Recent reviews by sidra

• survival craft plus base building but it's a little bit more like strategy and resource management that's base building in a survival environment. If that makes any sense.,
  
• graphics look solidly good without being pretty and shiny. the environment is interesting.
  
• you aren't building in a 3d space, you're building in a 2d grid type space where you can move rooms around. you have to be aware of resource management cause for example, if you want to stock up on resources then you need more storage space which makes your base harder to move around.,
  
• the 'social' aspect is kinda life sim like and kinda not? you have to interact with your alter(s) so they are more cooperative but also they might say things that advance your quest path so you also need to talk to them for story advancement.
  
• the quests have been updating to give you an idea of what you need to do but I've had to also go out and explore to figure out something else. First time I needed to do this it took a couple of tries to figure out exactly what I was missing
  the survival aspect is almost kinda more believable? Cause the environment is not friendly. But you aren't being nit-picked. I'm not constantly watching a food/water or oxygen meter but I do have to watch a time/fatigue meter. and then you don't want to be outside during the nightly radiation storm which coincidentally is right about the time you are going to be tired and should stop working for the day.
  
• and how did I almost forget? There's buildable fast travel points!
  
• when you build or mine time speeds up. when an alter builds (or I assume mines) their time doesn't speed up.
  
• the assh**le corporation funds it all and is in charge is here too but so far I feel like they've actually been kinda funny about it. Like your first contact is basically... a tech support dude?
  
• The emotional aspect of the life sim/social stuff is fascinating and well done. They made some design choices to illustrate emotional change in your alternates and I think it's extremely effective.
  
• and early on there was a thing as part of the story that just reminded me of like ♥♥♥♥ going wrong in ST:TNG and Scotty running back and forth or something and I was laughing at that. Feels a little like a game that's not afraid to make fun of itself?
  
• So far, I'd describe the game as taking really common genres and giving them an interesting spin to be just different enough to leave me curious to know more and I've only played 4 hours.

support this indie game

make a house. make a gazebo. make a duck pond. make a castle. make a village.

loot pinata!

I finally made it to act 3 on a ranger (pathfinder) in Dawn of the Hunt. Starting at the start of the league open is important so you can afford to trade with other players. I've reached a point where I'm blocked from progressing by a boss fight in a dungeon or a boss fight in my second ascendancy trial. Both bosses I died to today have some ridiculous AE effects because everything but the player moves too fast. (And that's as a pathfinder with now 23.x% movement rate. I'm fast!) But I literally cannot get past these bosses without some luck and probably better equipment.

Except the loot drop rates are so absolutely low that I cannot get better equipment. I spent a few exalted orbs to get a couple of pieces from players through act 2 but now I can't tell what's actually definitely better and the exalted orbs aren't dropping any faster like they supposedly do at higher level. I spent 3, saw 1 more drop in most of act 3. I think I have 3, and 2 of those were from another character. (that was a lucky day let me tell you.)

if you ever wished diablo 2 was a soulslike, but with less loot, this game is for you.

pros
- the skill tree is really freakin' interesting
- instances don't reset as soon as you leave them
- checkpoints in your active maps so you can teleport from one area of the map to the other
- option to use wasd movement

cons
- loot drops are low. you'll hear this anywhere I think.
- most monsters and bosses move inhumanly fast compared to the players speed which is slow
- status icons on the screen are small and hard to decipher and you don't have time to mouse over them in the middle of a boss fight because you are too busy dodging ♥♥♥♥ and trying to attack in between dodge rolls
- a lot of boss fights aren't hard but the bosses are hp sponges and you might just die to RNG eventually anyway
- crafting is more like gambling and difficult to do since the crafting currency drops are ultra uber rare
- gold drop is low and paying to respec is expensive
- maps are large and windy and cramped

and worst of all

It doesn't seem like GGG is actually paying attention to most of what players are saying and that is why I don't recommend this game.

It's definitely a jrpg and definitely made by atlas. I kept comparing it to persona 3 reload and kept finding it better. Some of party member details so far are a bit full of tropes. Not surprising. The music is way more interesting than the dang brown cow song in P3R. So I'm buying the full game. (Partly cause it's on sale during the spring sale.)

I feel like this game has aspects of Oxygen not included and Dwarf Fortress and I like that. I actually wish there was a way to "retire" or "abandon" a school that you've just made mistakes and everything has snowballed and it's bad.

I haven't actually found a particular thing about this game I don't like. I did start changing starting settings, if I'm starting a school I feel like I'd be able to know how to cook food for people and have a "nurse's office" at a bare minimum. Oh and storage. So I definitely like the difficulty settings for starting.

I haven't advanced far enough though to really comment on the meat of the experience. Trying to get rooms arranged right to get all the effects I need for the rooms I want to have is a fun puzzle also.

Now that I'm this far I can say the only issue I've run into is trying to build over what's already constructed - like the game says you can do - when it's where walls and the roof meet - then I usually end up needing to demolish things for the game to cooperate. That's the only issue I've run into so far.

The magic flavor is fun. There's some added replayability with the requirements to do things or the rewards for things not being the same all the time.

updated!

More playtime - I gave up on the controller. I'm more keyboard/mouse focused and so it ended up easier.

Go mage! Mage feels OP compared to warrior. You really need to pay attention to party "synergy" and also the resists/vulnerabilities of what you're fighting. When you do that, things get suddenly much easier. So I wish that resists/vulnerabilities were listed in the game, like in the codex, but no. (someone made a list on reddit though). I like the resists/vulnerabilities mechanics cause I'll pick different weapons and party members depending on what I'm doing. More variety good.

My biggest issue through like 99 hours of play time is that some bosses go so hard for the player character that I feel like you can't do anything else but run away. But it's only some bosses. After that, it's that the skill tree is hard to view as a whole. I'm sure I could have better skills set up and have a much better build but it's hard to get a big picture on the skill tree. It doesn't matter, I'm doing fine on mage but just feels like it could be a little better.

I like the way you are rewarded for exploring. There's loot everywhere. It's amusing. I like how the party companion's identity develop as you progress in the game. Some things do seem a little unfocused? But nothing that's distracted me from enjoying the game. Tired of Varric doing vague prophecy style exposition between acts though.

It's dragon age. I enjoy the voice acting, the dialog options where I can be sarcastic, the scenery. I wish it wasn't so much action and a little more turn based but I guess everything is more action based.

my biggest complaint so far is I want more freedom in remapping the controller. I want to make the controller more like elden ring but I can't because of the way dragon age settings are limited. I feel like the controller would be way more fluid, but just not on the default settings.

Reasons you might like this game:
- you have to figure out how things work as you go, scratches the discovery/exploration itch
- you have to pay attention to the little details because the order you place tiles is just as important as where you place the tiles
- art is good. just the right amount of detail.
- you can play 15-30 minutes at a time and still accomplish a few levels
- the scoring system is set up so you can get a score above a gold metal and oooo better dopamine hit! but also you can end up 5 points under a bronze metal (requires bronze at a minimum to consider the puzzle complete)
- the undo once button is useful. Use it. I appreciate that it's just a one undo at a time and that it's there.

For anyone in 2024 who sees this game on the current sale where it's 99 cents: It's totally worth it at that price. If you can't get the game's graphics to load properly, try full screen. It's cute. Puzzles are interesting. Music isn't bad either.

More of a first impression... but it's cute. And I like the magic system.