Recent reviews by Jessi

Neighbours almost always are awful. RELEASE THE SNAILS!

More seriously though:
It is a very fun little game, despite its issues;
- Your AI's pathing is dangerously bad; I've had my braves (workers) or even my thinker (leader) decide to walk right through enemies instead of any smart path around them, which has ended the game pretty much immediately on occasion
- Of the 4 maps I've got access to so far, I absolutely hate one of them, love another, and the other two are heavily dependant on what relatively random tech I get.
- While none of the challenges are impossible persay, some may as well be if you get a bad combination of tech and situations
- The neighbours are, seriously, a problem more often than not; they start extremely comparatively advanced, and they tend to be hostile from the start (despite being listed as "cautious", but "cautious" goes pretty far into the negatives from my observation)

In its current state, it's highly frustrating and I recommend it mostly if you can get it on sale.
But it does have a lot of potential, and managing to win a challenge is extremely satisfying.
Did I mention that the braves are idiots? I just lost a game due to having two of them walk under the feet of a beast that squished them, and the other two drowned themselves while trying to get onto a fishing post... I don't even know how they managed that...

But despite its issues, I do highly enjoy it hence I still recommend it - just be prepared to start a new run at the drop of a brave, no matter how well it was going previously. Bright side, your runs aren't in vain - in addition to whatever you personally learn, there's also certain things you can do (taming beasts, befriending or eliminating other Thinkers, etc) that give you knowledge scrolls that can be used both in the run as well as outside of it - so a failed run can still help you progress your overall advancement and make the next run have a chance to be a little better.

If you enjoy the challenge of a really punishing community builder with more RNG than strategy, then you'll be playing this one again and again!

Don't get me wrong, I am that type enough that I'm pushing through to collect the achievements. But there is SO much to this game that's just... counter-intuitive to fun gameplay.

You unlock more options as you go, and it's rather nice that this happens whether you win or lose an event that you can try to influence (with more for winning them, of course).

Except having more options isn't necessarily a good thing. Why? Because your research options are entirely randomized each run, as is the map, and the two are NOT linked. For example, your random vegetable might be Tomato, which gets a bonus from being next to a water producer, while getting the type of water producer that has to be built on Stony terrain, and a map where you have little to no usable terrain - so no optimized veggies; which wouldn't be so bad, except they're not just for eating as other things such as one of your Doom protection methods might also need them. And despite having unlocked so many options, you will have no access to the ones that didn't get randomly rolled for a given playthrough.

Oh, and some of the things you unlock on the way are pretty much entirely negative, but you have to unlock them to get to the more positive ones beyond them.

You can only protect against about half of the bad events, but the ones you can't protect against can absolutely devastate your village and make it increasingly unlikely if not impossible to then win the ones you can influence.
Think the answer is to just have more people to have more workers dedicated to that defense? Well, here's hoping you can then ALSO overcome the increasingly punishing overpopulation penalty!

The Elders that you choose from each have unique aspects, but be prepared to have to learn to work around entirely new issues while no longer having access to some of the ways you might be expecting to solve those problems normally.

I believe higher difficulties might give you more points towards the progression for unlocking things, but I've honestly not found any reason to be inclined to play on anything higher than the easiest difficulty; the way it amps up in the punishment isn't worth the minorly increased reward, especially since it won't take that long to unlock stuff, and, again... unlocking more stuff isn't usually a good thing.

This game had a lot of potential to be a great masterpiece in its genre. It just took every choice along the way that detracts from that by adding more punishment rather than more options. There's a distinct difference between "Challenging" and "Punishing" that was missed along the way here.

If you catch it on sale and are a bit of a masochist, go for it!

-Update- So, while I still largely don't agree with many of the mechanics or choices for the direction of the game, I can't deny that the developer does clearly care about the vision and future of it, and does interact with the community. If you're okay with the harsher aspects of it, you'll probably get your money's worth from it.

Even if it's not, there is the thing that's kept me playing - the Achievements are doable, but just challenging enough (and RNG dependent in a few cases) that they take time and effort to get, and actually feel like little medals of honour for finally getting them, lol.

The controls are awful and confusing, and there's not much indication as to what you're supposed to be doing...

While it has a very interesting concept, things don't seem terribly well explained and aren't always the most intuitive.

That being said, it's entirely feasible that's a "me" issue (I do have some learning difficulties), and I do still enjoy it despite the struggle; as a bonus, managed to get it on sale.

Fun game; not really enough to do, especially with gold.
Once you beat the challenges and unlock all the card packs... that’s pretty much all there is to accomplish.

Everything I love about games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, with some Animal Crossing elements, but with a focus on gathering and crafting rather than farming; I am in love!

So many of the characters have such personality, and their stories are outstanding!

There's lots of little things I'd like to see - being able to explore some of the abandoned buildings, some of the NPCs being a bit more expanded on (there's a few whose relationships seem...not worth the effort involved to raise it), a few places where you could have more impact; maybe more reward/consequence for doing things quickly vs too slowly. But they're all things that would be icing on an already tasty cake.

Pros: Very pretty game, enjoyable concept

Cons: ...execution of it.
-You have stamina; you have to use it for everything. Places you've already traveled. Exploring on the map. Crafting. Etc.
-You have to wait to recover stamina, or eat food; except for food, you have to craft it (more stamina use), find it (stamina use), or be given it. Oh, and you eventually become "Well Fed" meaning you can't consume anymore - which includes potions, not just food.
-You have a carrying capacity that seems exceptionally low. Maybe there's a random trait that increases that or other means I didn't find yet.
-You're randomized, save for your name, appearance (from within small set of options), and your "backstory". You get a few rerolls to change your starting gear and traits - which I didn't notice was limited at the time of creation (my mistake, but it didn't feel terribly obvious until I was looking for it).
-Stamina limitations; your max and recovery are too low, and it's too easy to end up increasing your cost (if you're carrying a heavy load - which with the carry capaicty being so relatively low, is very easy to hit). I simply don't feel like I've accomplished anything by the time I'm forced to stop to wait.

I agree with the sentiments that it feels like a browser game, or maybe a very pretty mobile game.
If it were one of those, I'd probably feel more inclined. As a Steam game, I'm uninstalling it in favour of something that feels more rewarding for the time spent.

Dropped all my stuff in the village storage before leaving; those who do enjoy the game can feel free to have the extra little boost for however long it actually is good for.

-edit-
Also, some of the recipes seem to be bugged; I have both raw fish and raw potatoes, but show as having 0 when going to cook them.
Correction: I placed them in the village storage, and now they're craftable. As opposed to everything else having seemed to be crafted from my personal inventory, though perhaps I had resource overlap with the village? Confusing and deterring.

This game is very fun, and runs even better on Steam than other platforms I've tried it on - less lag "stuttering" or random relogging