A newbie's first impression.

[Tahnval]

I can't post a review of this game for some reason, so I'm going to put what would have been my review here.

This review is for the lastest version of the game as of 26/04/2022, labelled as Konig update V2 with hotfixes 1 to 4.

I like the idea of Mon Bazou. I want to like the game. I might well like the game when it's closer to being finished. At the moment though, I can't. I tried, but there are two major issues that blight the game - physics and UI.

First the physics.

The worst problem is that interaction between items and vehicle surfaces appears to be frictionless. Take, for example, loading items into the bed of a pickup truck. Something you'll do very often in Mon Bazou. Unless the truck is parked on an *absolutely* horizontal surface (which few surfaces in the gameworld are), any items in the truck bed will *flow*. Actually flow. I'm not using hyperbole - they literally flow. You can watch them moving. Park your truck on the road outside your house, put some split logs in the truck bed, watch the split logs flow because the road is not absolutely horizontal. Split logs. Heavy and rough. Friction should be enough to stop them moving until the truck bed far from horizontal but in Mon Bazou even a fraction of a degree, invisible to the naked eye, is enough.

Then there's the fact that gravity on a vehicle is highly variable for items placed in it. For example, when one of those split logs flowing inside the not quite absolutely horizontal truck bed reaches the side of the truck bed then gravity will reverse and the log will climb up the side of the truck bed and throw itself out of the truck. Again, not hyperbole. You can watch it happening. Or you can leave the truck, sleep or do something else and come back to find most of the split logs in the road.

If you put an item into the truck bed and it's touching an item that's already there, they will violently repel each other. It's possible to launch a whole log at least 15 feet into the air that way.

Anything attached to the trailer hitch of the truck makes it impossible for the truck bed to ever be absolutely horizontal, so attaching anything to the trailer hitch makes the bed of the truck practically useless. Not that it's much use anyway.

The only way to keep items in the truck is to throw them into the cab and make sure both doors are shut. If, for example, you go into a shop you'll probably come out to find the items in the cab huddled up against one of the doors, but at least you can open the other door and move each item out of the driver's seat if they've flowed to that side. One at a time.

This is all when the truck is stationary. The situation gets much worse if you want to move the truck with anything in the bed. Which, of course, is something you'll want to do very often. Moving stuff is pretty much the point of a working pickup truck.

Now the UI.

There is no inventory system (except for cannabis for no explained reason and only cannabis for your own use, not cannabis to sell).
There are no portable containers apart from vehicles and specialised containers for a very few specific items. A harvest basket for potatoes or cannabis and a magnetic tray for bolts are the only ones I know of.

This means that you can only have one item at a time. As an example of what that means ingame, consider taking cuttings from trees to grow new trees.

You will want to do this and do it often. It's the only way to sustain a supply of trees and doing so is important in the game because you'll use logs as a product to sell and firewood both as a product to sell and as fuel. You'll very likely also want to plant more maple trees within a practical range of your sugar shack as maple syrup is the most important source of money.

So here's what it entails due to the inadequate UI:

Pick up loppers.
Equip loppers.
Walk to tree.
Lop a cutting off.
Unequip loppers.
Drop loppers.
Pick up cutting.
Walk to where you want the new tree.
Plant cutting.
Walk back to where you dropped the loppers.

Repeat those 10 steps. Over and over again.

Or say you want to buy 5 things from a shop. You pick one up, walk to the door of the shop and throw it on the ground outside. Then you walk back, pick up the next item, walk to the door of the shop and throw it on the ground outside. Then you walk back, pick up the next item, walk to the door of the shop and throw it on the ground outside. Then you walk back, pick up the next item, walk to the door of the shop and throw it on the ground outside. Then you walk back, pick up the next item, walk to the door of the shop and throw it on the ground outside.

You probably found that somewhat tedious just to read about it. Doing it is a lot more tedious. But that's only part one because then you have to pick each item up, one at a time of course, walk to your vehicle and throw the item inside. Then go back for the next one. Or you could combine both parts for each item, one at a time, but that's about as tedious.

You can't load items into a vehicle in an organised way. You can only drop them in. They will not arrange themselves (not even as much as they would in real life due to gravity), so you'll have a pile of mess. Which will flow and which will leap out of the vehicle unless they're inside an enclosed space. So the truck bed is close to useless.

You can't secure a load in any way. Not even a strap, let alone something as "advanced" as a sheet of material tied over the load in the bed of the pickup truck.

I don't regret buying the game to support the dev. It's a good idea for a game and it has a lot of potential. Even in its current early alpha state the concept is there and there's enough content to make a fun game, but I'm not sure I'll play it any more unless the UI and the physics of movable items are improved a lot and/or modders rescue it. There is an inventory mod, but it's also in an alpha state and the modder can't do anything about the physics so items might launch themselves into the sky when removed from the backpack.

[Timicro]

the parking brake/handbrake is the reason for the items sliding around. if you dont set it, they will stay put

[Zaraphiel]

And there is me, drifting with the truck with a full bed and lose nothing

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by Timicro:

the parking brake/handbrake is the reason for the items sliding around. if you dont set it, they will stay put

So you can't use the parking brake when parking. That's an...interesting..."undocumented feature".

Can you get chocks to stop the vehicle rolling? Anything? I suppose backing it into an immovable object would work.

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by Zaraphiel:

And there is me, drifting with the truck with a full bed and lose nothing

You're so wonderful! But your magnificence is far too geat to be applicable to a mere mortal such as myself or any of the players in the gameplay videos I watched or any of the players who commented on those videos.

[Timicro]

Originally posted by Tahnval:

Originally posted by Timicro:

the parking brake/handbrake is the reason for the items sliding around. if you dont set it, they will stay put

So you can't use the parking brake when parking. That's an...interesting..."undocumented feature".

Can you get chocks to stop the vehicle rolling? Anything? I suppose backing it into an immovable object would work.

you pretty much have to plan for where you are parking. tho ive gotten used to not setting the brake.

[Zarkov]

Yes, there is quite a bit of "artificial difficulty" in the game that makes the already fairly significant grind worse.

Something like cargo straps / tie-downs for the pickup truck would be a huge improvement, If that is tricky to get right, I wouldn't mind if they were "magical" like in e.g. farming simulator and just held all cargo perfectly still regardless of what happens to the truck.

Some higher tier syrup transportation would be really nice as well, like a (smaller) tank truck that could unload at the loading docks at the syrup sales point, maybe combined with a larger reservoir (upgrade) in the shack.

But I think the one thing that basically prevents me from recommending this game to others, is the cost / time requirement of hooking up to the power grid + the electric heater. With those things in place, the grind is much more reasonable, but you need ~$47,000 to unlock that. I think the current game would greatly benefit from lowering that a bit.

[MpShade]

Can't post a review? Do you legally own the game? I don't know about you but in real life I can't fit a set of loppers in my pocket, so I do have to put it down and pick them back up again. Personally I find games with magic pockets unrealistic. So, you don't get a shopping cart, but the store isn't very big... The game is this very early access. If you take notice they are working on fixing things the parking break issue (it's not as simple as you think) and making product easier to move and transport. So yes, they still have a lot of work to do to fix some of the outstanding bugs. Most people don't understand how difficult making a game with a small team is, and it takes time. But people like the OP will sit on their chair and demand for better results. Even if it were free you'd complain. My honest opinion - I think the OP pirated the game.

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by MpShade:

[..] My honest opinion - I think the OP pirated the game.

My honest opinion - I think you're an unreasonable person who chooses whatever insults pop into your head because it's easier than replying to a post. Even if they don't make much sense - why would only reviewing be blocked in that situation?

Another example - "But people like the OP will sit on their chair and demand for better results." is simply a lie.

You didn't even bother reading my post, did you?

I suspect my review didn't post because I wrote it in notepad and pasted it into the review box. Maybe that's not allowed. Maybe it's too long. Or maybe it's because I use a standards-compliant browser (Pale Moon) and many websites aren't standards-compliant any more. It probably didn't help that the most recent update to Pale Moon was broken and downgrading to a previous version isn't guaranteed to work without issues. Up until last week I could see reviews on Steam. Now I can't. Or maybe it's the security software I have running, which definitely does cause problems with some websites nowadays (because they rely on methods that break the software's protections against cross-site scripting, for example).

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by Timicro:

Originally posted by Tahnval:

So you can't use the parking brake when parking. That's an...interesting..."undocumented feature".

Can you get chocks to stop the vehicle rolling? Anything? I suppose backing it into an immovable object would work.

you pretty much have to plan for where you are parking. tho ive gotten used to not setting the brake.

I suppose I could. But it's engrained. Park a vehicle, put the parking brake on. It's what you do.

Having said that, in 7 Days To Die I routinely just jump off my motorbike before it's even stopped moving because that's fine in that game. So I can adapt to the rules of a gameworld :)

Given that the parking brake is Mon Bazou is worse than useless when moving and worse than useless when stationary, it would probably be better to disable it unless it can be fixed. Or at least mention it in the game. Any new player is almost certainly going to be using the parking brake and probably won't make the connection between using the parking brake and all items in the vehicle flowing and trying to throw themselves out of the vehicle. A simple message stating something like "The parking brake is bugged and breaks the physics of anything put inside the vehicle. See <an URL here> for more details" would be fine in a very early unfinished alpha build (which Mon Bazou is at the moment).

[Timicro]

Originally posted by Tahnval:

Originally posted by Timicro:

you pretty much have to plan for where you are parking. tho ive gotten used to not setting the brake.

I suppose I could. But it's engrained. Park a vehicle, put the parking brake on. It's what you do.

Having said that, in 7 Days To Die I routinely just jump off my motorbike before it's even stopped moving because that's fine in that game. So I can adapt to the rules of a gameworld :)

Given that the parking brake is Mon Bazou is worse than useless when moving and worse than useless when stationary, it would probably be better to disable it unless it can be fixed. Or at least mention it in the game. Any new player is almost certainly going to be using the parking brake and probably won't make the connection between using the parking brake and all items in the vehicle flowing and trying to throw themselves out of the vehicle. A simple message stating something like "The parking brake is bugged and breaks the physics of anything put inside the vehicle. See <an URL here> for more details" would be fine in a very early unfinished alpha build (which Mon Bazou is at the moment).

agree there. one thing can do that really makes it obvious is if you put stuff in a vehicle and tap space without the parking brake on. the stuff will be still then slide then stop again.

[siev]

Let's summarize what we have seen so far:
1.) A moderator saying what is essentially "your problem does not exist" to the suggestion of a simple truck bed cover to prevent items from flying out of the bed (which definitely does happen).
2.) A person saying to just simply NOT use the parking brake when parking (???).
3.) Another person completely ignoring the OP's feedback, complains about how magic pockets are unrealistic in a game where you survive solely off maple syrup and poutine and where trees fully mature in 2 weeks, and finally accuses the OP of pirating the game (????).

Great first impression, guys.

[DrunkenAussie]

the "pocket" thing annoyed me to so i installed the backpack mod , and got on with it. The truck bed thing annoyed me , so i used syrup poles as handy wheel chocks . For what it is , its an imperfect game , the problems you are complaining about are most likely limitations of the engine .

When the OP creates a game , where the handbrake is king and ruler and logs behave themselves , i hope it has a skip button option on the text interface ...

Hauling logs will be a small part of ur grind , using the trailer and doing syrup runs work fine , disconnect the trailer and the handbrake is not an issue when parked. Youve spent more time complaining then trying to play the game .

[Timicro]

Originally posted by homogeneous post-humans:

Let's summarize what we have seen so far:
1.) A moderator saying what is essentially "your problem does not exist" to the suggestion of a simple truck bed cover to prevent items from flying out of the bed (which definitely does happen).
2.) A person saying to just simply NOT use the parking brake when parking (???).
3.) Another person completely ignoring the OP's feedback, complains about how magic pockets are unrealistic in a game where you survive solely off maple syrup and poutine and where trees fully mature in 2 weeks, and finally accuses the OP of pirating the game (????).

Great first impression, guys.

for the parking brake thing, i was giving a solution till they fix it. and once you get used to it, there isnt much issue.

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by homogeneous post-humans:

Let's summarize what we have seen so far:
1.) A moderator saying what is essentially "your problem does not exist" to the suggestion of a simple truck bed cover to prevent items from flying out of the bed (which definitely does happen).
2.) A person saying to just simply NOT use the parking brake when parking (???).
3.) Another person completely ignoring the OP's feedback, complains about how magic pockets are unrealistic in a game where you survive solely off maple syrup and poutine and where trees fully mature in 2 weeks, and finally accuses the OP of pirating the game (????).

Great first impression, guys.

(2) is different to the others - Timicro wasn't hostile and/or lying about what I'd written and they were being helpful by telling me what the cause of objects flowing inside vehicles and throwing themselves out of vehicles is. Nobody would know that using the parking brake causes that without being told. Which is why it's particularly bizarre that it's not mentioned anywhere in the game. Has nobody told the dev? Does the dev just not care at all? A message saying something like "This thing doesn't work properly, I suggest you don't use it until I've fixed it" is fine in an early alpha version.

But the other things, yes. It's the sadly common false dichotomy of polarisation - if you're not absolutely with us you're TeH EvIL! Adulation or hatred are the only possibilities! Nothing can possibly be in any way imperfect in the Thing Of Wonder!

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by DrunkenAussie:

the "pocket" thing annoyed me to so i installed the backpack mod , and got on with it. The truck bed thing annoyed me , so i used syrup poles as handy wheel chocks . For what it is , its an imperfect game , the problems you are complaining about are most likely limitations of the engine .

When the OP creates a game , where the handbrake is king and ruler and logs behave themselves , i hope it has a skip button option on the text interface ...

Hauling logs will be a small part of ur grind , using the trailer and doing syrup runs work fine , disconnect the trailer and the handbrake is not an issue when parked. Youve spent more time complaining then trying to play the game .

No, I haven't. Apparently I can write much faster than you can read.

Trying the "If you can't do something better you're not allowed to do anything other than praise it" argument just makes you look silly. No rational person believes that ridiculous line of argument. It's obviously nonsense.

But you have been accidentally helpful by indirectly answering the question I asked in post 3, after being told that the parking brake breaks the game - "Can you get chocks to stop the vehicle rolling?" Obviously being helpful was the opposite of your intention, but you've been helpful by mistake.