I think I'm done with the game

[Zehm]

The beginning was fun. Learning what items interact with each other and exploring the jungle. Jumping around in the trees was a fun time too. I followed along with the tutorial until it asked me to evolve. That transformed me into the second evolution form and the game placed me in the lake region.

The game went downhill from there. The world was lovely to look at, but with the exception of a few new plants and animals, there was nothing new to discover. The trees were less dense and the puzzle-like tree navigation gave way to tedious footslogging. The neuron skill tree didn't offer much game play variation with most of the skills just being do X a bit better. Communication skills and forming packs was clunky to the point of being a waste of effort.

It became very repetitive. Breed 6 times, explore, find a meteor, move camp, skip generation, repeat. By the time I had explored the majority of the lake, I had been through that routine 3 times. There wasn't really anything new to experience, so I evolved and it just stuck me back in the lake with the same evolution form. I played another generation in the lake before making my way into the grasslands, where I played out another 2 generations before it evolved me into the third form. And that was were I decided I couldn't play anymore.

There's just nothing new to discover. You can experience 90% of the game without venturing out of the first campsite. The first things I did in my play through was bash some rocks together and sharpen a stick, and 40 hours later I'm still doing the same thing. In this game about evolution, nothing actually evolves.

[Cougarific]

Decent review. Most people put reviews in the Reviews section instead of the Discussions section.

You didn't so prepare for people to come and "discuss" how your opinion is wrong and potentially call you mean names. Good luck!

[Voss]

I kinda agree to this review, after awhile this smelling, looking, hearing becomes very very tedious and atm i find it hard to continue. And no clue how far it it to unlock a specific Gene like how much of this carry items with 2 hands do i need to do? after 1hr still no clue how far i progressed with it. And something thats making me poed, i make sure all couples gets 2 kids each, but than after next gen 3 of them are family and i have to skip another generation and find me a new monkey... and why the heck cant i attack animals in groups? i go with 5 monkeys they all look on while i attack.. dev missed something?

[Cougarific]

Originally posted by Stinky:

after next gen 3 of them are family and i have to skip another generation and find me a new monkey...

Elder males can mate with adult females to increase the clan's genetic diversity.

Originally posted by Stinky:

i go with 5 monkeys they all look on while i attack.. dev missed something?

This was originally planned as a 3-game series ending with humans.

At this stage of evolution (as with most simians today), primates will work together to Intimidate an enemy, but not to attack it. It's every primate for himself/herself - which is how it works in-game (if you have the right Communication neurons). Just last night I watched a clan member kill a big cat that took us off-guard).

Working together like pack animals (wolves, hyenas, lions) isn't in our nature. We need to be convinced by a leader to follow them into battle. This comes later in human evolution.

[Voss]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

This was originally planned as a 3-game series ending with humans.

At this stage of evolution (as with most simians today), primates will work together to Intimidate an enemy, but not to attack it. It's every primate for himself/herself - which is how it works in-game (if you have the right Communication neurons). Just last night I watched a clan member kill a big cat that took us off-guard).

Working together like pack animals (wolves, hyenas, lions) isn't in our nature. We need to be convinced by a leader to follow them into battle. This comes later in human evolution.

i dont know the time age atm when it comes to the game, but we have been pack hunting for at least over 2 million years(even more possibly), tools 3.3mill(at least). but i take this game with a pinch of salt when it comes to accuracy, but at least pack hunting would be a viable evolution stage in the game.

[garry]

(Sorry I didn't quote, it didn't work for some reason.)
@Stinky In my personal experiences with the game, the self defense (basically pack hunting) neuron comes a bit after the third or fourth stage of evolution (Maybe 6,500,000 BC).
Very inaccurate if you think about it, chimps probably got this same kind of instinct recently (relatively speaking).

[Voss]

Originally posted by Rare Wubbox:

(Sorry I didn't quote, it didn't work for some reason.)
@Stinky In my personal experiences with the game, the self defense (basically pack hunting) neuron comes a bit after the third or fourth stage of evolution (Maybe 6,500,000 BC).
Very inaccurate if you think about it, chimps probably got this same kind of instinct recently (relatively speaking).

i think im at the 4th stage atm, now im basically breeding genetics with breeding over and over and over and over. ive explored everything so now im just farming to the late stage evolution.

[sithlordaj]

I'm fairly certain I'll finish the game, but won't ever have a second run through it.
This game had a lot of potential that I don't think it lived up to; though I would probably check out a sequel

What I expected:
Humans are thought to have evolved during a series of drastic weather changes; forcing adaptation. The game tries to recreate this to a degree by having the biomes shift if you travel toward the far side of the map, but that's not really the character of the weather I was expecting. The map should have been more dynamic and probably procedural. This would have conveyed the science, made each run unique, and presented mini challenges as you try to figure out what you need to survive the map you received.

Evolution isn't just a collection of skills and gaining more. You drop some. We aren't better in every way from our ancestors. I'm not entirely sure why they are called 'neurons', but I think each 'evolution' of the species should have had about the same number of skills and with a particular set of them. As you adapt, you can gain new skills, but at the expense of others. You trade them. This isn't scientifically accurate, but it's closer than what we got I think. Mutations in babies can still be a thing; idk if that's a good or bad thing though.

The AI and animations really needed to shine for this to work out right. Have the snakes and cats able to climb trees a bit. Have it so that your clan is actually useful and a character in the game. Make it so the animals attack each other and you can scavenge. How about animals attacking your camp is something you actually need to worry about because they tracked you down instead of teleporting behind you.

Maybe there was a difficulty setting that I didn't set right, but the survival aspect doesn't seem right. I drink water once in the morning and don't need to worry about it all day? food gathering isn't the primary activity?

[.]

I played for 58 hours on epic games when it came out, Game got boring after that I went all the way to the ocean beachhead and through the desert and I survived until I reached lusy then lost all interest when the game finally had said F you. It deleted all my progress. da fuq so i quit playing and am not interested in playing again anytime soon until the second game comes out I have quite literally at this point put in over 1000 hours and have done everything you can possibly think of. Such as examples are going to the ocean and never being bipedal, Surviving in the jungle until homoerectus, Killing the eagle and birds. Killing everything in the game. I have done it all so it is boring and it is just literally eat, sleep, ♥♥♥♥, evolve die.

[Cougarific]

Yah, many games tend to get a bit stale once you've put a thousand hours into them.

[garry]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Yah, many games tend to get a bit stale once you've put a thousand hours into them.

ALL games become stale when you overplay them. Video games are only meant as a way to kill time where you really, truly couldn't be doing a single more productive thing.
Edit: at least that's how the first ones were intended to be.