the people or their stories, I think it's just because you don't really get any quests that interact with them much and most things are just shared in one sentence and hollowed out.
Another pacing issue is how quickly new areas open up.. but there is almost nothing to do in those areas. Yes a few new people, yes more fish and flowers, but within a few minutes you already have the entire new section figured out and no longer any new feelings.
I think it's the pacing and the atmosphere of the game itself that kills it for me. The lady and I just feel like we are already bored within 5 hours of playing, though we still play in hopes it's getting better.

I like the visuals. I like the audio. I like farming stuff. BUT everything in this game just feels SO tedious, and ultimately, I just feel disappointed.

Like, I get that it's the stone age and automation isn't really a thing (except when it is - thinking about that mill) but placing items into crafting/processing containers is several button presses plus an animation for each one. So imagine 20 kegs: press... wait... press... wait, repeat 19 more times. Like, why do games have problems that Stardew Valley figured out years ago where you can just press and hold and walk down the line of kegs?

On top of that, the unique idea/innovation system is just a standard progression system. Find certain new items, make community center offerings to the spirits, get quest for new crafting station, repeat. I'm not sure what I expected differently, but I feel like if you call something different, it should be different? And the way seeds 'evolve' is just by planting more. There's nothing else to it other than leveling up your farming skill by harvesting more of the same type of crops. Nothing with like planting near to other types, or getting seeds from various locations, or making seeds out of higher quality crop yields, or any other interaction. Just plant more.

And don't even get me started on the animals and how they improve over generations but not by enough to matter, and it only makes it so there's even more micromanaging to do. I swear to god, I would hold my own festival day if there was just one day where a farm of 16 animals did not have 1-2 constantly sick. Not to mention the rare animal system that has no impact other than a different colored sprite. Is this horse faster? No, but it looks like a unicorn. Is the poop worth more? No, it's literally the same.

Last but not least, I didn't find any of the characters interesting. I could not tell you the name of anyone in the game or what their personalities are. I tried to like them, but I kept going 'wait, who is that again?' and just couldn't make any connections.

It may not seem like it, but I did go into this game wanting to like it, and I did enjoy my time at first, but bit by bit all the annoyances started to add up, and there was nothing special going on here. The game is fine though, I guess, and if you really enjoy it, more power to you. Maybe my expectations were too high and/or it's just not for me, but I also feel like none of the reviews mention the problems I had, so hopefully you read this with other reviews to get a full picture.

This game is frustrating to play, with completely messed up controls.

- Designed for controllers, so on keyboard/mouse you are getting a middle finger. Have an entirely empty quickbar? Here are 3 sets of radial buttons to tab through to slowly and painfully switch tools every 1-2 steps to try clear your land with mixed debris.
- Overlaying interactions all condensed to a left click. Want to water your plants? Let me repeatedly open the animal menu for the animal touching the square. Want to harvest? Let me toss a water bucket, then another, and another. Want to actually pet the animal? Let me till and un-till the land behind him on loop. It's horrible.
- Economy has no balance. Seed purchase costs as much as the produce grown from it over several days. Cooked food is worth a fraction (in some cases 1/6th) of the grown produce that went into it. The energy restored by the food is less than you wasted growing the damn thing to make the food. The best strategy is to just not grow stuff. Go fish, they are worth a fortune for a fraction of the energy and no daily maintenance needed.
- You know how Stardew sprinkles a light amount of debris over your land on season change? This game does it daily. Floods of it. I'm getting like 30+ per day. It's not just grass, but also wood and rocks, like the whole village sleepwalks and throws crap on my land on purpose. I have nowhere near the energy to clear it.
- 1.5 season in, I'm still manually watering everything. No sign of any irrigation upgrade. 75% of daily energy goes into basic watering.
- Walking is painfully slow, even while mounted. I had to get a mod for walking speed to be able to do anything in the day.
- Quick stashing to chests does not exist. You'll have a ton of small capacity chests to go through, manually depositing one item at a time. You can't drag drop it. You also can't just click on it. For some reason you have to do it in multiple steps.
- Fishing in the pond shows outlines of all the fish. No matter your fishing experience, they all look identical until you have your mouse on them for a while to progress fishing. The problem is, the moment you mouse over 1 of them, the mouse hard snaps and won't let go for a long time so you can't quickly go through them all to find the fish you want. Again, all ruined by controller users who apparently can't follow the fish. There needs to be a toggle to disable the snapping.

This game has not heard of QoL. They took the good features of similar games and tossed them out the window. Don't get me wrong, the game is pretty. It just plays horribly.

Got this to play co-op and some of the design choices are just strange. Money and seeds are shared and so are some tools, but others aren't. Some quests require everyone to be be present, so we'd all have to stop what we were doing or plan our day around them. Other quests are first come, first serve, with no way for the other players to see what was said. It just feels really off. It's cute and probably a fine single player game, but after the first 90 minutes we just felt like we were constantly having our fun interrupted.

I wish I could give this game a "kinda" recommendation. It's just ok. The graphics are good, the story is unique, the music is great but otherwise I just feel like it's.... lacking? Like others have said, it is weird that this is a caveman type game but there is no combat or hunting besides fishing. Buying meat from someone is weird... like there are animals all over the place. The fishing mini game is terrible. So boring and takes FOR EVER. I really dislike the progression. It just kinda moves along whether you contribute or not. I'm not a fan of that. I want to work for the next step in the game. The map is large... and beautiful but it's also empty. Visiting the beach for the first time I was like... this is it? Some trees and shells? And then the Savannah... there's like nothing there. Just seems like so much potential wasted. You spend so much time in an incredibly short day just to roam around and empty land and whistle at an animal once in a while. The majority of my in game day is spent watering crops, feeding animals and trying to maintain my area free from rocks so I can just walk around and then my day is over. I'm out of stamina or the day is over. I think I would feel better about it if this game were in early access with plans to really improve the gameplay, stamina, farming and over all feel in the game. The $25 isn't justified to me with the amount of content. I know this game has a cult like following but I just don't get it.

I wish I could recommend this game, as it has so much potential, and clearly the developer put a lot of love and care into the product. However, it has balance problems that make much of the game unrewarding.

1. The most lucrative way to earn "money"/contribution points is fishing, by a long shot. You can can easily make thousands per day just "selling" dried fish. Unfortunately the fishing minigame is extremely dull and simple.

2. The progression path is all about farming and raising animals. However, neither of these will earn enough to make the activities worthwhile. We kept waiting for the next machine to process foods or animal products that would pay off, but it never happened. It takes the majority of an entire day to process, for example, a fruit wine that will sell for 19 points. Yet we can sell a single dried fish for hundreds.

3. There's no risk. You basically can't do anything wrong. There are no aspects of the game that introduce even the slightest tension. I understand the theme that the game is going for, and that's fine, but it's not for me.

4. Sharing "money" and seeds in coop mode is a real turn off for us. I understand that this is part of the theme of the game, but there's nothing really to collectively work towards. You work collectively because you have to, not because there is a compelling reason to do so. Thus, nobody really wants to spend on frivolous things like decorations that could make the game a little more fun.

5. There's little charm to the characters, and I suspect it's because there are just too many. I ended up dreading cutscenes, and while some of the festivals were amusing, many of them were simply tedious.

After >15 hours I find myself irritated and mad at the game. I'm running around busting my buns for the clan, but the rest of the clansfolk lounge around dancing and playing flutes, and all for no significant feeling of reward. It's intended to be a positive nod to humanity working together, but feels more like a subtle criticism of communism.

This is a game for people who simply like to build a farm and interact with NPCs. I'm not trying to dis people who like it, to each there own. But if you're approaching this thinking that it might scratch a Stardew itch, it's not that.

I spent 30 hours expecting to be thrilled or impressed but it actually left me feeling quite dumb for the time I lost. The game has some cool stuff, like how it manages inventory/seeds. But unlike other farm sims, the progression is quite set, there's not much freedom to do things and money is quite useless. It's original and different which is a good thing but the game just feels very pointless.

I played this game from start to finish, and I still can't recommend it. It has a great look and style, and some great mechanics. But the pacing is an absolute mess. The most useful technologies came so late into the game I didn't need them anymore. And I don't think it was clear how closely I was to pay attention to the prophecies. I spent half my game time doing nothing and waiting for more events to happen, only to realize I needed to somehow interpret the prophecies into meeting some vague checkpoints. Also I didn't like the cave puzzles at all. I was looking for a cozy little tribal farming sim, and while it did have those elements and they were excellent, everything else kind of got in the way or wasn't fun.

The game never manages to feel compelling. Its systems are competently made, but they lack soul and there is no real driver to what you do in the game. There’s a distinct lack of rewards in the game that act as a carrot on a stick for the player to follow. Despite having all the hallmarks of the genre, like: building and decorating a home, marriage and family, friendships, and exploration, it just never really builds to anything substantive. And the currency for getting those rewards makes it feel like a ton of work with little to show for it.

The progression just feels broken for some reason. It isn’t just the fact that progression happens outside of the player’s input, which I actually kind of like. It is that this progression is very stilted and the rewards never feel meaningful and they are completely enshrouded. You never really know what you are capable of building towards because it relies on an “Idea” system whereby discoveries are made by your fellow tribe members, but it isn’t like there is a roadmap for you to follow. With something like Stardew, you know what to expect and what you could potentially build towards. And worse than all of that is that the contribution points you need for getting those rewards are so arbitrary in their value that certain activities feel largely pointless and others give massive rewards, but are incredibly tedious, like fishing.

The NPCs are nice and there are various pleasant scenes involving them, but they just never really stood out too much to me. They can be charming, but I don’t feel like I’ll ever recall anything special about them.

The game could definitely be described as cozy, but perhaps too much. I try to play the game and put time into it, but I generally end up feeling so bored after a day or two in-game that I have to put it down. I sometimes forget I’ve even been playing the game and then I see it in my Steam list and think “Oh! I was playing that.”

There are a lot of people that really like the game and find it quite compelling, so your opinion could differ quite a lot from mine. My takeaway is that the game is just okay. It is something to pass the time with, but when I end up feeling even more bored after playing it than I did before playing it….well, that’s not exactly high praise. And I’m so conflicted on giving it a positive or negative review review. The game, at best, is a 5/10 erring slightly above the 5, I’d hazard. And no more. And with how boring it is, I just can't in good conscience rate it positively.