Here's my steam review I couldn't post

[Maximemoring]

(Just realized I was playing through family share, so I guess it's going in Discussions)

This game wasn't ready for full release. Not at all. It's janky, it's unpolished, it's barely even a game. I WANT TO LOVE IT, but it's barely a demo, and the game compensates too hard in ways that actually take away from what makes it good (as a sandbox).

The blacksmithing is pretty in-depth, and satisfying, but that's the extent of this game's DESIGN. Let me explain real quick:

There is no real balancing to time, and that's baked-in on purpose. Main NPC dialogue is the only thing that moves time forward and that's OPTIONAL, so there is no point in being efficient with resource or time. It's all just grind, no "stress", no time limit, so they had no reason to balance the grind in a reasonable way to make it pay off. That's what makes games GAMES! You can't just not have any balancing

So obviously, it's a HUGE grind too! This game doesn't respect your time. To make any real progress (chatting to NPCs is counterintuitively not progress. Milestones like rent, shop upgrades, big story beats that give you an end goal or reason, are), you need to make weapons for straight-up DOZENS of HOURS. A dry, directionless, unrestricted grind. This is also heavily reminded by the very dry value system, which barely even consider the weapons' stats, or what stat different clients value. They promised to make this better, then didn't, and promptly released the game.

Then there's mining, and the 5 limit PER ore, not total limit, that you start with. I don't know who made that decision, but that is outright poor game design. Plain and simple. And as cool as that sounds in concept, to mine your own ore, this excitement lasts a whole... 15 minutes. You then realize everything is always in the same spots, and there's no danger, or risk, or cost, or time limit. It's again, just a dry grind.

I'm willing to disregard the cringe dialog if it wasn't for the obvious way this game compensates for the lack of meaningful interaction with, again, dry, uninteresting "good vs bad" choices. You've got a sandbox, right, with such a boringly on-track linear story. Save. Try. See what happens. Load if it kills you. It's DRY. Like everything in this game, there is almost no nuance, or player agency in the outcomes.

I hadn't seen enough people talk about this, so I had to pitch in. This game is not really a game. There is no real game design, or game loop. You are SUPPOSED to enjoy the grind by itself. The rest is all just side stuff, and it's neither necessary, nor really even incentivized by anything other than how much YOU value YOUR time.

It's all just kind of there. And that would be totally cool if the game was specifically designed to reward a grind without limits or punishments, as well as rewarding experimentation and curiosity. A true sandbox. But it's not even that. Most of your gain, your progress, comes from just.. doing it.

As it is, all that really matters is the value of the ore used, and length of the blade, unless you're making a custom weapon with specific stat needs. And even that doesn't really take in consideration how well you do, as long as you it within spec! Why is there no game design, UI design, anything, to reward the player's AGENCY? The player's EFFORTS to make top notch weapons with inventive design, or to sell the right stat to the right kind of client. Nah, it's either automated, or just plain not there.

This is a tech demo, and a cool one at that. But it's releasing too early, and would only be "worth your time" during a sale. Honestly, it's probably not worth your -time- either.

[issssk]

Most work simulators don't have any kind of clock ticking against you. They are made specifically for players to "enjoy the grind", as you put it. It's not for everyone, sure. You want extrensic motivation, others are happy with intrinsic motivation and a bit of a storyline to tie it together. Calling it "barely a demo" is quite stretching the truth, especially for a practically bug-free indy game.

As for making money, there's also the worker system or the Arena, both of which can give you lots of money without having to stand at the forge yourself.

[Maximemoring]

As a game, it is barely a demo. As a tech demo/sandbox, sure, it's pretty solid, but again the issue is that it's not designed like a sandbox. A *game*, even a sandbox, doesn't just run on pure intrinsic motivation; if it has felt like it in the past for you, it is most likely due to (potentially unnoticed! the best kind!) game design being used in order to facilitate and reward sandbox gameplay, while this doesn't.

You can create a multitude of weapons, sure, but it unfortunately truly doesn't matter much whether you spend 30 minutes making one extremely long weapon or 3 minutes at a time making 10 tiny ones. What unfortunately matters too much is the material and length of the blade. The game rewards you very linearly regardless, which is super counter to sandbox experiences.

Also: Why does the worker system matter if time doesn't matter? Doesn't it detract from your agency as a player if what matters is your intrinsic grind reward? It shouldn't, as this system is one designed to reward a gameplay loop, which it barely has one. It is just a plain old mismatch of design ideas, a lack of thought and research. (and a large lack of depth in that department overall regardless of playstyle)