Supraland is a spectacular and highly polished blend of exploration and puzzles, with a plethora of external references/”easter eggs”, and a (big) splash of humour. One of the most surprising things I’ve learnt is that Supraland was mostly created by a single developer, David Münnich, making it even more impressive! On Steam, it’s described as a “mix between Portal, Zelda and Metroid”, and I can certainly see where that description is coming from. There’s also a pie chart highlighting Supraland as roughly 45% exploration, 45% puzzles, and 10% fighting, and again, I’d say this aligns with my experiences! Not only that, but they even share the estimated playtime on the Steam page, which isn’t something I see very often. They put Supraland between 12-25 hours, the lower end obviously being focussed on the main story rather than exploring and finding the insane amount of secrets and hidden chests. It took me around 26 hours to complete the game with all the base game achievements.

You begin with an initial cutscene, beautifully introducing the setting of the game/world. Immediately after, you meet some of the initial characters, gameplay mechanics, and the start of the story, while going through what is essentially the tutorial, without it feeling too tutorial-like or feeling like a separate entity as some tutorials can be.

As mentioned on the store page, “the story is minimal”, but at the same time, I felt like it mixed perfectly with the rest of the game to bring out the best of everything. Plus, while it was a simple story, it was still interesting, amusing, and had occasional twists thrown in for good measure. Heck, if you want to look at it more seriously, it even highlights real world problems such as race/colour, and how the words and actions of a single person in power can influence and divide so many. We’re gonna take it for what it is though; simple and fun!

There are lots of different items and upgrades to acquire throughout the world. Many of these can be found scattered/hidden around the world, while others can be purchased with the coins you find and collect from enemies. You’ve got lots of basic upgrades for more health, holding more coins, damage, etc, along with more specific upgrades required for story progression, including new/improved equipment and jumping. There’s even more useful upgrades made available upon completion of the story too!

There’s a fair amount of combat in Supraland, but this is pretty basic for the most part, and certainly one of the weaker aspects of the game. You’re pretty much just spamming with your wooden sword to attack enemies, while moving around to dodge attacks. The speed of attacks seems unreasonably fast too. It led a bit of discomfort to begin with, but I soon became used to it and the other aspects of the game had more than enough charm and appeal, and the later items and upgrades that could be used for combat really made it a “nonissue”.

Puzzles and exploration are where Supraland really excels though! There’s lots of areas to explore, and the more you progress, unlock, and upgrade your items and abilities, the more exploration opens up. You think something seems unreachable? Chances are you can get there at some point, and there’s likely some form of secret or amusing easter egg to be found! I’m an explorer, so any kind of open world game will have my testing the limits and trying to get to insane places. Supraland not only encourages that, but rewards it, and it does it so much better than any game I’ve played before it! I was half expecting to get stuck in terrain at some point, but to my (very happy) surprise, I never got stuck or glitched out.

One of the most surprising things I found was the lack of a map, but I actually learned to love not having access to a map, especially later in the game where you could get up really high to see where you were going. There’s plenty of shortcuts to unlock too, so there’s no real need for a map anyway. It made the exploration side of things even more fun and appealing to me!

Every area will be brimming with different puzzles, whether it’s one of the main ones to progress through the story, or one to find a secret area or new upgrade. The variety and progression of puzzles was pretty much spot on for me! Some took little to no thought, others made me think a little, and then there’s the ones where I was better off having a little break and coming back with a fresh head. I did this a few times, and the solution generally clicked as soon as I came back to the puzzle. One of the great things about many of the puzzles and exploration is that there’s often multiple ways of going about them.

If you hadn’t already gathered, I freakin’ loved Supraland! The combination of world, story, exploration, puzzles, secrets, progression, and humour was simply perfect! While the combat wasn’t anything special, it soon became irreverent once I got into the game a little and everything else worked their way deep into my heart! The fact I could go pretty much anywhere and didn’t encounter any bugs or glitches was also impressive! Supraland is more complete and polished than the majority of AAA games out there. If you enjoy exploration, puzzles, and good humour, I implore you to give Supraland a try!

For more reviews follow Gawain Games Curator Page and check out the Gawain Games Website[gawain-games.com]. You can also find my review on We The Players[wetheplayers.com].

From the moment I saw Sands of Salzaar, I knew I would love it! It’s been sitting in my Steam library since release as I (impatiently) awaited the English localisations. Fortunately, English was introduced in September, and come November I finally got around to playing. As expected, once I began playing, I found it hard to stop! For an early access game, it’s really pretty awesome! That’s not to say it’s without flaws though.

Upon starting the game, you choose to play as one of several different characters/classes, each with their own specific skill tree, unique troops, magic/arcana, starting troops and specialties. I played through as a Jackal which had me starting the game with two Bounty Hunters, the ability to recruit other Bounty Hunters, and the Jackal skill tree. I wasn’t able to learn any Arcana with this class though. The Jackal skill tree was pretty basic but the addition of the legacy skill trees made it a little better. Other classes, especially with Arcana and additional Legacy unlocks, can become much more impressive and diverse.

The next part of character creation involves the Legacy system. Legacy Points can be used to start with additional bonuses, be it skills, items, more inventory space, specific party characters and more. You initially begin with 60 Legacy Points, which I put into additional passive skills for crit and dexterity boosts. Each completion of the game will increase the total number of legacy points depending on what you’ve achieved during your playthrough. After my first playthrough, I now have 392 Legacy Points ready to use at the start of the next game.

Following the class selection and legacy points allocation, you move onto the character creation. You get to select your hairstyle, face type, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, beard, body, and trinket (masks, scars, wrinkles). It’s a pretty simple creation system, but it still took me plenty of time to choose what I wanted!

I’ve seen many people saying that Sands of Salzaar is similar to the Mount and Blade games, and they’re not wrong. There are numerous similarities, but there are just as many differences too! The obvious similarities are with the different factions, cities, and characters, and your ability to improve and reduce relations with them depending on your actions. The character and city quests are incredibly familiar with the likes of rounding up runaways, collecting debts, hunting down fugitives, making deliveries, and a few other quests. You can also besiege, take over cities, and appoint your followers as sultan of cities.

There are many differences with Sands of Salzaar, the first one I noticed being the focus on exploration. Unlike Mount and Blade, Sands of Salzaar is split into different maps, each of which are unexplored and unknown, other than the city locations. Exploring uncovers a plethora of different explorable locations, combat scenarios, plants, items, and prestige shards throughout the world, as well as other characters with side-quests and other mysterious events.

Another big difference was the focus on the main story questline, side quests, and character questlines (depending on the character you choose at the start). The main questline didn’t seem particularly long for me, but that’s likely because I took over the world prior to doing most of the quests. I imagine if I had attempted the quests first, I would have hit a wall and had to stop to level up and recruit more soldiers before being able to progress. The way I played it, the only slight challenge was a the very end.

Battles and sieges were the biggest difference between Sands of Salzaar and Mount and Blade. Unfortunately it’s not a good difference. I absolutely love the battles in Mount and Blade! It’s one of the aspects that gives it such awesome replay value! Sands of Salzaar has a rather disappointing battle system though, especially when it comes to sieges. You have basic control over your troops, with the ability to command them all or based on their category of melee, ranged, or mounted. It was of some use, but not as much as I would like. Battles were just pure chaos for the most part, particularly with larger battles. There were many times when I couldn’t even see myself. There was just a mass of bodies smashing together. While I appreciate the reality of chaotic battles, it doesn’t make for a very enjoyable experience in this case. Troops often moved so fast that I struggled to click on them to use my skills. It’s a real shame, because this is the main flaw I’ve found with the game, and I truly hope it gets a revamp during early access. While there are various reasons to replay the game, the battles are the one thing putting me off doing so.

Sands of Salzaar is an awesome game overall, albeit not well polished just yet, but then again, Mount and Blade games are far from polished years after release and I love them! I noticed a variety of mistakes with the English translation, but considering the amount of text, it was pretty minimal, and nothing that disrupted my understanding of what was being said too much. The stories, characters, soundtrack, and most of the gameplay were great, but the battles really let it down. If they can improve the battle/siege system then it would likely become one of my favourites! It’s still well worth at least one playthrough as it stands though, and I highly recommend it despite its flaws!

For more reviews follow Gawain Games Curator Page and check out the Gawain Games Website[gawain-games.com]. You can also find my review on We The Players[wetheplayers.com].