Feedback on the Demo

[Palandus]

Found this game while searching for a survival game similar to Among Trees. Not quite the same, but it has elements I like and others I don't. Wishlisted/Followed.

The things I didn't like are:

1. Harsh survival game, but I can't build a campfire anywhere I want to.

2. Can't scoop up snow into a can or pot, and melt my own snow. Ran out of water and didn't know what to do.

3. Kept hearing wolves that sounded super close but couldn't see them.

4. Giving tutorial instructions when the game is unpaused, so I'm freezing to death while trying to read the text... that never appears again.

5. Very poor sense of direction, in terms of what to do and where to go. I'm asked to find an axe, so I go back to the house to where it stores the wood and the shed and no axe. Have no idea where to look for an axe.

6. No quick loot option, or loot all, so have to drag and drop.

7. Can't get sticks by breaking limbs off trees.

8. Can't tear up pillows and blankets for cloth, to craft some clothing.

9. No real time to search the initial car, as I was already freezing half to death. Also what happened to my guy's shirt?

10. Found one berry for some water, but otherwise couldn't acquire any more water. Found a frozen water bottle, but the only campfire was a good distance away and the fire went out from lack of fuel anyway.

11. Not a fan of such a long Hold E for. Set to 1-2 seconds at most, otherwise it gets tedious.

12. Start with no tools and no idea where to go to get tools.

13. Really hard to spot the sticks, as they are often too close to other objects.

14. You lose temperature pretty fast. Technically that is accurate at -35C, but it makes exploration pretty miserable.

15. Not sure why I can't climb or jump over the obstacle that requires the axe.

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Anywho good luck with it.

[Palandus]

So I gave a further go, and yep, I probably shouldn't because now I don't want to play it further. Some notes:

1. Hiding the axe behind and below where the player starts was really dickish. If you go to the first (technically second) fire, you'd never know that you had to go this way to get the axe.

2. If you are maximum weight and try to remove things from the campfire, you just can't. You get no message, unlike grabbing something in the environment. So I thought they were simply bugged, but getting a bigger backpack, allowed me to go back and grab it.

3. We really need object highlighting as I kept missing berry bushes. They blend in super well and you desperately need the berries for water.

4. After using a water bottle you throw away the bottle. So then you can't scoop up snow and re-cook it, for more water. I get that give a 100% boost of water each time would be bad, but maybe give 25% water for a snow refill of a bottle. Water is by the hardest to come by.

5. You cannot use the axe to chop trees to get wood or sticks.

6. You cannot use the axe to attack animals.

7. You cannot convert excess clothing into cloth. Seems you can only burn them, which feels like a huge waste.

8. Matches are never consumed.

9. If you enter the house, after the blockade, you cannot exit again (until using the sleeping bag). It also tells you to grab a flashlight that is nowhere in the house.

10. It is super unclear what can be opened and what can't. In the mini cabin before the blockade, every drawer and cabinet can be opened. Nothing in them, but in the house after the blockade, 90% of the drawers and cabinets can't be opened.

11. Here is what caused me to ragequit: I put like 24 hours worth of wood and fuel into the campfire and had a full inventory when I used the sleeping bag. When I woke up, everything I stored in the campfire was gone and my inventory was emptied of all the cooked food, berries I saved up and the two water bottles I found.

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This game needs a lot of work. Honestly it wasn't even that fun. Just stressful, because you run out of temperature and water too fast with no ways of replenishing it and you can't even carry a portable fiery torch for warmth and light.

If you ever end up fixing these issues and release another demo reply here, but otherwise for now, its a hard pass.

[zombygunner]

Its a demo try to settle down people lol. My opinion is
( i have most of the best survival games ) i think its fine the way it is you dont need tons of stuff to have a great survivor game besides its survival your not supposed to have much of anything. The only thing that needs to be better is the wolves, they need to be stronger i hacked through them like butter lol. Maybe add aurora boreales and make the wolves radioactive or all wild life. Itll make the wolves easy during day but during the aurora they can be much harder

[Palandus]

Demos tend to be representative of eventual problems if not fixed. If the developer isn't made aware of them, then how will they know to fix them, especially if their players state "game is good, ignore the haters." When I'm not even really hating on it. I'm sticking to the facts.

Do you even know what the aurora borealis is? It is a magnetic storm that causes an electromagnetic pulse. Very beautiful, but totally wrecks unshielded electronics. There is no radiation involved.

Also if there is a mutation going through the animals, just make the wolves mutated. Problem solved.

[zombygunner]

as far as the aurora goes and the radiation yeah i kinda know that thanks for the heads up lol. i actually live in area that i can almost see it btw. it was just a thought also ya know pretend like the game my interest in talking to you things like that.

[zombygunner]

Please write us more paragraphs!!! I love reading through pages of information. The game will be what it is anyway by the time it releases. So have a fun rant about whatever and ill have a nice day.

[Palandus]

And I'll pretend that I didn't just block you. Have a great day person I didn't block :P

[DC-GS]

Originally posted by Palandus:

1. Hiding the axe behind and below where the player starts was really dickish. If you go to the first (technically second) fire, you'd never know that you had to go this way to get the axe.

Thank you... or probably more fitting, curse you for prolonging my suffering?
Jokes asside, that was a real dickmove by the devs. Without your hint I would not found that tent.
I pretty much agree on all of your 26 points.

Originally posted by Palandus:

9. [...] It also tells you to grab a flashlight that is nowhere in the house.

It were outside the house, before you enter it.
The quests/objective were pretty confusing IMHO. Sometimes they appear way ahead of time. Felt like I missed something.

[gwraigty]

I froze to death in the first few minutes before I could get a fire started. I agree with Palandus that there's a very poor sense of direction in this game, both literally and figuratively. Here is is several months later from the OP and it appears that nothing has been improved at all.

[Palandus]

That is a shame that nothing got fixed. It looked like it could be a good one, but yeah, it needed bug fixing and better guidance, and if it didn't get it, not great.