I wanted to like this game. I thought it would be amazing based on its description. I liked the idea of building a society, each person getting their own personality, exploring, tactical combat, your people living a life and dying and hopefully leaving the next generation better off.

16 hours into it, and I still can't get excited. I never get the "just a few more minutes" feeling.

The biggest problem for me, is the amount of micro-management needed for just even a small colony. I think I got up to about 12 characters, and it got so boring. I had to start naming my tribe folks as "Male Wood" (for a woodcutter) or "Female Nurse Entertainer" so I could try and manage them from just the character pull down menu. Where I was looking for a game I could grow characters and feel their personality, I had to manage them purely on their function.

Additionally, the villagers seemed to be automated in all the wrong ways. I made a Caregiver / Hunter. His primary job was to teach and raise kids, but when not doing that, I wanted him to hunt. Unfortunately, he spent all his time hunting so instead of getting my kids education to up around 300 path points, they hovered around 100 - 150. (Developers, if you are reading this, you need to allow for priorities to be set). Another example of poor automation - One of my villagers was a water carrier and clay digger. The intent would be for him to gather water, and when enough water was gathered, start digging up clay. But currently, you have to "craft" water. So now with all the management I'm doing, I have to take the time to "craft water." If I don't, then the privy or bath isn't able to be used. (Note to developers - allow a priority to be set based on storage thresholds. i.e. Priority #1 "craft" water until there is 100 in stock, then "dig clay" until there is only 20 water in stock, then switch back to water). Bottom line is that your character's automation will likely not be going in the direction you want it to, and you have to micro-manage some very low level crafting (e.g. water).

Another problem I have is the ability to go out and explore. Only starting with 5-6 people in the campaigns makes it very difficult to be able to go adventuring effectively quickly. First I need to get enough Artisans, Gatherers, and Collectors to keep my society going. I'm 1-2 hours into a game before I can get to a point where I can craft simple weapons. But I don't have the ability to send out 4-5 people at once to explore and fight. That's not going to happen until the 4-5 hour mark (I'll concede that maybe I don't run the most efficient colony, so others may get to this quicker). But even the combat is difficult to follow. Weapons have different means of using them (i.e. slash vs. thrust type thing). But it was never clear to me if my characters were using the method I had clicked on. I'll admit my combat experience is limited, so maybe it gets better as it goes.

A couple of other negative comments.
Your character not only dies if it runs out of hit points, but if one of his/her attributes go down to zero. This brought a whole new level of micro-management - I now have to monitor my characters to ensure they weren't going to die from doing mundane tasks.

Too much confusion on building and crafting. What's the difference between a wood hut, clay hut and stone hut? Which toy do I need to craft and for what? If I craft something it goes into my stock, but now I have to remember who I crafted the item for. Hey I've given the pregnancy balm to that woman, and she hasn't used it in months. So you have to micro-manage who crafts what, then manage who gets what craft, and then hope the person you provided it for uses it. Oh wait, the Axe that you crafted for your adventurer can't be used because his/her body and mind aren't high enough. So now I have to wait for them to get enough path points and hope a skill/trait comes up that allows me to raise their attribute to the correct level. But it's going to be another 20 minutes before his path points will raise to that level. And I have to remember when I finally do get to them what it was I wanted to do.

As your society progresses, these dynamics just worsen. I'm not entirely sure what the benefit of a cook is, or an entertainer. But I have them, and I'm managing them, but I don't know why.


Anyway, I will say I do enjoy "leveling up" each character and trying to get them the best they can be. I'm not quite sure why I would choose a negative trait (e.g. sloth) when promoting a character, but I'm sure I'm missing something.

Perhaps more trial and error will help me, but it's hard to get motivated to play this game. I wouldn't recommend it at this point.

yes the game is opaque as hell, but ♥♥♥♥ if it isn't fun. for someone like me the mechanical complexity and unpuzzling it out is half the fun

edit: ok 10 hours later i have no idea how this game has 'mixed' reviews. ive spent 12 hours straight hooked on building my little villagers up to greatness

edit edit: SERIOUSLY HOW IS THIS GAME NOT GETTING RAVE REVIEWS? read through the positive reviews that go more into depth if you're skeptical, because it is completely, absolutely 100% worth it. There are some janks (what EA game doesnt have them?) but i've been completely hooked, I genuinely don't see the apparently dealbreaking issues negative reviews are talking about at all, it really comes across as a lack of interest in learning and unraveling the mechanics of a game old-school style, which The First Men ABSOLUTELY rewards. If you played and enjoyed old games like Majesty - other reviews have made this comparison as well, and thank goodness for it, or I might'be overlooked this gem - you will absolutely fall in love with The First Men. Confused by mechanics? That's fine! The game is really not punishing for it. The only thing to be aware of it that its difficult to get out of combat if you started it unprepared, but there's also very little pressure forcing you to just... wait until you're very prepared. Expect to put hours into building up your little town, in what at a glance feels like 'slow' progress, but really you're constantly chipping away and get a feel of establishing and fleshing out your settlement the whole time. It really is a gem of a game.

Love the concept, art style is amazing, not digging the mechanics. Long time base-building management resource survival genre. (Favorite of all time is Dungeons 3) But the UI gets in the way of my enjoyment. I've been playing the Lindaris level for awhile now and consulted the tutorials I could find, but for me there's too many choices, and the waiting... the waiting for another child to be born and get old enough to actually be of function. (needing the nursemaid, needing the teacher dude, needing a lot of prosperity) Quite frankly I can't even remember which path (3 steps later) is going to open up the job functionality I'm looking for. As another reviewer stating I have begun naming the players after their job functions to keep everything straight. While I've played RPGs before as well—for me, there's just too many esoteric upgrades. I play a guessing game, hoping I've landed on the right skill tree to open up the job function I want down the road; then when I get there I realize I need some other resource covered. (or didn't pick the right skill tree, or don't have the right amount of blah-blah-blah to make it happen) It's not fun. If anyone wants to say "Well, there's a learning curve" frankly I don't want to spend hours, and hours, and hours learning the various functions, the skill trees, the esoteric lore... etc. I just want to play the game. It's like watching a movie where they keep hitting you with "back-story", and you just want the fun to actually start. I've come to realize that the game may not be for me, and at 22 hours in, I should feel pretty confident with the in-game mechanics. I don't. I hope the devs will change some things, but all of this is just my opinion, other people may be perfectly happy with how this game is progressing.

I had the bad luck to buy this game 1 week ago and it was unique , beautiful and most of all hard . Then there was an update which changed the game entirely , deleted most of the nice stuff it used to have (tools,professions,interaction of your people etc) and now it is a common cim-city game and very easy/boring.
Actually it is the biggest disappointment i have ever faced from an update.
Don't buy this game unless they return to the previous version.

I've been waiting for this game for a long time and it's finally here. Yes UI is bad I mean really bad. EU4 + Rimwold level bad. But good thing is it can be fixed and developers are also aware of that situation. In their shared Roadmap it is stated that they will make UI/UX updates. Pathfinding has it's issues but this also is not a gamebreaking and frustrating issue and also can be easily fixed.
At this stage this game is full of content. I love the idea behind every villager is a person with a personality and every villager is a contibuting member of a society aspect in this game. This sole idea is something new and something hard to implement. Surprisingly it works.
Also Custom maps are available. It gives a feeling of old Warcraft 3 custom maps. It is in fact a complicated game. But after tutorial + 1 hour playtime everything become so simple. Good days are upon us. May the devs continue on this brilliant project.

+ Art style is beautiful
+ Mostly autonomous peeps that can be drafter for combat and/or exploration of the map

+- The game has no tech tree and what your people can build and craft depends on semi-random traits you pick up for your people from leveling

+- You spend alot of time trying to figure out what you should choose as level ups for your people and early on you can only guess what is actually useful and what is not

- The game has alot of resources that are very unclear on how to aquire them
- It is not clear how to advance the careers of your people and get more advanced building, weapons, tools etc
- Due to the systems being opaque, it is hard to judge what you should be doing, how deep the game actually is and is it worth it to get past the learning cliff caused by the numerous stats, resources and poor UI.

Some people might enjoy the game as it is, many people will struggle due to the lackluster UI. I'd recommend waiting for some of the UI overhauls from the roadmap to be implemented before delving in or at least being aware that this game is currently pretty hard to get into.

Personally I'm trying to decide if I should refund, use several hours more trying to figure out if the game is actually worth playing or just keep it and try again after updates as the premise of the game does hold promise.

As with anything here on Steam, I'd recommend checking the playtime of the reviewers before you make up your mind. This game has a learning curve to understanding the UI, and the tutorial is admittedly sort of bare-bones at the moment - but I'm not holding that against the small indie team making this thing. Coming in expecting this game to be as polished as the Juggernaut that is Rimworld is a mistake, and I wish more people weren't ignorant of that fact. This will get better in time. Patience is a virtue, folks.

What is this? Well, this is a very unique take on the colony-sim/God-sim type of genre mixed with a party-based combat system. It's all wrapped up in a rather elaborate tech/skill tree combo system that gives you all sorts of unique class combinations to play around with for your pawns. It's definitely worth it to fans of either of those genres I mentioned as it's out-of-the-box approach to combine the two oddly works decently.

If you look into what the Devs are hoping to accomplish in the future with the title as well, (tons of the stuff on their future plans sound awesome!)... things should only get better.

It is still rough around the edges, but these guys are onto a winning formula with this and I'm here for the long haul.

If you are in the verge of trying this game or left it because you could not understand it, Please Join the official DISCORD.
Game Devs and veteran players will happily help you and guide you thru.

This game has a very steep learning curve. NOT FOR THE KIND HEART
it is absolutely fantastic and rewarding once you understand it.
I will try my best to explain the aspects of it.

Colony Sim: Build your civilization and evolve it. You will need to do a lot of micromanaging. Most Task are performed by themselves. Others will need to be ordered by you.

Survival: Nourishing each of their body needs is a must. You will have to order them to craft some of these items.

Strategy: You will need to organize and plan every building and all of your character skills and tasks they can perform

Adventure: you can get fighters ready and go explore and fight. You have to micromanage the fights.

Development: Unlocking new buildings and job is very hard to understand at first. JOIN DISCORD. We will help you understand the basics of it.

Game developers are a lovely group. They had been incredibly open minded and helpful.

I see myself sinking thousands of hours in it.

If you like a good challenge, and want to be able to do things around the house, do homework or tend the kids while you play, this is a game for you.

Dont buy the game if you have no intention to pay attention !

So many comments are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the AI being weird, jobs not working right, the game being super confusing and hard and its really not if you just watch your characters and how they behave.

Its a great game where you build your own village with your decisions. Played it a lot the past days now and it got me really hooked as i find new things that completly change the way i would play the game and its fun to think about how you approach the game itself. Playing the game itself feels a lot like a riddle and in generell has a very gentle and forgiving playstyle if you dont force your Simcity Mobile Edition playstyle on it where you expect the random i do what i want ♥♥♥♥ to work out in the end.

Desperately needs a real tutorial. I could not even tell if it was a bug that my characters were sleeping multiple days and never waking up or if i had to click on something to make them wake up. Also clicking on items seems to do nothing. Definitely needs a lot more time in the development oven.