The Flame in the Flood

Americana, country music, being on the Mississippi with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, The Adventures of which every child should know about. If none of these sound familiar, even so, try this game! It is full of wonder and addiction to see how far you can go, the story and stories are beautiful, gameplay and art style unique to video games. I do not understand the hate or low reviews from our community. If you love it, write about it. If you do not, do not complain, you bought it on discount! I honestly think that the developers put their heart and soul into this tiny beauty, the music of Chuck Ragan is AMAZING, when the storms hit you, you are THERE, and the companions are deliciously funny and witty, made with LOVE! I played it for almost 6 months, very chill out, in the night time, Endless Mode and will return to the campaign, it gives you a state of wonder and dreamlike hope for your little Huck Finn character. Get it, explore, laugh, cry, be amazed and try to understand all the symbolism it hides, the allegories to our world, our day and age, it is a poetic sparkle of a game, a gem with which to take your time! <3

I REALLY want to like this game. The setting, art, play style, and challenge are on point. However, the game has some glaring flaws that make it incredibly frustrating and virtually unplayable. First, the raft portion. I swear this was designed by a sadist. The controls fluctuate between totally unresponsive to only slightly useless. This is not a big issue when you are in wide, slow flowing sections of the river, but any time your in narrow sections or rapids, you might as well let Jesus take the wheel (rudder) and pray. Often when you depart a dock the raft just sits unmoving at the pier and any attempt to push it out just results in spinning in place. Attempting to use your dash often pushes the raft into the shore, damaging it. This is especially frustrating when it happens after repairing at a marina, only to have the raft get damaged again. Second, opening a menu doesn't pause the game. Often I would find myself wanting to deploy a trap or toss some bait to a predator, only to have the predator attack while I was in the menu. Lastly, the predator AI is weird. Sometimes they will chase you only a few feet, while other times they will chase you clear off a map. This makes placing traps and luring a predator into it a matter of chance and luck, rather than skill. It is a good game, but playing it any longer than in short spans often gets to frustrating and unlikeable.

A lot of reviewers seem to think the game was too difficult or too vague with its mechanics. Frankly I have no idea what these people are talking about. Its very easy to get a grasp on all the mechanics and systems. The game is also easy as hell. its kind of challenging in the beginning when you have few supplies, putting you in bad and stressful situations, which is what you want from a survival game. But quickly you start to gather an excess amount of supplies, you always have everything you need. if you get all the backpack upgrades and raft inventory upgrades (neither of which are expensive to make) you can hold even more supplies, ensuring you always have what you need in a SURVIVAL game. The game has a rain system, its bad to be out in the rain so you should seek shelter once the storm comes. this creates some neat moments when a storm arrives and you quickly have to get back on the raft and search for an island that has some shelter. but you can get an upgrade which is very cheap to make that puts a tent on your raft, meaning that you always have shelter all the time whenever you need it. The rain literally stops being a threat! and resting barley eats into your hunger and thirst, and I mean barley. but it restores tons of your exhaustion meter, there is literally no point to exhaustion once you get the raft shelter! I realize I have been horrifically negative, but I do like this game. it looks wonderful, decent music, and while the gameplay wasn't challenging it was still somewhat enjoyable. I recommend it if its on sale.

The Flame in the Flood is a survival game that takes inspiration from other games with its own unique twist. Although this game is essentially a survival game it doesn't go easy on you either. You must not stay idle as you constantly fight predators, weather, hunger, thirst and sleep as you traverse the flooded lands. The most striking thing about this game is its art style which makes it stand out and has a great music score as well. While many survival games let you let loose by giving you plenty of options this game on the other hand has rather more focused for example you are encouraged to avoid predators although you can still face them, but it will cost you your supplies. The maps are procedurally generated which makes things interesting as you are given random choice of harvesting resources regarding water, food, and danger you must face. I admit I was hesitant at first to give this game a full star rating but as I played more of it got everything figured out it's actually pretty good, I have some very minor bugs nothing game breaking. The one complaint I have is about the inventory system, it is divided among you, your pet dog and the raft. Although you can use shortcuts for some of the items which is more convenient instead of opening your entire inventory to use them. Lastly rafting is something to master. It’s not impossible but you might hit a few things along the river, but it adds another layer of challenge on top of that there's ton of exploration when visiting different areas for supplies. Overall as I mentioned it is a unique game not your usual survival game which is a good thing you get to experience a whole new game based on the genre instead of just another survival game.

This game is a sleek survival roguelike. You travel the river and explore various places. Although crafting is less complex and less than most survivals, it still is fun to craft various tools for different situations. Atmosphere and the feeling gotten from this game is unique and engaging. Highly recommended.