NEO Scavenger

Neo Scavenger is so far the best postapocalyptic game i've played in the last twenty years. It's not about a beautiful story and great graphics, it's about raw survival and mathematics. Fighting against a feral dog never felt so intense, when having no weapons at all only your bare fists. The Fights are tough and you better run fast until you have at least a spear, but then you still have to run. You aren't anymore on the top of the foodchain and so you have to act smart.

I thought this would be an actual well coded game, or at worst something that runs in Unity. I was wrong, it is an app for Adobe Flashplayer, our favourite security pariah. What looked like a promising game will not run at all on my system because I have no intention of using flash player or related libraries. If you're not aware of why this might be important just feel free to do a search for "Flash security". We had to wait years for websites to move to HTML5 and liberate us from this trash but here it is still bothering us. I might just add that the only error message I get for not having this installed is "File not found.row:0", suggesting that the product was not well tested.

You start off with nothing but your skills and a hospital gown. It's cold outside, you have no idea where to go or what to do. You start off scavenging in the nearby town. Maybe you find some clothes, food or a container (like a plastic bag). More than likely you find nothing but junk. Or is it junk? It doesn't take long before you get thirsty. You find some water and drink it. Hopefully you found a way to start a fire, so at least you'll sleep warmly. You probably won't, though, but at least you are hydrated before you sleep. The wild dogs that are circling around you seem to come closer. Hopefully you can hide your tracks well enough. The next day you walk to another abandoned town. Today you are lucky. You find a backpack (with a cute bear on it) and a crowbar! You have the feeling you need a weapon. Some empty bottles help you collect the water you found, so at least you don't have to travel to drink. Thinks are looking up and you feel like you're understanding the basics. One of the dogs find you. It's a mean, snarling beast, but with the help of your crowbar you're able to knock it out and kill it. It got you, though, but luckily it's just a small scratch. With the shard you found you cut open the dog and take the meat with you. Hopefully by now you've found a way to start a fire, be it a simple lighter or a binocular (combined with the sun) . You dress your wounds with the cloth you found (wasn't junk after all), you drink some water and you skewer the meat. Life's tough, but you're alive. You sleep satisfied. At night you wake up. Shivering. You're sick. Was it the meat? Or the fact that you dressed your wounds with dirty cloth? Or the fact you never bothered to cook and sterilize your water? Its dark. Something's out there. It attacks you. Weak and tired you swing your crowbar blindly. You hit something but it hits you harder. You're knocked down. Panicked, you try to stand up. It hits you. The pain is immense. Blood fills your lungs. You die.

Like, I have to think about surviving each turn, making all sort of decisions that will kill me again and again as I learn it. Truly an awesome experience!

I've been enjoying the game for year. I wish the creator would do some DLC.