You play as a young woman, called Scout, who travels down the river with her trusty dog, Aesop. They’re looking for the others, who have all mysteriously disappeared. On their journey, they must visit the islands along the river to retrieve whatever one needs to survive. This isn’t as simple as it sounds. There’s always a shadow of danger hanging over these island. There are wolves, boars, bears and other things that can easily lead to Scout’s death. On some of the islands there are stranded people, who’ll try to help Scout on her journey or who’ll try to help themselves. The gameplay itself is what you would expect form a survival rogue-lite, but it's done well. You craft items and try to store them. Of course there’s never enough room for the things you want to keep and nothing lasts forever (meat spoils and tools break eventually). Because of that Scout’s constantly on the move. What sets The Flame and Flood apart from similar games is the river. The river can be mean and the raft is hard to steer and can break. Besides that the raft doesn’t offer any shelter. The nights are cold and the rain can hold on for hours. You can choose to steer the raft to an island with wildlife, but you can also choose to skip that island and look for something saver, like a campsite. However, if you travel past an island or if you flee from one in a hurry, you can’t go back to it. Like with any river this river also only runs in one direction and that's what makes it extra challenging and fun. Overall I really loved the game, but I sometimes did get a bit annoyed that some of the buildings would block the view. This resulted several times in that I let Scout step on a snake or in the claws of a wolf. Aesop will bark whenever he sees something fishy, but that still doesn´t tell you where that something fishy exactly is. My other complaint is that there still are a lot of bugs in the game. Sometimes a song loops forever or the sound of the roaring river won´t stop. Overall these are nuisances, like real bugs on a camping trip. However, the game crashed a couple of times too, although that could be caused by my pc (it's terribly old n' dusty). So, don’t let that last one scare you off too much. With that out of the way, I’d have to say that The Flame and the Flood is a great game. There´s a ton of character in Scout, Aesop and the weird people you’ll meet, and even more in the wildlife, the islands and the river. The art style reminds me a lot of the comics and cartoons I used to read and watch when I was a kid. The musical score fits the game perfectly and gives it that little bit extra. The game has a high replay value, because of the randomly generated islands, and the gameplay will keep you going for hours. I have been playing this game now for almost forty hours (first on Steam Early Access) and I’m still enjoying it. The only real complaint I have (again) is about the bugs, but hopefully The Molasses Flood will fix that soon.
