NEO Scavenger

This indie game is good, I really enjoy Neo Scavenger. It's a very intense survival rogue-like game with strong gameplay and mechanics (fighting, hacking, trade) and crafting envolve your imagination (there is a lot of items to find, to create… especially for clothes) A true gem of videogame history and there is a modding capability to tailor the game as you want. Moreover, the dev is still improving the game, debugging, rebalancing, adding stuffs, and every update is a rediscovery. (I bought it on HB a while ago so I'm not sure if the GOG repository is up-to-date to version 1.14) The problem is that it's a Flash game. As Adobe is barely maintaining the native Linux port of its engine with an very old version that doesn't benefit of any hardware acceleration. Combined with the Flixel game engine used, it overloads your CPU. That's why an in-game frame limiter was added. That's not the first Flash game, but other developpers provide a simple SWF file, as Anodyne or Offspring Fling, that can be executed with any Flash Player engine like Gnash (even if I think it won't work with this too poor featured opensourced retro-engineered replacement) or the Pepper Flash API included in Chrome and portable in Chromium and derivatives Web browsers (Actually, the only way to have an up-to-date Flash Player on Linux). Instead of that, NeoScavenger is embedded in a package with the old version of the Adobe Flash NPAPI because of external files like textures, saves and mods that won't be allowed to be loaded from Chrome with the PPAPI. The Free Demo is still playable in browser but lacks a huge amount of features. Finally, the Linux port suffer from a lot of dependencies, more than a lot of 32bit games I've installed before and the worst is that some of them like libcurl3 aren't told with the ldd commandline or even told during an execution into a terminal. That makes running the Windows version into Wine to be the best solution, for sure ! Despite those two difficulties, the game runs flawlessly and not to high load with the fps limiter set to 30. That's still better than nothing : games using Adobe Air like Starseed Pilgrim claiming having Linux port despite the abandon of native support from Adobe. Considering that Adobe made a recent announcement to update the NPAPI for Linux in the future, the experience should be improved and this game might be playable in ten years but Flash is still a dying engine that should not be used since there are many better options in all fields it covers (html5, Javascript, Unity2d, etc.). The developper is well aware of those bad engines choices and even if rewritting the game with a better engine is too much to ask for a one man team, he told in 2013 that he won't make his future games with Flash anymore and he's now working with Haxe.

There are many elements within this game that sorted out to their own games would be phenomenally great games to play. Unfortunately, together in a very rough, incomplete mix... It's hard to recommend this game. There's an honestly interesting start to a good classic role-playing game that is undone by the incomplete survival grind game. There's a decent plot and world you want to explore and learn more about, but you rarely get the chance to do so because you are too busy attempting to fight against a permanent death survival system. But, when you do manage to survive decently, the RPG component is extremely railroading and old provides an illusion that skills chosen can make a unique difference in the end outcome. You want to engage more with the world, but you quickly find out that despite the initial setup of the world... there's just not that much of the world that can engage you back. And there are a few parts, where the game seems to actively punish you for attempting to engage further than what it presents. Overall, a frustrating jaunt where the survival component shaded out a promising role-playing game. Admittedly, it does have it's own unique aesthetic that is very intriguing. But, be warned, the game is written in Flash compiled to an independent bundled player. It functions fine, but it's a strange thing this day and age to see something like it.

Neo scavenger made me shiver... That something I had not experienced for a long time with a video game. The beauty of this title is that every piece of crap you gather is important because it could save your life. So when you think you have some decent gear, every encounter is thrilling, as you never know what to expects from the individuals. There is nothing quite like the feeling, when you stumble upon some strong oponent, and using ruse you manage to take him out, and emerge from the fight with some incredible new loot (and by incredible i mean some warm shirt, some shoes, maybe a weapon if you are lucky, some concentrated soup) one broken rib some scratches and a bleeding wound, you really feel like you are facing the end of the world. Give a try to the free version, i'ts worth your time, and you will understand that the game is worth your money. A lot.

Third playthrough. You're not fucking around this time. Loot all the abandoned buildings. Find some really cool stuff Head to the woods Finally mastered this game's survival mechanics Stumble across a dead body in the woods Turn him into people-meat Become Post-apocalypse Jeffry Dahmer Live-chronicle everything to your concerned housemates Lose everything because you got into a stupid fight with the wolfman Put the game down for the afternoon Come back the next day and do it all again. #NoRagrets

I couldn't like this game. The mystery of the cryo pod wasn't enough to keep me enthralled. The game is pretty brutal in every aspect, from combat, where you might manage to win but you'll get cut and bruised and (While realistic), just discourages engaging in combat at all because youll bleed to death or lose valuable items because you ran. If you arent lucky you wont find enough clothing to stay warm before you freeze to death. You have one day to hopefully cover yourself. There's nothing here that really POPS and grabs your attention to hook you in and make you think "I gotta try again, I gotta have answers for those questions." It's difficult so you'll constantly be reloading and remaking your preferred character over and over again. In my personal opinion this is one of those times where too much realism has been detrimental to the gameplay. You'll either love it or hate it, go play the demo first either way.