+ It looks cute and has lots of monsters, but that's where the appeal ends. - The game has very little music and its repetitiveness can get annoying after a while. - The story is very simple and will likely bore anyone that's not a very young child. - The dialogue is also very simplistic and repeats nearly every 2-3 fights. You'll either ignore it or grind your teeth in frustration at seeing the same line for the 10th time in a short time. - The damage probably has some kind of formula behind it, but so far it felt more like luck than skill figuring out what type or creature will damage the enemy a lot. - You can play minigame to raise your stats, but if you lose, 1 of your stats will be lowered. - Some damage relations make no sense: e.g. why is ice weak to fire attacks and not the other way around? - Some battle animations involve no visual movements and they all seem very basic. Heck, some Gameboy Advanced Pokemon games had attacks more exciting to see than these. + I do appreciate the permadeath mode being optional. Not recommended, unless you enjoy something so simple your brain will grow numb.
A prefect example on how NOT to make a text based game because it considers too many minute details and makes the gameplay a crawl in combat and it also has no visual representation of where exactly an enemy is, you'd better hope you can try attacking something. It feels random and yet it's surely anchored in too many details to be remotely functional. E.g. I found a dog and wanted to go after it with a stick, managed to sort of attack (does trying to tackle something count?) once with nothing actually happening and then I got bored with the character trying to crawl towards it over 10 times with me, the player still not having a real idea of what the heck was going on it that combat encounter. Either have a good description or visual representation, if I have no clue what's going on in combat, there's no reason to stick around since I image combat is fairly frequent, at least initially when you stumble around and encounter plenty of wild animals.
Why have a dumb drag mechanic in what should have been a click only game? Half the time you have to wrestle with the drag system because it doesn't register what opponent you're trying to target with one of your critters. You can pick card you'll place out of your first hand, but not what you'll start with - have the wrong cards auto-chosen for you and a boss encounter is as good as unbeatable. Even if the second complaint had a workaround, the first is too off putting for me. Why developers? You had great mechanics such upgrading cards of critters if you had 2 or more of the same type, but you ruined it with a needless mechanic that hinders core gameplay and the tutorial explains more intuitive things that I can simply read from the cards (e.g. summon cost), but you didn't have the curtesy to tell me, if I can discard cards - haven't found an option to do so - a get a newly filled hand with different monsters and other things that actually matter. I like the artstyle and the music is serviceable, if nothing special, but the core of the game is just too cumbersome and poorly explained where it counts to actually play.
Basically the game is cute and well done as far as the visual novel elements go, but it falls completely flat in the dungeon crawl element. - All the walls look exactly the same, you'd get lost without the minimap to tell you where you're even facing in 3 seconds flat. - The dungeon has lots of unnecessary elements: a key that's only usable once per door for each dungeon level, after using it you have to find a key rest icon in the dungeon to reset the key, randomly there will be arrows in the dungeon that will mess with where you want to go for no apparent reason, you can turn them at special points, but you have no control over where they end up pointing to. - You're limited by ingame time until 7 p.m. to explore the dungeon and if you die you lose some gold, doesn't seem harsh at first, but the main goal is to pay back the devil that revived you in quite a bit of cash, so added dying builds up fast and so does your gold loss. It basically feels like the main element of the game is fighting me from actually playing barely going in. Nope, dropped. There are better, less mechanically tedious dungeon crawlers out there.
The game runs on my potato and it's nice to see this type of game on GOG, but it's still rough around the edges and I don't find the story engaging. - The perspective is completely top down without being tilted, so it just feels weird. I'd appreciate more camera options, such as being able to shift it or zoom in and out. - You're way too easy to damage initially and an enemy spawned right in my path. XD Plus the combat mode should autoactivate, or better the game should just seamlessly switch in and out of combat the way ARK does. - Your inventory is tiny and stacks are too small (only 10 items in a stack and I'd be set if it were 99, so I wouldn't need to worry about chests being at a random location or not). - You heal way too little from food and you can't craft a healing potion right off the bat. - The game gives you no warning and lets you use an item (food or healing) even if your hunger and health are full. - You need to be carrying an item for it to be applied to something, e.g. the oxygen generator. Just take the needed items if they are in my inventory or tell me I don't have them. + Having to switch to building mode is a good idea since I found switching items from building material and say a pickaxe a bit confusing in ARK. + I like Peaceful mode, but I'd appreciate even more freedom and more customizability over difficulty and hunger, health and such (regenerating health would be great and I'd like fiddle with in depth setting on my own, the way ARK lets you do). - I have no reason to care about the world and the island if the only goal is too leave it ASAP, plus I can only kill random "wild" robots and not befriend them, unless it's a NPC. - The dialog feels barebones and dry, boring. The biggest point of a game for me is the story, but this doesn't even attempt to draw me in and it's not engaging at all. The game might appeal to people who like minimalist sandbox survival with a quest here and there, but wait for it to be more polished.
Galaxy says my playtime is 16 hours, but I think it's also counting a previous playthrough from Steam. Activities in the camp can pass quickly if you assign a regular job (like crafting) to your character, Jack, but various areas where you fight enemies can feel repetitive and a slog since enemies do vary quite a bit, but they are bound to their areas (e.g. wolves only appear in the forest), otherwise I love the game since it's the first zombie apocalypse game I can play with its turn based combat and zombies aren't scary for me here (usually I hate seeing them in games and disable them if at all possible). Outside of combat (you can select from quite a bit of equipment melee weapons and/or ranged weapons), the story is given via text in visual novel format, so expect a lot of clicking, but given its format, the game can be also be played with one hand. Achievements are very easy to unlock and will mostly happen as you play the game, e.g. kill X amount of Y enemy type. I never used engineering skills and I don't think it's useful anyway. Specialize characters in a ranged weapon and some melee to save ammo when needed. Cunning and survival are most useful in the field and the camp for guarding and hunting, but have a medic for medkits and a crafter for gear and ammo in your camp. You have quite a wide selection of ranged weapons and protective gear in the game. I'd say one playthrough is worth it and even though you do unlock upgrade rewards when you beat the game (you can improve skills and unlock a starting profession to have a headstart with some equipment and skills), but the repetitive combat is a turnoff from replaying the game. Another minus is that the game only autosaves on the dawn of the following day, so tracking to the end of an area to kill a boss or complete a story mission will take a while. Besides I already got 2 best endings by defeating the punks and their leader and getting to the end of the desert night area before ingame day 42.
