This is a unique game. It feels like a passion project; uncompromising in its design according to the creative vision of a small team working hard to fulfill a niche that is certainly up for grabs. I love the physics-based procedural movement system, complex NPC personalities and interactions (even though you're mostly going to kill everything anyway for XP), the minimal and immersive lore exposition, and the attention to detail when it comes to things like where you might reasonably find certain items and not (if you come across a laundry room, don't be surprised when you only find soap, combs and brushes as you rummage through all of the drawers, for example). The locations have a nice ambiance to them, quite distinct from other games. Aesthetically, closest association for me is probably Path of Exile.

The campaign is a rather hardcore, unforgiving experience; for most of the game there are no checkpoints, so if you die, that's it, really. Each run offers only a finite amount of resources, so consuming or losing items means they're gone forever; wounds can only be healed to a finite extent and you can only fix so many items (but at least they don't wear out as far as I've observed) due to the limited number of health saps and repair-orbs you can find.

I would not recommend Exanima to someone with disability or particular difficulty with fine motor control. The player is also expected to pay rather close attention to many aspects of the character's body and movements simultaneously. It is not an accessible game, unfortunately. Accessibility and difficulty settings are entirely absent, and that is probably my biggest criticism.

Stability-wise, the game is in my experience surprisingly solid. There are bugs, but they haven't been game-breaking; sometimes an error dialogue pops up in game, which is typically a sign it's about to get worse unless I restart (mostly item state changes that seem to trigger them); items have been duplicated a few times (but never lost); my organised inventory has gotten partially rearranged a few times; and I've lost a few minutes of progress a couple of times due to unrecoverable errors (preventing a clean exit); things like that. This is after over a hundred hours of playing both campaign and arena mode, so I'm actually impressed.

The controls are hard to get used to and very hard to get properly good at. Very frustrating at times; I still struggle with things like my character's footwork and paying attention to body orientation (which is somewhat annoyingly important since movement controls are relative to that rather than the screen), so I still flail around a lot, trip myself even without any obstacles to blame, and I both step and swing in the wrong direction frequently. The UX here could be improved, in my opinion, with options for cursor-relative movement, alternative camera modes/behaviour, and different heuristics for swing direction (such as cursor swipe/gestures). However, it *is* possible for a skilled player to make their character appear competent or even elegant in its movements.

The campaign is sort of open-world, but ultimately a linear experience, because there is only one (intended) way to progress and the only variation between runs is the (mostly) randomised/procedural items. It feels a bit like a generous demo of a much larger game, which isn't far from the truth. Exanima is a prequel to their more ambitious project, Sui Generis, and is being developed with their grander vision in mind. It effectively *is* Sui Generis as it's being built, just in a different narrative setting. As a result, the world feels deeper and richer than one might expect from a dungeon crawler. I feel as if there is a world beyond the confines of the walls, and I think that adds a lot to the experience.

There is a lot of content already in the game. It would take you dozens of hours to discover every area, but once you do, it's rather anticlimactic since it's not entirely clear where the currently released content ends. I've spent more hours than I'd like to admit looking for some new area, lore, clue, or secret where I'm quite certain by now that there is none to be found. There are a few closed gates (and even open ones but that don't take you anywhere) and blocked passages that seem to indicate that there is more to come. I don't know what a better solution might be, but it would be nice to know when to stop looking for content because it doesn't exist yet.

In conclusion: if you like this type of game and don't mind being (very) patient for more content to be gradually added, I definitely recommend it. I would say the amount of fun I've had just messing around in the practice arena alone was worth the price.

This is a unique game. It feels like a passion project; uncompromising in its design according to the creative vision of a small team working hard to fulfill a niche that is certainly up for grabs. I love the physics-based procedural movement system, complex NPC personalities and interactions (even though you're mostly going to kill everything anyway for XP), the minimal and immersive lore exposition, and the attention to detail when it comes to things like where you might reasonably find certain items and not (if you come across a laundry room, don't be surprised when you only find soap, combs and brushes as you rummage through all of the drawers, for example). The locations have a nice ambiance to them, quite distinct from other games. Aesthetically, closest association for me is probably Path of Exile. The campaign is a rather hardcore, unforgiving experience; for most of the game there are no checkpoints, so if you die, that's it, really. Each run offers only a finite amount of resources, so consuming or losing items means they're gone forever; wounds can only be healed to a finite extent and you can only fix so many items (but at least they don't wear out as far as I've observed) due to the limited number of health saps and repair-orbs you can find. I would not recommend Exanima to someone with disability or particular difficulty with fine motor control. The player is also expected to pay rather close attention to many aspects of the character's body and movements simultaneously. It is not an accessible game, unfortunately. Accessibility and difficulty settings are entirely absent, and that is probably my biggest criticism. Stability-wise, the game is in my experience surprisingly solid. There are bugs, but they haven't been game-breaking; sometimes an error dialogue pops up in game, which is typically a sign it's about to get worse unless I restart (mostly item state changes that seem to trigger them); items have been duplicated a few times (but never lost); my organised inventory has gotten partially rearranged a few times; and I've lost a few minutes of progress a couple of times due to unrecoverable errors (preventing a clean exit); things like that. This is after over a hundred hours of playing both campaign and arena mode, so I'm actually impressed. The controls are hard to get used to and very hard to get properly good at. Very frustrating at times; I still struggle with things like my character's footwork and paying attention to body orientation (which is somewhat annoyingly important since movement controls are relative to that rather than the screen), so I still flail around a lot, trip myself even without any obstacles to blame, and I both step and swing in the wrong direction frequently. The UX here could be improved, in my opinion, with options for cursor-relative movement, alternative camera modes/behaviour, and different heuristics for swing direction (such as cursor swipe/gestures). However, it *is* possible for a skilled player to make their character appear competent or even elegant in its movements. The campaign is sort of open-world, but ultimately a linear experience, because there is only one (intended) way to progress and the only variation between runs is the (mostly) randomised/procedural items. It feels a bit like a generous demo of a much larger game, which isn't far from the truth. Exanima is a prequel to their more ambitious project, Sui Generis, and is being developed with their grander vision in mind. It effectively *is* Sui Generis as it's being built, just in a different narrative setting. As a result, the world feels deeper and richer than one might expect from a dungeon crawler. I feel as if there is a world beyond the confines of the walls, and I think that adds a lot to the experience. There is a lot of content already in the game. It would take you dozens of hours to discover every area, but once you do, it's rather anticlimactic since it's not entirely clear where the currently released content ends. I've spent more hours than I'd like to admit looking for some new area, lore, clue, or secret where I'm quite certain by now that there is none to be found. There are a few closed gates (and even open ones but that don't take you anywhere) and blocked passages that seem to indicate that there is more to come. I don't know what a better solution might be, but it would be nice to know when to stop looking for content because it doesn't exist yet. In conclusion: if you like this type of game and don't mind being (very) patient for more content to be gradually added, I definitely recommend it. I would say the amount of fun I've had just messing around in the practice arena alone was worth the price.