NEO Scavenger

Neo Scavenger entertained me for quite a while. For some reasons the game has still some obvious bugs, which take the fun away.

The distro I'm using is Debian 8 (Jessie), and the game runs on Adobe Flash. Had to solve many problems with missing 32-bit dependencies before NEO Scavenger could even launch, and now the audio is a half-second out of sync behind the video. Switching from PulseAudio to ALSA didn't fix it, neither did updating Flash solve the problem either. Dug for a few hours online and come to find out the problem lies with Adobe's program. Even the developer admitted on their website forums that problems like these are the main reason why they offer a free playable demo (install or browser) to make sure it works before you buy. Wish I knew. Good game otherwise.

I accidentally left my first aid kit with anitiotics, and as my luck has it, a looter just happened to be there. Next turn I tracked him, and beat him unconcious, just for those meds. It didn't matter in the end, I died from an infection from an other fight. I killed two dogmen on my first night with a monkey wrench ( strong and melee the holy combo). Died from some random raider with a meat cleaver. Joined a cult, just because I can, died from diarrhea, because I lost my pot somewhere, and I could only drink water, that made it worse. Ran into a bad muttha with a gun. I thought he didn't have ammo in it. He did. Went to a club close to the Cryolab, got mauled by a giant robot. Even after all of these, I can't stop starting a new game, highly recommend.

This is a "hope the RNG favors you game". Now, I said, "it's not a survival game", I mean it. In the beginning, before you know what you're doing, when you're stumbling around, constantly restarting after dying every 2-3 in-game days, it's all about survival. But once you know where the two main 'civilization' points are, it's a 'bee-line to one of those cities and live there while scavenging nearby ruins and to buy better equipment" game. The game is all about scavenging, avoiding dangers, and carefully exploring. If it didn't have permadeath, or if you know one of the small handful of ways to undue the permadeath, the game becomes enjoyable. In that ase I'd give it a 4 star rating, it's still nto a survival game, but without permadeath it's a fun game and I hear it's got a plot worth trying to find and experience. With permadeath? It's just "pray the RNG doesn't end your run" before you can get anything done and force a restart.

There is a good game in there somewhere, but I (and likely you) will never find it. TOO hardcore, TOO difficult and overly complex in a bad obfuscative way. UI is rather kack and the tiny icons and texts will have you squinting with eye strain. Not one I'm going to be able to get into unfortunately.