The setting is really entirely lost. This could be skinned in any way and be the same game. The post apocalypic concept is not relevant or noticable. The tutorial is aweful, one of the worst I have ever seen. It does a very poor job of actually leading you through the game mechanics. You wind up having to dig around for the real information that it fails to teach you. The manual is poorly organized as well, so together this makes for a painful learning experience. The pace is very slow. Even once you figure out there are speed controls that the tutorial fails to mention at any point. The reason it's slow is the workers are a bunch of slackers that continually just don't do their jobs. Farmers stand around idle instead of farming. Builders stand around not building things you've asked for. The build process is not explained. Building placement impacts are not explained. There is seemingly no logic or impact to the water levels that are never explained (outside of a drought which stops all food sources). Workers assigned to things that can no longer be done do nothing, but workers assigned to nothing will find things to do if you say there are things to do. It's the worst kind of micromanagement with no red flags. The graphics are hard to look at. Basically it has the resolution of a game that is 20 years old so there is a lot of pixel noise. It's not crisp, it's not clear what is going on when there's scrap in a forest, you can barely make out the settlers, etc. It's basically a SimCity with a side of Farmville. There is no excitement here. There is no real threat to survival. The strategy is minimal. Even on 90% discount I'm left disapointed that I wasted the time on this.
Credit where it's due, 20 years ago when it was released this was clearly phenomenal. Honestly I'm not sure how I never heard of it until recently. The graphics redo brings it reasonable to modern times, and the mechanics aren't too terrible, but.... Combat is uninspired by current conventions and makes little sense. You have to empty a whole clip into each oponent to kill them even if you make head shots. Movement is a bit janky but what can you expect from a game this old. The world edge is clearly something horridly outdated. The sound... well I can't figure out why it seems like the main character was recorded in a bathroom... Overall it's not bad but it's not worth full price. It also has nothing overly engaging and the lore is laborious to listen through. I just find myself with nothing real memorable about it and no desire to launch the game again after a few days. Very meh, and it's a game that needs time commitment so that's an issue. If a few more things had received an update it might be a solid play, but as is it's just a fresh coat of paint on a run down old car outclassed by modern options.
Deep discount, sure it's worth it. Full price? It has issues. All around the concept and design are good, the style is whimsical, sound design is pretty good, puzzles are reasonable. However it has flaws that start to drag on. Combat is terrible and woefully unbalances. The big snot hounds are nearly impossible to kill, and annoying to listen to rapid sneezing as you try to take one out. The spiders are practically pointless as they pose no challenge. Controls are janky because it's a diagonal world but cardinal direction keys, and the environment constantly gets in the way of movement. One puzzle was also impossible as unlike all the others that give you clues you generally don't need, it had no clues at all and there was nothing to divine, it was pure trial and error with hundreds of combinations so you just have to look up the answer. But even puzzling your way through the world starts to get tiring as you run back and forth back and forth wait for long interaction animations and largely no longer feel challenged. So for a couple bucks it's a decent time spend for a few hours, past that it really has to be your cup of tea to finish it out. With just a little more attention to the controls and combat balance and some minor tweaks it would have been a home run.
The voice acting is terrible. The controls are bad. The game balance is broken. The tutorial is seriously lacking. The UI has serious failures. All this is a real shame because the graphics, sound, performance, and ability variations are all good. Lot of good foundation, but it just wasn't finished in a way that gives you a playable game. I tried a couple times but found no fun only frustration. Since it's been years since release, it seems clear it won't be fixed either.
I've never seen a game with no settings. Had to use the system volumne mixer to not have the game blow out my ears. But no settings in game means you can't adjust various aspects so some things are too loud others too quiet. If you can get past the annoyance factor, the atmospherics are decent, but also disjointed and inconsistent. I mean, if no one is around, why are there voices and screams? Why do your random comments not address these? It feels piled together without proper finish. Also some of the voice over is just horrid. Your daughter sounds like a robot. On top of this the puzzles are just too obtuse. After getting stuck for what I should do next I looked up a guide. The answer was so devoid of any clues that would lead you to the solution that I quit at that point. Complex solutions with nothing to point you to them isn't a challenge, it's just frustration, and in context of this game that rips you out of the immersion required to really get into the story. So, for me it's a bust.
I'd actually like to give it 3.5 stars. There is a lot of good here, but also a lot of weird and problematic. Explorations, harvesting, crafting, quests, random events, advancement, lots of good mechanics along with decent voice over here and there. Good randomness too, never the same thing twice really. But the tutorial is significantly lacking. Some UI navigation is so obtuse you barely figure out how to play. I litterally almost quit the game the first combat because there was no indication what you're supposed to do when declaring attackers. After 4 hours I barely feel like I made any progress, because it's VERY slow going. You also have to constantly get resources to stay alive, which cuts into advancement. Then there is the equipment which in places makes zero sense or is clearly absurd. Rings weight 45 pounds?? That little bit of insanity seriously hinders the usefulness of making them when you litterally can't wear them because they are too heavy. So it remains to be seen if I stick with it much longer because while it's not bad, it barely holds interest and lacks any thrills or big wins. If you're into low key development mechanics, solid bet you'll like this. If you want thrills and accomplishment and grand battles, not going to find it here.
The game is pretty nice up until the puzzles are too hard for the controls. Or to say another way, the controls are awful given what you need to do. At first there's no issue, but once you get to a point where split second timing and precise movement are required, it's just impossible. After dying a dozen times trying to do what was obviously the thing I have to do because the controls aren't up to the task, I had to quit. Which means I got about 15 min of mild entertainment out of it. Nothing spectacular, just mildly interesting, kinda relaxing, then bam, go no further unless you by a Dpad controller I guess? Unfortunate.
As another review noted, glad it was free because it's worthless. Can't complete the tutorial. The contols are wildly inconsistent so there are 4 different ways to exit "menus". Insanity. The tutiorial tells you to do things but not how. The controls don't exist to "place turret" and you're not told how to do this. So you just hit a wall and can't continue, and it was painful getting that far. If you could play the game, maybe it would be interesting given the promo material, but as is it's simply unplayable.
Seriously, there is no actual game here. Choices are just dialogue, there is no actual choice, no actual gameplay. It's an interactive video with a bunch of time waste running here and there but all linear. That said the voice acting is really good and the atmosphere is well done. So if you're looking for a not game instead of watching a movie, sure. But make sure it's on deep sale because there's no replay here. It's a one and done if you even make it that far before you're bored or frustrated with the lack of anything to actually do or affect the story.
There is a lot here that is really great and plays really well. Pro tip, don't say "oh I'll fix that window so I can get warm" before you explore the whole building and find there are 3 other broken windows. There are a couple things like mortal wounds from a papercut that are annoying, but if you can suspend the specific and say "ok I was *somehow* seriously wounded and need *something* specific to heal..." Or the aforementioned broken windows that make you freeze to death despite being behind heavy locked doors... The real issue is the RNG is too random, they forgot to ensure some things balance out to actually make the game possible to win. As is, I've tried twice and even on "easy" it was impossible to win because you simply do not have what is required to survive. Like no bandages at all on a map so if you're wounded at the start, you die, game over. The second time one of the items required to get through the gate didn't actually get spawned, so it was impossible to advance even though I was doing pretty well. There are other bugs too though. In one instance the one character couldn't figure out how to use the bed, she just danced around it instead of sleeping so she died of exhastion. Unfortunately it seems the devs abandonded the game shortly after release with no patches, so what could have easily been fixed and made a great game has left an unfinished disapointment.
