This game is incredible in it's ability to play as an analogy to reality unlike any other. Other games can have high-quality graphics, or an immersive story. This game has neither, costs a quarter of the price, and has left me (and many others it seems) with an emotional impact and connection the likes of which no other game really has.

I have so far not been born into a very early village, the majority were multi-generational, my first one even being founded by a player yesterday (which is equivalent to around 500 in-game years). At first I just wanted to explore, and so I did. The art style and music of the game are basic, but that's all it needs to be pretty. Beginning in my adolescence, I traveled away from home searching for untouched land to explore. Eventually, I realized that regardless of the size of the world, I was so late to become a part of it, that my efforts in finding untouched toil were futile (analogous to reality, in the way that there is no part of the earth which someone else hasn't at least seen first). I returned to the village approximately 20 in-game years later. It was mostly the same. I hadn't cared to pay attention to who my mother was because, as with most villages of it's size, all babies were born in a nursery, where several women were taking care of the babies. Nonetheless, I decided to find myself something to do in the village. I found an older man pleading for the help of a younger individual and I decided to help him. We walked over to a building he'd been working on, for I assume his entire life. The walls were mostly completed, but the floors were only about a quarter of the way done. As he was explaining to me how to finish off the floors, he suddenly died of old age.

Characters die in video games all of the time, and unless there is major build-up, it doesn't have a major impact on the player emotionally. I spent a total of 5 minutes of my life talking to this random stranger in this random indie game, and for some reason when his character died, I really felt sad. I took his body and buried him in the village graveyard and then went back to the building. For the next 15 or so minutes, I worked on finishing the floors with another player who was much younger than I was. Without my noticing, years of my character's life had slipped away, and I made the realization that, similarly to the old man before me, I would be unable to finish the building. I went into a panic, I had forgotten to eat and I was beginning to starve. I begged the other villages for some food, and eventually the younger player who was helping me to finish the building showed me some food. Just before I ate it I explained to him that if I died, I wanted to be buried next to the man who had worked on the building before me. He said yes, and I ate the food he provided me. I thought I was safe now from death, and could go back to working on the building, but instead, unbeknownst to me, my last few seconds were ticking away.

I died of old age in the middle of the kitchen of my village, the floor of the building next to me which I had spent a quarter of my life working on, was still only half complete.

Similarly to real life, I can only imagine what happened to me after my death. I hope I was buried next to the old builder. I can only imagine that by now, 10 generations later, the building is done, and people are using it for something. Regardless of the state of the village now, the fact that I'm even still thinking about it speaks volumes to the way the game made me feel. For only $15, it was well worth the money, and even if I never play it again, the impact it left on me about the futility of life, and the power of a group compared to a single person, will be enough to make my purchase worthwhile.

On a more factual, emotionless note, there are a few things about the game you may want to know before buying. Firstly, there is no WASD, it's all click-to-move (which actually works surprisingly well). Secondly, it is difficult. There is a brief tutorial, but beyond it, nothing is explained to you, you have to figure out all of the crafting and building, and hunting mechanics all by yourself. This can definitely be made easier when other people do most of it for you. However, if you spawn into a village which already has steel tools, then learning how to craft for the first time with such advanced machines and tools can be difficult. The final thing to note is that the game is mostly unfiltered. There isn't a chat filter, and the majority of the players in the game are naked (it's a simple 2D game, however genitalia are still present). So I think it's probably a good recommendation that you should be at least 13, some may argue for 18+.