Really pretty game with a very cozy ambience, i just wish the ending would add something more as it felt incomplete. Overall the adventure is worth it

I worked in HSE and one of my jobs was to assess the needs of people who are fire fighters and implement them because they have to do night shifts and what's not. It made me nostalgic playing this game and experiencing their POV. Even though the main character is not a fireman but a lookout for fires, I feel that itself is a real challenging job and somewhat simillar job.

Story: Okay
I did not find the story depressing or that much sad because life happens, you move on. You realize when you are 31, nothing surprises you anymore. The story starts off with a man who had a rocky relationship with his wife and took a job to get away a bit. It's an interesting vacation like job but still challenging. You meet your supervisor who is a very nice lady and you communicate with her through a radio. It's a nice LDR remote working relationship. Things happen during your stay, mysterious person following your tracks, strange science teams and some drunks. You also direct the story a bit like a visual novel, so the second time you play it, you are still entertained. The story does emphasize about fire hazards/safety quite a bit which is very good information for normal people.

Characters: Okay
I don't think there is much development except the guy going through a phase in his life. I think he is a lumberjack type of guy who does like nature and is good with an axe. The supervisor is mysterious and they have an interesting relationship with twists and turns. There's the guy's wife Julia also, then some side characters. There is not much of a strong BG info about others except the main character. The story is not striking and it's not oscar worthy but it fits I guess.

Gameplay
Had some performance issues which the SSD fixed, can't play with discord voice in the BG then it lags must be my potat laptop but eh. It's a basic walking simulator where you are equipped with the map but I did need some time to get used to the paths and such, it's challenging, the navigation. You also open fire lookout caches, read notes, gather useful items and travel from various parts of the map. I felt the gameplay would have more interesting stuff to do and did expect some survival stuff like the forest, but oh well. I liked that you could play the second time with commentary and that the photos you took can be converted into prints which is a real nice marketing strategy within the game.

Art and music
The art is nice and scenic. Real relaxing. The music is okay. Voice acting is good.
The dialogue between the characters are great, some dark humor and sarcasm. it made by bf laugh he liked it.

Achievements: bugged
It's bugged, the achievements are bugged. Most challenging ones are finding the turtle and the shutter bug is clearly bugged. For me i found the turtle at Jonesy lake, i checked there two days prior to day 68 or something and it was not there but poof it appeared on that particular day, according to the guides the turtle is at one location in each new playthrough but yeah it changed for me bruh. I needed to restart the whole game and get the shutter bug acheivement, but at least its achieveable. You need to stop alt tabbing out of the game, turn on manual saving instead of auto and then go ahead before getting bugged ones.


Overall
It's a short walking simulator about fire safety, navigating mid life crises and enjoying that wonderful scenery. It's relaxing, mysterious and too much walking to get to the path that you really want to go.

It takes some time to hit, but when it hits, it hits hard.