First Impressions (Hint: It's dope.)

[con5cience]

I'm a bit of a survival game addict and have been looking for something new and different. I bought the game on Epic as I have no patience, and I will be buying this game again when it hits Steam.

tl;dr -- This is a lovely game, and I look forward to witnessing its evolution.

Things I loved:

The art style. The lighting is super warm and moody. The forest is draped in a foggy blanket. Birds nest in the trees. Bunnies flee from you the moment you start stomping around like a swollen monkey.

The sound design. The music reminds me of Minecraft's dulcet, chill ambiance. The mood changes when danger is near. Birds are chirping. Wind is blowing gently through the forest. It's peaceful af.

Speaking of danger, bears are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BIG and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SCARY and will EAT YOUR FACE and if you try to hit them with an axe, it does very little to stave off your imminent death. This is a nice contrast to other survival games where as long as you have a pointy stick, you can kill most of everything with sufficient circle strafing. Suggestion: Bears should chase you a bit, following the trail of urine.

Crafting recipes demand a certain comfortable degree of inventory prioritization in order to make stuff.

The game doesn't really hold your hand at all, and I hope this trend continues:

* I spent a fair bit of time scavenging Fir Planks in a rush from the various ruin sites, wondering how I was ever going to find enough resources to expand the cabin. Then I discovered that 1) I can cut down trees and harvest wood from them like literally every other survival game on the planet, and also 2) I am an idiot.

* The game environment is wonderful and doesn't need a precedent or plot to make it more interesting. In fact, the lack of one means people can ascribe whatever they want to it, which may enhance gameplay.

* Cooking recipes require active experimentation in order to achieve the best results.

* Wtf is a Larch and how do I extract resin from it? You'll know it when you see it, and the method will come naturally.

Also about the trees: I enjoy how you can't cut some of them down. One of my gripes about survival games is usually having to sacrifice atmosphere for materials. You can deforest the local area around the cabin and still have plenty of evergreens left over for the mood.

Things I felt mixed about:

I pick up everything on impulse. This was a mistake, as I ended up cluttering my backpack and my first teensy little storage box with half a dozen seed packets. I can shove 5 big ass Driftwood logs into my backpack next to 10 Sticks and 10 Planks, but little baggies of seeds only stack in allotments of one? Welp.

The days seem a bit short. I'd rather prepare an extra meal and have more time to roam than being required to slink back to the cabin every few minutes to sleep. Perhaps day length could be configurable?

It would be interesting if there was some incentive to occasionally screw up your circadian rhythm and go full night mode. Maybe there is and I just haven't made it there yet?

The compass doesn't seem to have a raison d'etre after you craft the map, unless I'm missing something.

I love discovering the map bit by bit, but I worry the game will stale out a bit once you know where everything is. Implementing some degree of procedural map generation could help with this, even if it's only mixing up the loot at the ruins or where the ruin sites are, etc. while the rest of the map is static.

Game needs some kind of mode where I can just leave the sound and music playing to bring the forest into my neckbeard dungeon.

[Repix]

What a wonderful review. I love.
Now I want / need it more intensely. :)
Thanks.

[Bomoo]

That isn't how you post reviews on Steam. If you want to review an epic exclusive game, go post the review on the epic gulag store.

[Will]

Great mate, I also love this game.

[DeadlyFlow]

Bomoo lähetti viestin:

That isn't how you post reviews on Steam. If you want to review an epic exclusive game, go post the review on the epic gulag store.

I agree 100%, dont review stuff from epicgames, i hate the epicgames system i refuse to buy games there, having a platform and not allow comments its really bad

_conscience_ lähetti viestin:

"Also about the trees: I enjoy how you can't cut some of them down. One of my gripes about survival games is usually having to sacrifice atmosphere for materials."

sacrifice atmosphere? dude 1st this is a game, 2nd if you dont wanna "sacrifice it" choose which trees to take down

[nextgengranny]

Thanks for the review. Looking forward to this game coming to Steam; unless something has changed, I believe that will happen this month (September).

Edit: The store page just says "Autumn"; hoping early Autumn. ^^

[Wingmann]

nextgengranny lähetti viestin:

Thanks for the review. :cozyspaceengineersc: Looking forward to this game coming to Steam; unless something has changed, I believe that will happen this month (September).

Edit: The store page just says "Autumn"; hoping early Autumn. ^^

Yes, hope thats right, I am impatient for this to land on Steam.

[Rogue The Avali]

nextgengranny lähetti viestin:

Thanks for the review. :cozyspaceengineersc: Looking forward to this game coming to Steam; unless something has changed, I believe that will happen this month (September).

Edit: The store page just says "Autumn"; hoping early Autumn. ^^

If store page says autumn 2022, then we're even more ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Check again.

God these devs are a joke. Glad you enjoyed the experience. I personally didn't really. It was, I guess boring. Not much to do, not much to see, endless, very simple gameplay loop, choppy, not nearly as pretty as on the trailers, updates come out every blue moon, as you mentioned day length's another joke. Had fun for the first 2 hours, sure, but then it just became so aimless, so repetitive. Charm quickly wore off.

I even forgot to mention that your survival needs go down even faster than in Raft. Just pure insanity. I don't think it was being a real problem tho, as good food's pretty easy to cook from what I remember. Again, as he said, being a kleptomaniac in this game has it's downsides. There's just so much crap everywhere that you can pick up. Has it's pluses when it comes to cooking tho.

[Everlast]

They probably sold out to Epic games. I won't be buying this.

[LIMP BISQUICK]

I played it a while back and it was pretty casual. Personally hope they ramp it up a bit with some difficulty options. It was still a good experience for being in Alpha tho. Has a nice simplistic design to it.

[Synical]

Got this on Epic when it first came out, they have barely updated it since. I'd recommend not buying this until it is fully released.

[Master Gnocco]

Judging by trailers and videos it looks like The long dark but with better graphics, less sadness, more freedom and NO PSYCHORAPH. That's pretty awesome. Am I right? Any warnings from experienced players?

[PapaTango]

Stranger lähetti viestin:

nextgengranny lähetti viestin:

Thanks for the review. :cozyspaceengineersc: Looking forward to this game coming to Steam; unless something has changed, I believe that will happen this month (September).

Edit: The store page just says "Autumn"; hoping early Autumn. ^^

If store page says autumn 2022, then we're even more ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Check again.

God these devs are a joke. Glad you enjoyed the experience. I personally didn't really. It was, I guess boring. Not much to do, not much to see, endless, very simple gameplay loop, choppy, not nearly as pretty as on the trailers, updates come out every blue moon, as you mentioned day length's another joke. Had fun for the first 2 hours, sure, but then it just became so aimless, so repetitive. Charm quickly wore off.

I even forgot to mention that your survival needs go down even faster than in Raft. Just pure insanity. I don't think it was being a real problem tho, as good food's pretty easy to cook from what I remember. Again, as he said, being a kleptomaniac in this game has it's downsides. There's just so much crap everywhere that you can pick up. Has it's pluses when it comes to cooking tho.

Thank you for this honest feedback, I am removing this title from my wish list. We often bash the AAA games, for some real good reasons, incensing indie titles in the process, but people will rarely mention how simplistic these games are, getting boring rather quickly. Maybe only one out a hundred will really come up with some very interesting content, not just copycats with some ‘good mood’ or ‘artistic touch’ alone.

giovanniferal lähetti viestin:

Judging by trailers and videos it looks like The long dark but with better graphics, less sadness, more freedom and NO PSYCHORAPH. That's pretty awesome. Am I right? Any warnings from experienced players?

Yeah, same impression here. But I doubt it is as 'serious' as The Long Dark, which is my personal reference when it comes to survival (how many survival games will let you swim in cold water without consequences? Almost all of them, not TLD). I agree with you, freedom is not its forte, but it comes with a very good story, which seems non existant in the present title.
I think it would be a mistake to compare these two games, they may share only some similar 'look'. One is a hardcore survival game, the second, a ballad in the forest.

[Rineux]

giovanniferal lähetti viestin:

Judging by trailers and videos it looks like The long dark but with better graphics, less sadness, more freedom and NO PSYCHORAPH. That's pretty awesome. Am I right? Any warnings from experienced players?

You could say most of that, except the "more freedom" part - you can do way, way more stuff in TLD and interact with the environment more. It's having way less content than TLD right now as well: there's one map and you've done everything there is to do after about 6 to 8 hours, and if there's gonna be more, only god knows - the devs sure as hell aren't telling us.

[Pri]

This might sounds like a dumb question, but how do i get driftwood?

[nextgengranny]

Pris lähetti viestin:

This might sounds like a dumb question, but how do i get driftwood? :hnm_emm:

Driftwood, as the name suggests, washes up on the shores of bodies of water. There's two of those right near the cabin, so you can find enough driftwood within a few minutes. ^^