Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Apr 26, 2018

  I adore this game. It's compact, it respects your intelligence and it's challenging. The premise is tidy; you're traveler named Scout, you have a dog called Aesop and your method of transport is raft that you steer down a treacherous river while Mother Nature throws everything and the kitchensink at you. Scout isn't a combatant, but she knows how to set traps and how to poison meat. Use the poisoned meat on wolves, box-traps on rabbitholes and speartraps on boars (need 1 speartrap) and bears (need 4 speartraps to bring a bear down!). Meat serves as food (Make jerky when possible and store it on Aesop!) and as a weapon against wolves when poisoned. Scout is always on the look-out for resources and you'll have a use for everything that you find, ranging from mullberries to nuts&bolts and everyting in between. It's the only game that I have where I cheer when I find a glass jar. Collect enough resources to upgrade Scout's raft into a floating luxury condo but don't sit on resources thinking that you'll need it later; rushing raft upgrades makes Scout's life (and yours) much easier. The same goes for crafting warm clothes. Don't hoard the hides. Craft pouches to carry more resources and craft clothes to stay warm. Aesop is the game's meta-progress, store truly important stuff that want to carry over from run to run on Aesop. Stuff like jerky, medicines and stitching-kits come to mind as important. And glass jars! Aesop will happily safeguard your precious jars from run to run. Some crafting recipes seem to be wasteful however. Water-filters come to mind and snare-traps. If you have a jar you can collect rainwater. It rains often enough to make water-filters pointless. Even if you only have one jar, you're good. Snare-traps are trumped by box-traps, simply because a box-trap can be used twice... Graphically the game is beautiful despite it's low-poly look and nicely scales to resolutions like 2560X1080. Not too shabby considering that developers like Bethesda and Bioware can't seem to figure out the mysteries of 2560X1080. Now for the elephant in the room: The Flame in the Flood's emergent story-telling is 1:1 locked away in a hamfisted AI that will decide that your run is over either at the start or a ways in by merely starving you of resources. I have been on doomed runs because no matter where I went cattails weren't present. Without cattails you can't craft rope and without rope you can't make traps and without traps you can't kill animals and with animals you can't craft warm clothes or keep a full belly which leads to Scout dying. The worst thing is not finding flint, even in the places where Scout's supposed to find flint. Game knowledge will see you through it as there are ways to mitigate the RNG. Aesop acting as meta-progression is one thing, the other thing is that on campingrounds you can collect little tasks that yield rewards that can also be collected at campingrounds. The tasks all revolve around just playing the game and yield rewards like multiple jerkies for killing a bear, or two medicines for purposefully breaking a limb. The further Scout travels down the river, the more dangerous the wildlife gets and the colder the climate becomes. That's where the glaring flaw of the game's RNG comes into play. Once you know what you're doing and the wildlife isn't a huge problem anymore and navigating the river is a matter of knowing what and what not to do, you'll be able to recognize quite early if you're on a doomed run or if you're actually able to match or go beyond your previous record. This fact might kill the fun for some people. I find the game, despite its flawed RNG, nevertheless compelling which is helped by its presentation and atmosphere, heightened by the musical score. The music in this game is far better than it has a right to be. Find the OST on Spotify, I can heartily recommend it. The Flame and the Flood is hard to defend as a thumbs up, but I give it a thumbs up anyway. If only because it's a survival game that is a) finished and b) you don't have to punch trees.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 26, 2015

  As an older gamer "50", my take on this game is somewhat different than my 13 year old sons. Let me start with the positives..art style, ambient sound and the soundtrack...all top notch! Relaxing at one moment, then a few moments later trying desperately to find the items I need to keep my girl alive. It's this constant battle of emotions that makes this game so darn enjoyable... For not having a story yet "the game grips you" and only makes you want to see what the writers of the final release will be able to conjure to deepen it's hooks into your heart. Yep, I said heart. Couple other things worth noting, First, I started the game with mouse and keyboard but found the gaming pad much easier to play the game. Gaming pad first! Secondly, put on some headphones, hear the game, feel the water and enjoy the lighting as the game cycles day, night and weather. Ok, now for the negatives...don't have real deal breakers, 1 box on the starting island seems to be sunk every now and then into the eart, other than that..it's all good. Highly reccomend. Oh yeah, as far as my 13 year old sons thoughts on the game...it's not league of legends. Silly kid.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 7, 2017

  IMMERSE YOURSELF IN A VISCERAL GAMING EXPERIENCE!!!!!11!! That's not quite the tag-line I'd use to describe The Flame and the Flood, but in an industry fraught with bold and sometimes high-fallutin' claims of gameplay "experiences", this game quietly sneaks up and delivers something different. Not saying that this template of survival hasn't been done before, a number of times while playing I got a whiff of other survival games like This War of Mine and Don't Starve. In that respect is it TRULY somthing different? No, but at the same time delivers a certain amount of charm that makes the experience all it's own. From the cartoony Tim Schafer inspired art that becomes violent and terrifying quicker than a boar getting side-swiped by a well placed trap; To the minimalist bluegrass guitar and harmonica that plays sparingly through your journey, The Flame and the Flood is a unique twist on a tired genre. And now the fun part after the honeymoon glow has worn off. The Flame in Flood seems like a game that is far from finished, my big issue so far in the game is balance and just plain ol' common sense. Now, I may not be a big city lawyer with a $30 degree from the State University of Science and Fire, but I reckon that more than just cat-tails burn out of the selectable items in my inventory. I have starved to death in two games for the inability to cook anything for the lack of a stove, and something to kindle the flames. To add insult to injury, one particular campsite began a random torrential downpour right as I was approaching the fire. And the game has the minerals to tell me as I approach the location: "FIlthy Tease Campground: Often has Flint, Always has a lit fire." Couple this with the cluttered and clunky inventory, where you never have enough space for anything. The inventory is like trying to visit your eldery aunt: way too much junk. So you just end up hoarding things until you've discovered the mummified cat from 1998 underneath the mountain of fallen Vanity Fair magazines, Canada Dry cans and Little Debbie wrappers. Junk yes, but junk she may need at some point. The difficulty curve seems steep, but with a modicum of effort you'll get into the swing of things. Which leads me to my last complaint at 2:30 in the morning, for a roguelike, once you get a feel for the enemy types and the map layouts, everything gets boring rather quick. Can I think of better games in this genre? Absolutley. Do any of those games have the same character and mystery as this title? Not at all.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 13, 2017

  Very beautiful but poorly designed. This game shines in terms of art and music. It does a great job of conjuring an environment not commonly explored by videogames. The result is beautifully atmospheric. It is a shame therefore that the gameplay is so uninspiring. It's all about inventory management and crafting following set out rules. There is little to no room for creatively organic play. It is entirely a mechanical process of "to solve problem A get items B and C from location D and craft them to make item E ..." This could be OK in a more forgiving game, but it wants to be a roguelike, survival game. So you end up restarting a lot and working through the same sequence of early crafting processes -- get flint to build a knife and a hammer, build a trap, catch a rabbit, skin the rabbit, etc ... Most good roguelikes (e.g. Nethack, Spelunky) are built around fine-grained mechanics which interact with one another in interesting ways, so the random level generation creates a wide variety of novel situations. TFITF doesn't have that kind of granularity or organic interaction. Each location is basically a big random loot-drop, perhaps with an enemy guarding it. On the top of all this, there are a bunch of bad UI design decisions. For a game that is mostly about inventory management, the inventory UI is cumbersome. E.g. you can't access your inventory while looting a container. So if your inventory is nearly full, you'll find yourself clicking back and forth between the inventory screen and the looting screen. Likewise when you are crafting. I really wanted to like this game. I keep coming back to it to give it another go, and each time I am disappointed.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 3, 2017

  This could have been a really good and enjoyable game, if it wasn't for the random and unfair parts which you just cannot avoid. I don't have a problem with punishing games, but after a while you'll just be in a constant hurry to fullfil your characters needs and as items spawn randomly throughout the islands, it's nothing but a matter of luck if you survive or not. I feel that because of that you miss out on the interesting features this game has to offer, as there is never time to wander around or plan your next move. You'll also spend a lot of time in the menus (managing inventory, crafting etc.). I usually like that sort of gameplay, but as the ingame time doesn't stop while browsing the menu/inventory you'll spend your time rushing through things and eventually making a mistake caused by lack of time which leads to your characters death. Like I said before, I wish the game wouldn't be so hectic (and still be challenging), but the way it is designed just wasn't for me and because of that I can't recommend it.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 28, 2015

  My journey ends here. After 79 days of struggle, I almost made it to the 150th milestone. I wish I had the strenght to keep on for even just one more day, instead of collapsing so close to my goal, but it's been one hell of a ride alright. Nature's not been kind to me for the past 20 days, luckily I saw it coming and filled my raft with jerky, ash cakes and dandelions for good measure. Still, wildlife has its ways of letting you feel unwelcomed, but I did not lose hope. At least not until the last 5 days. As I was biting into my last jerky, I knew it was the end of the road. Time to take drastic measures. If I am not wanted, I shall just ride into the sunset as far as I can, without looking back. No more stops at scrapyards only to find some nuts & bolts in an abandonned car and a pack of wolves ready to greet the juiciest peace of meat they ever saw in the last few weeks. No more suicidal moves onto the river for some grubs and lumber I don't even need anymore. It's time to ramble on. The crazy thing is, once you accept your certain death, you almost feel relieved. You made it through the hardships of the beginning, then as the wheel started to turn in your favor you began to gain confidence, too much confidence, leading you to some stupid, regretful decisions. At midpoint the monotony started to kick in, replacing your fear for survival with a daily grind as much comforting as it numbs all your senses. It's only 50 days in on your journey that you slowly began to realise that all good things must come to an end, and the abrupt decrease in plants was no stranger to this. Without it, no game, no cooking, no juicy meat, only grubs and scraps. The wildlife wasn't a giant supermarket anymore, you lost a few ranks in the food chain, again. Back to square one, only this time bring your own tools. It kinda felt revigorating at first, I have to admit. A way to keep things fresh, and to keep you on your toes. Then after a few days where you visit any spot you can find, devoid of anything that could help you eat, you realise Mom Nature has a grand scheme, and she's gonna starve you out. Except if you just want to take the easy way out and drown yourself into the river. No, screw that, challenge accepted! I'm just gonna go as far as I can, and if I die, it will be on my own terms! Acceptance is pretty easy, and so is closure, I'm already pretty worn out by the ride anyway. The good thing is that I don't have so much to care for anymore, my only concern is to give Aesop my finest survival gear so that his future owner will put it to good use, after that I am golden. I just need to stop every now and then to rest, eat and hydrate myself, and I'm back on the water again. Feels like when I was a kid and we would embark on road trips with my parents to go on vacation. Everything under cruise control and smooth sailing. I worry about the occasional storm, but it feels like forever since I last had one pouring on me. Along the way, I manage to scrounge some extra bits of food that allow me to push my journey even further. If wildlife is mean-spirited, the river can be kind-hearted at times. At long last, the day finally come. I won't sleep tight tonight. Actually, both as an act of defiance and as a way to let go softly, I managed to get every bit as exhausted as hungered, which should help alleviate the pain a bit. As I push myself away from the dock one last time, I feel strangely upbeat. One last ride. Make it count. Your raft is worn out just like you, one bad corner and you could end up down the drain, but you know that's not gonna happen, not on your watch, not today anyway, you have a destiny to fulfill. And I have to admit, it sure feels great for a last day: the sun is rising nice and easy over the horizon, the rapids let you sift through the river without any hiccup on the way, you can even hear yourself mumbling one of the great tunes that accompanied you during your journey down the river. Eventually, the waters take pity in you as they calm down to support you during your last stand. You collapse of fatigue on your raft, only seconds before the starving pins you down. You take one last look at your trusty companion. Go Aesop, you're free now, find someone else that will love you as much as I did. You're down to 146.9 miles, and your journey ends here. If you think about it, you chose your way out, only a handful of explorers can take pride in that. I sure am gonna miss the ride. Good thing I can just start a new one right now, then. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm usually not one to post review of Early Access games, but this one seems pretty fleshed out already. We should expect less crashes, less visual bugs and some gameplay tweaking along the way, but at core the game plays and feels great. Balancing is the main issue right now. As of any rogue-like, the early game depends a lot on your luck and your knowledge of the systems, so you're bound to die a lot at first, which is by no mean a problem. You learn with every game, so you can survive 4 days during your first playthrough, then hypothetically 8, 16, 32 and so on. The campaign isn't implemented yet, only the endless mode, basically a version of the game where you're gonna die anyway, so you have to make it for the longest streak of days, or travel the furthest down the river, depending on whatever you fancy. That's the best thing about the game in my opinion, time and mileage are not ultimately tied together. When you get on your raft, you get to choose whether you need to scavenge every location, stock up on supplies, take a minute to craft and manage your inventory or even take a breather, or alternatively if you feel you have enough on you (or not enough space to scavenge anyway), you can just powel through, get on the rapids and quickly get down the river in search of better lots. The game is best played with a gamepad, right now it's even mandatory if you want to get through the rapids without smashing your boat at every single rock. Once you get the hang of it, the game is a blast. The sole feeling of getting on your boat with your dog, sifting through the calm waters, listening to some amazing tunes is amazing. And then a giant storm happens, the rain come down pouring on you, and you just have to seek shelter, and the game get even more amazing. Once you're down 100 miles (60 days in, my longest streak for now), monotony starts to kick in, every lot you step on is literally a wasteland, except for the few plants scarcely available. That's when you realise hoarding on medicine and water won't get you any further if you just die of plain starvation. End game is all about embracing that fact, visiting any location with the slightest hope of finding enough resources to craft some traps that would help you hunt some game, gasping in delight to the vision of dandelions of cat tails on the ground, all the while avoiding in the best possible ways the wolves and boars attacking you. When that day finally comes, however, it's time to let it go. So you just cram your best survival tools in your trusty companion's bag, knowing that they'll come handy to whoever comes accross Aesop, and that person happens to be you, on your next playthrough. As much as it is imperfect at the moment, The Flame in the Flood is a very compelling experience, granted not for everyone, but if you like the Open Wide, if survival of trekking is your thing, or even if you're just fond of the art style, I urge you to try it. As of now it's only a rough gem, but with enough polish, it can become a real diamond.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 20, 2015

  Let me preface this by saying that I am incredibly stingy when it comes to "survival" and "crafting" games because I teach emergency Wilderness Survival, Wildlife Tracking, and a variety of other Wilderness Skillsets. Most of the games in the genre are so grotesquely nonrealistic that I physically cannot bring myself to play them; even if the nonrealistic elements are implemented for "exciting" gameplay. I love this game. The Flame in the Flood is probably the closest thing I've found to a semi-real survival game. You cannot carry much, at least early on, you are interacting with plants/things that actually have practical uses [Cattails, Dandelions, Yucca, Aloe], and you're at risk of exposure, dehydration, starvation, and fatigue. Most survival games place a gross amount of emphasis on food. The reality is, human beings have been known to survive for well-over a month without ingesting much of anything. This game does food well. It isn't the dominant focus, but it matters. Most things you consume are small and meager, giving you just enough to continue trudging forward. The purist in me loves this approach. Water and exposure seem to be the larger issues, as they should be. Though, I'd like to see exposure increase punishment, a bit. Getting wet in a survival situation is about the most god awful thing that can happen. It takes a hell of a lot more than a nap and 4 hours [if you rest in game, you can rest for 4 hours and dry out] to dry out. Sitting next to a fire might do it, but the dehydration aspect is usually brutally punishing if you've yet to secure a reliable water source. Typically, as little as 4 hours of exposure to cold or heat is enough to suck the life out of someone. I haven't played for long, but so far getting wet has felt relatively inconsequential [perhaps i'm just on a lucky streak]. There are some things that I don't love, though. I liked having such a tiny inventory, initially, but it does have some drawbacks. Namely, I am spending a lot of time in my inventory menus, juggling things around between myself, my pet, and my raft; crafting things, to consume other things, to make space for other things; you get it? Sure, I could leave some of this stuff behind, and I am sure I eventually will, but early on everything feels so valuable, it's a shame to leave it behind. In a lot of ways, I am spending more time tabbing through menus and running back and forth from my raft to store things than I am actually playing the game. Unless, of course, that's what the game design is meant to be, but I suspect not. I'm not sure I really have the solution for the game's inventory spacing issue since it does add a layer of realism. One potential solution would be to allow the player to loot something and have it automatically stored on the raft/pet if the raft/pet already has part of a stack. Less real, but they could graphically have the pet run back and forth from the player and raft to increase the realistic appeal. The same method could be implemented for crafting things [IE. directly pulling the items from raft/pet]. This already exists, sort of, but requires proximity. Not sure it's a bad thing, but I can see after many hours of running to and fro it possibly becoming irritating. Another simple solution would be to increase starting backpack size by a few spaces AND increasing the overall stack size [most things stack to 10, it seems]. Nothing too extreme, but for certain plants [cattails], it might be a nice QoL change. Then, there's the occasional annoyance of a plant, like yucca, growing in an incorrect biome. This is purely a "me" thing, but it definitely annoys me. And the fact that every animal, which I actually like because it increases enjoyment, is a blood thirsty bastard - easily explained away by the "end of the world" scenario. Oh, but the crows calling wolves, should definitely be Ravens. Ravens are much more notorious for alerting wolves than crows are. Even going so far as to fly above things, screaming. What really sucks me in and is particularly endearing, for someone like me, is the game is mostly accurate. They even have ash cakes in the game! A friend and I refer to these as "ass cakes" cuz they usually taste like shit, but hey. Sure, the recipe isn't realistic, but it's the thought that counts! I should really just email the devs and offer my obnoxious help.
• gamedeal user

  May 30, 2017

  While it's a great idea, it gets old VERY fast. You can't directly fight any creatures, so if you don't have anything prepared, you're pretty fucked, especially the further down the river you go. It hit the point where I was always fighting wolves and it was raining everywhere I went, and though I had the best gear and enough traps and weapons to handle everything, it was just annoying. The soundtrack isn't really my style, but I have recently fallen in love with Landsick and Flame in the Flood. It had a lot of potential, but fell short.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 23, 2018

  [h1]Technical foibles can't extinguish this game's soul.[/h1] [u][i]Summary:[/i][/u] [i]The Flame in the Flood[/i] is a survival game that commits to its enticing concept and doesn't try to do too much with it. You're thrown straight into a focused survival experience that has you rafting your way through a world blanketed in biblical floods. Your only steady companions are your dog, your raft, the long water, and Chuck Ragan's game defining soundtrack. Unfortunately some minor bugs regularly sully the immersion. With its stylistically limited scope, this game weighs in on the shorter end of the spectrum for the survival genre, but it is still a good value. [u][i]Full review:[/i][/u] Death will likely come for you early and in numerous ways as you find grounding in [i]The Flame in the Flood[/i]. There are four wellness parameters for you to keep on top of: Food, Water, Temperature and Fatigue. The game gives you more than enough resources to survive, as long as you know how to use them. Things become more sparse as you progress in order to keep some measure of pressure on. It also adds variety by having regions that are replete with some goods and devoid of others. Plant life and scavenged items will be your targets at the outset. There's a good balance between having enough different things to collect and having too many to keep track of. That being said, inventory management will always be a required annoyance. You can start to expand your storage pretty quickly as you graduate to hunting rabbits and crafting their pelts. Animals are both your best friend and worst enemy in this game. Your dog will keep you company, store items and does a good job of pointing out collectables and dangers. Some may dislike his frequent barking but I never found it to be grating. Boars, wolves and bears can kill you if you aren't prepared. Learning their behavior patterns and how to hunt them is one of the primary sources of progression. As with other things in this game, you will become comfortable with them after seeing them as often as you do. There are other, less mobile dangers too. Snakes, biting ants and sticker bushes all take constant vigilance to avoid. This is one area where an immovable camera is problematic. While it's uncommon for these dangers to be hidden in visually occluded places, it also isn't impossible. It's irksome to run behind a building, somewhere your character could clearly see but you can't, only to be bitten by ants or worse. It feels cheap being punished for something that you couldn't reasonably have known was there. These minor annoyances from bad design or game bugs add up elsewhere too. Plants will occasionally be placed inside the terrain, remaining forever out of reach. Animals will become stuck, or they can also spawn out of bounds. Feathers are one of the worst offenders since it's a crapshoot whether they'll fall somewhere you can get to or not. A similarly lazy immersion breaker is how you can change your dog's appearance and name from Aesop to Daisy, yet all in game references will continue to call him/her Aesop. The lyrics and general style of the soundtrack add greatly to the sense of place this game has. I'm not usually a fan of country music, but I still consider this soundtrack to be among the best you'll find in gaming. The artwork, while not as great, do a fine job of drawing you into this world. It manages to communicate a lot through the visuals, and that's a sign of good design in my book. The audio similarly does a good job of imparting information, all while bringing you closer to this world with its wind, rain and rushing rapids. [i]The Flame in the Flood's[/i] minimalistic story is mostly conveyed through its setting. Campaign Mode combines procedurally generated maps with a few guaranteed story locations, including an ending. You'll run into a handful of the denizens of this waterlogged land that can offer conversation and small insights into what happened. Endless Mode, as its name suggests, will let you keep on rafting to your heart's content; or to your demise. This is where you'll do most your achievement hunting if that's your thing. It's also where the game's limits become most obvious. There are only so many recipes and once you've got all the best gear the best reason to keep playing came from achievements. You can upgrade your raft, but there is otherwise no base building. When going for the 200 mile achievement I eventually died more from negligence and boredom than any hardship. This story also illustrates why I'm not a fan of how damage is handled. Instead of a health bar, injuries impose penalties on your other stats until they are cured or kill you. It's their immediate impact on Fatigue that is most frustrating. If you are short on sleep and happen to get hurt, you run the risk of collapsing on the spot with no real recourse but to die unless you are carrying a cure for every ailment on your person. In this story's case, I stepped on a snake while tired, passed out from exhaustion only to wake up and immediately die from snake venom. All while I had a cure for snake venom stashed not far away on my raft. In the end I did wish for a little more out of [i]The Flame in the Flood[/i], but its price is low enough and its strong points are enthralling enough to garner my recommendation.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 1, 2020

  I really wish I could recommend this game because it has good potential and strong art. Sadly, the game mechanics felt just a few rounds of testing away from being satisfying over the length of time needed to complete the game. [h1]The Good[/h1] [list] [*][b]The soundtrack[/b] takes a big leap of faith using a number of country/folk style songs with strong vocals. Most games tend to avoid vocals to avoid noticeable repetition. [*][b]The visual art[/b] is pretty good. The locked camera and repetition through your travels diminish it somewhat. [*][b]Recipes and remedies[/b] are kept simple and shallow. Every item has a basic purpose. Clothing is rather linear though. [*][b]The concept[/b] of a travel-centric survival game with a river raft as your permanent home is novel and satisfying. [/list] [h1]The Bad[/h1] [list] [*][b]Rafting[/b] is both the most deadly activity and the least intuitive. On land you get used to WASD moving you in cardinal directions. On the raft, it rotates you, but then it subtly restricts that based on where you're [i]allowed[/i] to go and whether your raft is upgraded. Meanwhile, rowing hard will hurl you at full speed in odd perpendiculars, the camera is locked diagonally to make it really frustrating orienting yourself to these controls, and collisions are absurdly violent regardless of how slow you're going. [*][b]The river currents[/b] themselves aren't accurate enough for how fast-paced the rafting is. It feels more like you're fighting the game's interpretation of a river than the actual river on screen. Despite giving the impression that you control the raft, you can't row backwards in calm waters or cross behind certain islands. It's all fuzzy and unreliable. [*][b]The menus[/b] don't pause the game, so you'll probably get murdered by a boar while looking for your spear trap. The inventory button opens the last tab, not just the inventory. After several hours, the recipe icon still hasn't clicked--it's a campfire, the symbol of resting/camping in almost any other game. [*][b]Repetition[/b] sets in quickly. Once you figure out the game, you stop needing to play it. My inventory is just one stack of everything. [*][b]Survival becomes unimportant[/b] after a short while. You don't need medicine if you know how to avoid injuries, nor do you need the ingredients to make it. I've never used penicillin or found another moldy lump. I almost never drink from jars. Water filters are useless since it rains constantly which means charcoal is useless. Sleeping is useless. Health and eating are nearly useless. I stockpiled all my non-spoiled foods, and by the time I had 20 jerkies I started finding them on every island. I've still never eaten one. I spend 5 zones getting just three raft schematics, and now they're everywhere including one car with two schematics. Part of me is tempted to sail straight through to the end zone whatever that is. [*][b]Traps and archery[/b] aren't satisfying. Literally drop a snare over the rabbit hole and walk away. 100% chance of catching that rabbit. Meanwhile you can't move with a bow and have no idea how many shots it takes to kill anything (many). You can't collect your arrows either, so when the bow refuses to aim no matter how long you wait, you either never use it or you waste a shot. Spear traps are weird for the same reason that traps don't work in RPGs: the player does all the moving. By the time you know there's an animal worth hunting, it's already chasing you and you won't have time to set traps. Of course, you can always go sit in the safety buffer at the level's entrance and take your sweet time abusing the animal's limited AI. [/list] [h1]The Ugly[/h1] [list] [*][b]Snakes[/b] can be found everywhere, including behind buildings where you'll never ever see them. Every single snake bite I've ever had was from an invisible snake. They hiss, yes, but all twenty of them hiss constantly all across the island. The camera being zoomed in and top-down doesn't feel right for snakes either. [*][b]Bears[/b] are frustrating unknowns to me. I met one, it ran through [i]three[/i] spike traps, mauled me several times, then went home and... died? I can't tell. It's laying in its cave and I can step all over it, yet the only "search" action I have there gives a boar's corpse. Is it invincible? I don't know. Clothes don't seem to matter and bears literally stay put until you walk up to their face so why on earth would I ever investigate this further? [*][b]The quick menus[/b] should only be used when you're absolutely certain that you're safe. The quick menu blocks your arrow keys and forces you to walk in whatever direction you were moving when you opened the menu until you close it and hit those arrow keys again. Oh, and the only way to close the quick menu is to move your hand off of WASD to hit Escape. Worst of all, you can access this control-blocking menu while on your raft. I nearly drowned getting a jar of water. [*][b]Quests[/b] actively encourage playing badly. If I were already injured, it would make sense to reward me for healing up, yet that's never been the case. I have quests to eat worms and grubs, yet I've only seen a single worm in all this time. The rewards are worthless and the objectives unrelated in context. It's not clear that you can get one magical quest from every quest box. Then there are the main quests which sit untouched until, hours later, you complete them with no input of your own. [*][b]Guidance[/b] is minimal after the first few minutes. Because the game is procedurally generated, it has no control over how you encounter most new elements in the game. As you might have noticed, there are quite a lot of unfair ways to meet those elements. My first snakes were invisible. My first wolf was in a pack of three. The only bear I've met used all my offensive resources and nearly ended my entire game. I met the White Wolf and it ran away after I closed my quest window and haven't seen it since. Most of my quests offer me sticks for eating grubs and worms. The game basically overcame my survival challenges for me. The story is somewhere in there but it's unfolding so slowly that I only know it exists because of other people's reviews. [/list] It's not often that a game's mechanics take me so far out of the experience that I can go on and on about what could be improved. The review above is the sort you might expect to see on an Early Access game. Many of the flaws I've listed are largely fixable or avoidable. Given that the game's been out for a few years, this is clearly its final state. I could recommend buying it on sale, enjoy its rafting music, and giving it a few hours. I couldn't recommend playing it all the way through. Stop playing when it gets frustrating and let those pleasant first hours rest in peace.