I think...it is time that I finally write my review for this game. I have put now over 560 hours ever since I have bought the game in alpha 16, with 60 hours added as of the new Alpha Update. Admittedly- I was one of the later people to buy this game, as some people have bought this game back in 2013.

The game is now pretty much in 10 Years of development. And while there are some things that I do like about this game, The biggest problem I feel with this game, is that it is still an "Early Access" game as well as even "Alpha". While personally- this fact does not bother me- I feel that simply- the game has been out for way too long for it to still be in alpha or early access. So I am writing this review as if this is basically the final product, because I sincerely doubt with all the scope creep that this game gets, as well as sometimes they rework entire systems that are completely fine in game- I doubt this game will seriously finish in time.

Now with that out of the way- lets move on to the good things about this game.

• Its has a pretty good game concept/idea that it wants to go for- to challenge the player every 7 days to basically defend against an endless hoard of zombies. In the days before that, they are spent in the loop of raiding locations, gathering supplies, and building traps/a base.
  
  
• MOST of the time, the loot progression has been pretty solid and a good linear curve for the game. Starting out with basic tools of stone and pipe guns working up to more middle tier two and three guns as well as melee weapons, to eventually getting to end tier loot of big bad guns. The recent update Alpha 21 improved this very nicely, along as well as vehicles, and lastly mining and gathering of resources.
  
  
• Speaking of gathering resources, I think it is something that is well executed in the game. The mining to me felt always a bit satisfying, ONCE figured out how it works, as well as the fact that certain Points of Interest (POI's) basically have cement bags and cobblestone bags that can be obtained for building/improving your base. (Update, unfortunately a lot of these bags were sadly replaced with less useful ones, loss of points there for Alpha 21!)
  
  
• The building was something that improved a lot with alpha 20 (and alpha 21) and became much more streamline, no longer going through convoluted tiers of progression when upgrading and building and just keeping it simple. The ability to turn shape frames into anything was a very nice addition as i can now finally have my super sturdy bars that let me shoot zombies inside my base!
  
  
• Game has fair amount of customization settings that you can set for each save that let you tinker with the settings of the game/difficulty. If you ever had problems with *Cough* game balance *Cough* or issues that you don't agree with the updates- then you can easily toggle a few options about around here.
  
  
• I think the new injury system/wellness system fits the games current design, and is well balanced unlike before where you would get instant bled and loose half your health, or where you would die repeatedly and get stuck in a death loop of having weaker and weaker stats to be unable to help you. (God those were some dark times) Not to mention I think an exp penalty debt is a fair punishment for the player to work off for dying. Good enough incentive to not die unless your basically level capped.

Now, onto more the bad topics that I can think about.

• While they have fixed the game progression terms of game stage and speed of how fast it progresses in multiplayer and single-player, I still feel sometimes that the game balance is a bit F***ed. Straight up- the zombie AI is too good at times. Digged a base deep underground? The zombies will tunnel to you through the dirt. Built a super tall base? The zombies will just mine out the structure beneath you and cause you to tumble down towards you, as well as there are flying zombie vultures and zombies that used to be able to climb walls. Its endless b******* basically the way zombies circumvent defenses and their smartness to take the easiest/ best route is ridiculous.
  
  
• That leads into the next bad Difficulty curve. The blood moons. While at first they are manageable, eventually the zombies not only get stronger in tiers of feral or irradiated (which I am fine with) the biggest issue I HONESTLY have with all of it, is the stupid demolition zombies that can basically nuke most blocks in one hit with their explosions- are super bulky in armor and health, as well as can do insane block damage.The Explosions will pretty much one hit concrete, and while steel is an option- it is just super unlikely you'll have enough resources to build a base out of steel bars, as they are expensive to make, and require a lot of crafting unlocks to just produce out a reasonable amount of them. That and with how your only given 7 days before each blood moon, you'll honestly spend precious amounts of that time just repairing/upgrading your base. Leaving you to have little time to scavenge/loot to get stronger.
  
  
• Which leads into the problem of, eventually there's not a reasonable human way of defending everything off. if you loose your base once, its pretty much over of having for the save....so the only way that's possible I feel after a certain point to survive for a long time...is to simply just- create bases that break the zombie AI/ confuse the AI so much that they cant really do anything. Personally- I don't find this fun, and this whole blood moon thing is part of the main game's gimmick. its in the title after all.
  
  
• Another point that I was talking about earlier was "require a lot of crafting unlocks". As of Alpha 21 (Which I had to update this review) There are magazines that are basically everything for unlocks. Sure you can spend skill points to increase the chance of certain magazines to appear, but gating crafting behind these is a waste of time. There was a slight loop hole discovered I found where you can access later tiers of items early by completing harder quests (like tier 3's and 4's) and getting access to the weapons and such way before you can even craft them. Not to mention it does make it mostly RNG and forces everyone to require to loot basically in order to unlock new crafts, forcing everyone to require looting, which is a problem in a multiplayer scenario. There are some goods that come with the magazine system ill give it that, but I feel it brings some new problems with it as well. (Some arguably worse than what the original systems problems were, at least i could find the workbench schematic or buy it from a trader or get it as a quest reward)
  

So with all that said basically- I feel that the game is somewhat neutral to where it currently is in review. There are good parts to enjoy of the game sure, but there are some bad parts- and those bad parts in my opinion stick out really hard at times. Until the game comes out of alpha (which i sincerely doubt TFHP will do any time reasonably soon) Then I will leave this review as negative. However if they can fix most of the balance issues with blood moons and maybe fixing the zombie AI being too good at times- then I might change/ update my review. I say its a game worth playing once or twice with some friends, but not something that I would constantly want to dump thousands of hours into.