Izzy's 2022

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isthatallyougot
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Re: Izzy's 2022

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1) Unreal World (PC)

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So much of (especially modern) gaming can seem free of consequence. You know going in, far more often than not, that when you pick up your controller of choice, you will witness one (or one of several) pre-designed paths and/or conclusion(s) play out. It's simply a matter of time, attention and some perfunctory button presses. Even in many games with the promise of choice and consequence, you're only really experiencing predetermined branches on an already established tree. You're not really free, rather you're just walking down one of a number of already paved roads. The journey may vary, but that "freedom" is still moving on one of a set of pre-formed tracks - you're not really experiencing any sort of liberty in the truest sense. The game may be fun, and there may be different approaches to your interactions, but the road is more or less the same for everyone who plays. To be clear, I'm not dismissing such experiences. As the saying goes, "It's the journey, not the destination" and taken as fresh, first-time play-throughs, there's so many incredible games that are more or less restricted or linear, number of lines notwithstanding. And it's also understandable that designing games with a more limited structure is the norm. It's difficult to give unfettered freedom while maintaining a foundation that is engaging and still offers incentive to do particular things. For many players, that lack of structure inevitably crushes interest. "What am I to do?" When the possibilities are broad, the imagination must step to the fore, and that's not an effort that everyone wants to exert when gaming. (And, of course, there's nothing wrong with that, to be clear.) It's a matter of how much freedom can be offered while still being enjoyable for the player. Well, I played a game in 2022 that offered about as much freedom and consequence as you can imagine, and what an incredible game it is.

Unreal World is a game that I've been aware of for a long time. There's a free version (that I never tried) that's been around forever, but I always knew I'd pick up the Steam version once I was aware of its release. The game has been developed since 1992 with consistent updates since then and through to the present day. In fact, it (unsurprisingly) holds the world record for the longest support for any video game. To maintain development of a game for 30 years is a particularly fascinating form of madness, and I wanted to reward such insanity, um I mean dedication, whether or not I ultimately found the game to be for me. Just the persistence of the creator deserved my dollars in this case, and I felt it would have been money well-spent, no matter, if only to reward such a singular-minded visionary for their commitment. To be clear, I expected to enjoy it, having followed it from a distance for years before actually buying it. It's an open-world, survival roguelike - a true roguelike with procedural generation, turn-based interactions and permadeath with no carryover of skills/loot. And that checks off plenty of boxes that I find compelling. In fact, it also received another award for being the "First open-world survival video game" by Guinness. Generally speaking, I enjoy games where survival in the natural world is a focus. Games like The Long Dark and Minecraft (although not a "realistic" world) are some of my all-time favorites, and Unreal World promised a similar formula. So, I was more than intrigued.

Set in Iron Age Finland / Scandinavia (It doesn't really matter specifically. It's not like there are modern cities with very distinct landmarks differentiating one place from another. It's the cold, undeveloped north, and that's sufficient to comprehend the setting.), you begin by creating a character, naming them, choosing an avatar picture and selecting a cultural background and opening scenario framing their life and starting point in the world. There are ten cultures spread upon the massive procedurally generated (at each new character creation) world, all with varying skills, tendencies / traits, geographical habitats, and goods found common in trade. So after selecting your heritage, you are (randomly) given levels across a variety of traits as well as a character height and weight. You have two fundamental personality characteristics that inform your primitive human - intelligence and will. These elements impact how quickly you pick up on new skills (proficiency increases via use) as well as your general constitution and fortitude - your "drive to survive" as it were. Your physical qualities are spread across the categories of eyesight, strength, endurance, hearing, smell & taste, dexterity, agility, speed, and sense of touch, and these are represented by a bar showing their natural proficiency for your new character. You are free to use a randomized re-roll as many times as you like until you're satisfied with the distribution of those traits or simply allow the gods to have given you what you've been given, much like real life. All of these traits are very important though, as they impact the ability to which your character can perceive of and interact with their surroundings within this primal and untamed natural world, both in terms of resource acquisition and utilization as well as fending off threats and foe - environmental, human or animal - that would cut your existence short. And some traits being very low will make his or her life much more challenging, as well as the reverse being true. To be clear, the experience of a character's life can and will be markedly different depending on the way these qualities are ultimately manifest. Do you tire easily or can you hew logs all the livelong day? Do you notice potential prey before you've set it aflight? Do you react quickly in physical conflict or find yourself overwhelmed by more nimble foes? Do you notice the food you are consuming has gone rancid? All of these elements and much more are impacted by who you are, giving each new character a distinctive flavor with a set of practical strengths and limitations. This is also a world of "magic", although not in the "abracadabra" I-pulled-a-rabbit-out-of-my-hat manner. This world is rooted in the early forms of superstition, religion and ritual practice - in a pre-scientific world where methods of perception were more intuitive and instinctual than mathematical or scientific. And this is expressed by a variety of ritual magics that can be learned and performed that influence a wide variety of things. From simple things like making a sacrifice as an expression of thanks, positively influencing the forest in which you dwell to greeting the earth upon slumber for better rest, to spells that impact wound-treatment and a wide variety of other potential methods for influencing your surroundings. There are many ways to speak to the spirits for your benefit. There are only a couple that are available at the outset by default, but you can learn new rites that are taught by people you may stumble upon. The central notion is that your life is always affected by the spiritual world and that there is an underlying spirit connecting all things in the natural world and you would be wise to seek harmony for a peaceful, successful and lengthy existence. To be clear, their discovery, utilization or lack thereof won't necessarily prohibit your character's survival or even ability to thrive, but they are functional additions which can and will affect your avatar's life and nicely fit the tone of the mystical world that we knew and embraced in pre-technological society. In addition to the aforementioned elements and persistent traits, there are many skills impacting your interactions with the world which have levels that can range between untrained to grandmaster, with several incremental increases in between. There are skills for building, agriculture, cooking, fishing, herb lore, animal tracking, carpentry, stealth, climbing, physician, weapon skills for many different blades and means of defense, among many other aspects to hone and develop as you practice new things though your own selection or by virtue of the world acting upon you so that you can learn to survive in a better fashion. You are given 5 points at the outset to modify these randomized starting skill levels (0-100% scale) so that you can get a bit of a bump in a particular preferred direction prior to being dropped in the world. In addition, you will find that you have a greater or lesser aptitude for improving each of these skills when creating your character. (represented by a 1 to 3 star scale of ability to pick up things quickly) You might be a slow learner when it comes to hideworking while adept at picking up swimming, for example, and all permutations of variability dispersed among the available skills. And finally, after establishing who your character is in terms of their essence, you must frame their existence in a contextual manner by selecting a starting scenario and background for their life prior to the moment you begin to inhabit their struggle for survival. Before choosing a specific set of circumstances, you will select a season to begin. Beginning in winter will result in a much more challenging experience, of course, due to limited sources of food as well as the elements being extraordinarily harsh. After the world is generated, you have the option to start in your home culture or start in a completely random spot - which could be devastating for the chances of enduring very long. Beyond that, there are a variety of "backstories" that you can layer upon your life in the world. These situations range from being isolated and in unfamiliar wilderness - removed from any village or culture, to being an escaped slave, to having found an old and abandoned camp with some shelter, firewood and items to being wounded and left for dead upon being dropped into the world. There are a total of 13 situations to choose from and they vary wildly in terms of how they'll impact your approach and chances of making your way, both in terms of potential starting equipment as well as your general condition and circumstances. In addition to the modifiers for traits, this acts as a sort of difficulty option, allowing the player to make things more or less challenging based on their familiarity with the game and desired level of struggle. In all, there are a great many factors that make each play-through a different experience to the point that starting anew feels very fresh and quite suitable to embarking upon a new "life" in this world.

So with that out of the way, once all the setup is complete and you find yourself in the Unreal World in the scenario of your choosing with your now-formed character, it's time to get your bearings and venture forth. The immediate impression can be a bit much to take in. It's trees...rocks and trees everywhere. Your initial response might be to ask yourself, "What in the heck am I supposed to do now?" It can feel a bit claustrophobic, paradoxically, and oddly fear-inducing as you take a look around and realize that you're on your own - that there is no one to take care of you, no societal structures and systems interested in your preservation or convenience. No, in this place and time, you're going to have to work things out for yourself, you're going to have to stand on your feet, make a plan and get to doing because the alternative is certain death and likely right quick. Of course, in any survival situation, of antiquity or present day, the rules are the same. You must meet your most basic and pressing needs and in their natural order of urgency. You must have water regularly. You must have warmth. You eventually require shelter, if even of the simplest variety. You need a modicum of clothing, depending on environmental factors and lastly, you must secure sustenance...food. Once you've stepped into this mindset, you've got a sort of compass, and an oddly familiar return to inner roots that have not been entirely forgotten or completely extinguished from our genetic code, no matter the comforts that may have muted those primitive and natural sensibilities. And so you monitor your needs, as represented by in-game meters and indicators. You will be informed of your levels of warmth, energy, hunger and overall level of (long-term) nourishment or lack thereof, thirst, levels of fatigue/injury/starvation/blood loss and very specific injury data with associated imagery of the character and their wound location(s) as well as any penalties to movement as a reflection of the weight burden you are carrying on your person. You're given the position of the sun or moon, the season and a brief description of your surroundings that dynamically changes as you move through the world. And as is the case in most any pure survival circumstance, having a proper blade / cutting tool is the difference maker in staying alive and perishing. If you have a decent axe already on your character, you've already taken a big step towards a better life. But if not, if you've at least got a knife, you can fashion one out of a slender tree trunk, a sharp stone and a piece of tying equipment, which can also be gathered and constructed from the vast forest and its resources. And if you don't even have a knife, you can create a rudimentary blade via the use of two stones - one to do the chipping and sharpening and the other ultimately being the tool. Once you got a functional set of blades, no matter how crude, you can at least begin the task of caring for yourself. With these sharp edges, you can construct a basic shelter of twigs and slender tree trunks to get you out of the elements. You can acquire fire wood and start fires, although it may take time and several tries depending on the weather conditions and your abilities. You can build a wide range of traps for passive hunting, from light-level traps to spiked pits or deadfall traps for bigger game, traps which can also be baited with whatever you can find, or simply left bare in the hopes of a random wandering animal stumbling in to their demise. You can build a fishing rod with fashioned twine and a wood, bone or iron hook. You can passively fish via nets. And all fishing can be done all year round, either via a hole for ice-fishing, from the banks, or on watercraft via a punt (hollowed out primitive log canoe) or raft you've built to reach the deeper waters. You can hunt with spears or bow and arrow you've crafted. Oftentimes, you'll encounter an animal that you've trapped, but hasn't yet perished, and you must provide the finishing blow, whereupon you can skin the animal, cure and tan the hide, which takes time materials and many steps, but is very useful for clothing (especially with furs), tying equipment and bandages for wounds or feathers in the crafting of arrows. You can then cook the meat to eat immediately, but naturally fresh meat spoils fairly rapidly, which is fine for smaller game, but if you're lucky enough to secure a bigger kill, other means must be implemented. So you can also dry or salt cure (salt is very expensive in trade) meat for longer preservation as well as storing it in a cellar - if you've built one - for even lengthier storage. You can develop your stealth skill by going into a "hiding" state so that eventually you are able to skulk around like an assassin and sneak up on unsuspecting prey unawares for a chance at piercing an animal with an arrow or spear, although if the blow isn't of the instant kill variety, you'll have to track the animal's blood and hoof tracks, which, if you're not skilled, is surely no easy task, and you will have ended up wounding or killing an animal to no personal benefit, in addition to losing an arrow or your spear. There are also seemingly endless variety of flora and fungi, shifting with the seasons and weather, that you'll stumble upon, ranging from the immediately edible berries and whatnot, crops that can be harvested and cultivated, things that must be cooked prior to consumption, as well as poisonous things that range from making you temporarily sick in a variety of ways to ultimately fatal. And depending on your skill at identifying these natural growths, you'll be given information about their utility, many of which have multiple potential uses from the obvious nutritional/caloric to the medicinal and wound-treating, or even spiritual / mystical. Often you'll pick something and be informed that there is more to learn or that you don't know enough about it to make any conclusions about its possible benefit or danger, and so you'll be faced with a risk / reward situation as to whether or not you want to take a chance. Unless you're on your absolute last legs, having been in a state of starvation for many days, you'd be wise to be cautious though. I learned through hard experience the dangers of eating an unidentified mushroom, as it killed one of my characters. There's nothing more deflating than to look at your injury screen to see that you've got fatal poisoning that cannot be counteracted, and you just live out the next couple or three days with no motivation, vomiting regularly and awaiting the inevitable - knowing that all you've built and worked for will evaporate in the winds and like all things, return to mother Gaia, the giver and taker of life. But these lessons you learn are great teachers. Being a true roguelike, you don't accumulate anything that transfers from character to character - either items, abilities or skills. However, you most certainly DO learn, and that knowledge is passed along by your "ancestors" as you grow and develop as the player within the Unreal World. And these "offspring" will most certainly have integrated the lessons of their forebears, making them more equipped to survive and thrive as the dance of evolution organically plays out. To summarize, you're going to find yourself up against the elements. The environment is neither hostile nor friendly, rather, indifferent towards your presence in terms of your life or death, and that callousness can be felt. But in the benevolent and harmonious balance of all things, it will also provide what is needed. You simply must be engaged with your surroundings, vigilant, persistent , and sometimes a bit lucky.

And you're not alone in this world either, which can be both curse and comfort. You have a home culture, and within whichever culture you belong, there will be a multiplicity of villages, varying in size and spread upon the color-coded regions. These tribesmen and women go about their own lives as do you, and you are free to associate with them as they see you as one of their own. You're also able to venture beyond into the distant reaches of the wild and are free to encounter the other 9 cultures and their inhabitants. You'll find that you're usually welcomed, if with a slight air of caution and extra attention, at least until you've ingratiated yourself via familiarity that results in a natural lowering of the guard. Eventually, and with time and interactions, you'll find people greeting you by name in a friendly manner if you've done nothing to lose their trust. And as you interact with the denizens of the Unreal World, you can barter – in this pre-monetary society, gather information, give gifts if you so desire and be given tasks or errands, often with promise of reward. Some of these are very simple. You may find a villager that is too busy to gather stones for a fireplace they are building and asks if you will take care of it for him in return for something particular, or a certain trade value you may use to take items from their stores, or maybe some further useful information, and so on. Some things can be much more complex. I’ll share a particularly interesting one that happened to one of my characters. I had a nearby villager ask me to escort her to the Islander nation. Despite knowing I would need watercraft – which I would have to construct at the water’s edge since it would be too heavy to lug such a long distance - I forgot to bring cordage so that I could build a raft for the journey to the otherwise unreachable islands. But luckily I had enough valuables on my person and was fortunate to find a village near the open waters that had some leather rope so I could barter for the materials to construct the raft and bring this lady to her destination. It was a long journey, but she rewarded me with the location of a buried treasure (just the general area - all regions have names for the larger location along with more specific local locales) which then became a game unto itself as I had to search first for the region she mentioned and then secondly within that region for the landmarks (three boulders in the pattern of a triangle with the treasure buried in the center) that she said would identify the hidden loot. Just locating the specific region took time and exploration as well as observing where I was as I wandered as indicated on the display. But then searching for the specific pattern of rocks was another fine tuning of those instructions. I finally found it after searching for a good while, but the ground was frozen and too hard to dig up. So I waited until the thaw and ultimately got quite a bounty of furs and other items that were very valuable in both trade and utility. It felt very meaningful to succeed in helping this villager and to get this information, as well as somewhat miraculous that I found the spot of the buried treasure. What a fun ride. Another quest saw me sacrificing some silver (which I scraped shavings from a ring I had bartered for) upon an anthill in the middle of the night as directed by a sage I met in another village so that I could appease, meet and be blessed by the spirit of the forest who appeared to me in the form of a glowing old man. That was a very interesting and fun quest. And just having silver is pretty rare, so I was fortunate to be able to complete that adventure. Those are just a couple cool examples of the varied and mysterious interactions possible.

And there are so many non-scripted emergent stories that simply arise naturally from the complexity of potential interactions. There was a cool but sad and disappointing story that happened to my third character. I'd spent a long hard winter fending off several instances of frost-bite. The winter had been particularly cold, but my fishing net had at least kept me in an abundant state of nutrition. I'd managed to slowly build a nice and cozy log-cabin when the weather permitted. I couldn't withstand much cold as I didn't have the proper garments against the elements, so it was a very gradual process for that reason. I had to work on the less frigid days as well as keeping a lit fire to return to frequently to avoid frostbite, not to mention the slow work of chopping trees, shaping them into logs and assembling the structure. But it was all worth it in the end, as I also built myself a nice little fireplace and a sleeping board. I had a cozy little sense of security, but accidents happen. I was in the routine of scarfing down food at required intervals as the days wore on, but I made the mistake of carrying some things in my pouch that I hadn't identified along with food that was safe to eat. I accidentally wolfed down a mushroom and, just like that, I was sentenced to death over the course of the next couple of days. It was so sad seeing all that I had worked for and knowing that my fate was inevitable. Such is the bittersweet nature of the genre. But as with any good roguelike, you learn. I now always keep any unidentified or questionable foods in a separate area. I usually build a cellar for longer-term food storage, and I throw everything in there anyway. So I make sure that everything I'm carrying is safe to consume, so that when I get into a routine of mindlessly eating, I don’t also mindlessly kill myself. :P

In another situation, I was trying to swim across a river because I had no watercraft. (I should have made one, but I was less experienced at this time.) It was a much shorter trip than taking the lengthy and circuitous route to bypass the waterway to get where I wanted to go. I failed, however, to remove some very heavy items and clothing that I was carrying. I should have left all but what was essential at my home base, but in haste, I swam without considering that. I got warnings that I was getting fatigued in the middle of the river and so I had to consider whether to press on or go back. Being a little less than halfway, I tried to return to the safety of the banks by my home, but the excess weight proved to be too much for my stamina and swimming skill to overcome, and I sunk to a tragic and watery grave before I could jettison the excess weight. Game over. Freeze, drown, poisoning, starvation, animal attack, human attack...there's just so many ways to meet your doom. Everything is so unpredictable and open feeling. You never know how things will play out and I love that. And having only one life carries a strong sense of loss and regret when your character dies. There's a real sense of mourning for a character that has lived a good while. I have to take a break after losing a long-term character who I've really developed an attachment to. I almost have to bury them psychologically. All their work to survive and establish a life just gone with what could be a foolish mistake, rash judgment or pure bad luck. Everything feels incredibly meaningful because of that weight of consequences attached to your choices and actions. I really found myself becoming bonded to each character. So many things can happen that tell a unique story. In the case of one character, I had forgotten that I picked up something in a village (you pick things up as you wish and then work out the barter agreement with the locals) and I held down walk which made me leave in a hurry beyond the village borders, but having failed to barter in exchange for what I was holding, an angry villager approached – assuming me to be stealing from them, stabbed me in my upper right chest and took my most valuable item - a cross-bow as payment, something worth far more than the pittance I was carrying. My wound was serious, rendering me unconscious. After waking, I cleaned the wound, tried to treat it as best I could with what I had, but didn't have any bandages to cover it, and I didn't want to re-purpose any of my clothing. So I waited and hoped, thankfully eventually recovering and learning to be careful about walking around with goods I haven’t paid for.

In another life, I had a cool story with a character (Curgh – I have no idea why I named him that, ha) who was not only surviving but absolutely thriving. Not only had I built a large lakeside log cabin with a cellar and numerous traps of varying sizes and purposes around my camp, but I had killed a couple elk, had stores and stores of food from dried meats and fish to all manner of plants, healing/medicinal and food based. I had an abundance of tools, clothing and weaponry, in addition to some luxuries like ornamental trinkets and a woolen gown I hoped to give to an attractive neighboring villager. (I have no idea if there are any possibilities of fostering such relationships. I've refused to read the wiki or any guides because I want to discover things on my own.) I was generating plenty of goods for trade in the form of furs and arrows I constructed. I was, given the era, quite rich, albeit isolated. Anyway, I had become quite comfortable. Well, one day while wandering about the landscape quite a ways away from my homestead, I came across some roaming bandits that demanded payment. They said I could offer up some goods willingly or they would take them by force. There were two of them and even though I had a helmet armor, I was not covered in heavy mail or body armor. I had no intention of just giving up so much of what I'd struggled for, however, so I tried to run rather than face the two of them head to head. They fired their bows and missed me a couple of times as I fled, but finally an arrow pierced my abdomen, resulting in a serious wound, and I eventually awakened, bleeding and confused. They'd taken 2 knives, three axes, my hunting bow, my helm, my silver ring and my fur coat, among other things. I was gutted, literally and figuratively. They left me my clothes I was wearing (absent my coat - and this was still winter), and some arrows and a variety of things without great value. But most pressing were my bleeding wounds. I struggled back home, cleaned and medicated my wound with milkweed, nettle, golden rod and burdock along with some homemade bandages from bird leathers I'd cured and just hoped for the best. Often I'd try to clean my wound, which resulted in opening things up again, causing new and significant blood loss. So I tried to treat it less frequently, hoping the herbal poultices I'd used would stave off infection and allow it to rest without aggravating a new opening. Little by little, my wound started healing, and luckily I survived and fully recovered. I learned that I need to be well armored/protected in addition to not carrying more valuables than I really needed on a journey, and that became my focus after making trades to regain some crucial lost tools. But it was an incredible adventure and the uncertainty of my survival made things exciting. It was touch and go for a good while, and I spent a few weeks mostly resting and recovering - doing some fishing and light activities, hoping not to aggravate or worsen my condition. And when I'd fully recovered, it felt like such a victory and relief. This game is just full of emergent stories like this. And these stories are just a sampling of the tales I have to tell among the characters' lives I’ve lived. All the events, big and small, that happen in a character’s life really serve to foster a bond and tell a story that is more impactful than any contrived narrative. And because of all the variables in this game, there’s this organic, unpredictable nature to life and the little stories that are possible are simply staggering, making your adventures feel real. Absolutely phenomenal!

And simply navigating took on an exciting and real world tone, as I found it necessary to leave my own landmarks in order to remember certain locations and routes. I made numerous natural formations (collections of stones, etc) for places that were important to remember/return to. (You can also make custom points of interest on your map, but it’s useful to fine tune the sense of place while zoomed into the world and moving about.) I also like that it's not constant action. It's very realistic in that regard. You wander the forest and it's often very still. Sometimes you stumble across an animal or their tracks or another wanderer or village, but you are often in quiet harmony with nature. And the fact that it's turn based allows you the opportunity to approach things in a measured, deliberate fashion. There is a rhythm that develops with the nature of this game, not unlike I imagine happened when we lived closely with nature ourselves. There's lots of wandering, by necessity, as you forage and hunt. Trying to acquire sufficient resources is often a very nomadic activity in antiquity. But you start to feel this connection with the world that, despite the simplistic visuals, grounds you in the setting and struggle with a very compelling flavor. This open world full of resources, wild-life, villages and villagers, mysticism and magic just carries this dense sensation of possibility and wonder/awe. You feel like you're really living out a life as a primitive hunter-gatherer in a world full of mystery and intimacy with the living world. I found it to be such a breath of fresh air to a person who really feels our collective and individual loss of contact with our “mother”. As you build your homestead and get familiar with your environment, the lands in your regular travels start to feel familiar, to feel like home. You KNOW this place, and you roam it with a sense of comfort and familiarity as the subtle geographical differences become more pronounced in your attunement with the natural formations of things. The changes of seasons also felt really significant, and imparted the importance of moving with nature and the alterations to the environment, which has been how we humans have lived for the bulk of our existence. The weather, lighting conditions, foliage, sounds of wind and crunching snow and overall fluctuating environments did a good job of communicating the movement of seasons and time of year really nicely. Being in the far north, you'll have very little light in the winter and the opposite in the summer. It’s just hard to adequately articulate the incredible sensation of place imparted by such a visually simple game. To say it punches far above its 37 megabyte weight is to put things very mildly and is a tribute to thoughtful and intelligent game design while simultaneously being an indictment of so many of the resource heavy games that fail to impress in the modern gaming landscape.

There are some minor caveats I’ll acknowledge to any would-be players. Most apparent is the graphics. While I find them very charming and actually really love the way it looks, it’s not going to impress those who can only find beauty in tech-stretching code. Graphics whores be gone! Everything can seem a bit overwhelming at first too, but there are a couple of thorough tutorial modes for both basic and advanced gameplay to help you learn the ropes before starting a no-help adventure as well as a fairly exhaustive in-game encyclopedia to peruse for more information and familiarity. The controls also take some getting used to, and there’s no option to change the configuration. It will take a love for the type of game to push through the learning period. It's no streamlined-for-the-masses Ubi game. It’s also designed to be played exclusively with the keyboard – with some mouse options available, and the key inputs are numerous. It takes time to familiarize yourself with all the different commands, and I’m honestly a person who much prefers playing with controller. But given some time, everything makes sense and works just fine. However, there is a learning curve to simply remembering how to play with no awkwardness. And being a game with minimal direction, I could see many players feeling aimless. This is a game for those who can self-guide and have a bit of imagination and patience rather than those looking for easily digestible entertainment shoved directly into their maw. And this is not a game for those with ADD. It can, at times, be a game where not too much happens and is very much a slow burn, with occasional moments of drama and intensity sprinkled about. You're in nature and you wander, fish, hunt, make shelter, keep yourself warm with fire, and occasionally run into something or someone particularly interesting. It’s usually of a very measured pace - not for the hyperstimulation crowd. But these things I’ve mentioned did not detract from my enjoyment, and are only mentioned as reference points in relation to more modern gaming conventions.

There’s so much more I could express, gushing about this game, but I’ll let this suffice. The whole experience was just saturated with a feeling born as a labor of love, and understandably so, given the time spent in development. It’s one of those games that are much more engaging than may be apparent on the surface if you allow yourself to overcome the initial hurdles. It’s not easy, but the challenge carries weight and meaning to each new life, and the more I played, the more I was drawn in, which is always a sign of a great game. There’s an incredible and rare level of depth that belies the presentation and offers an absolute wealth of potential scenarios and dynamic interactions, with amazing attention to detail for all of its systems and elements - injuries, crafting, tool and armor quality ratings, hunting/tracking, navigating, etc. And it’s really fun and engaging - charting your own course. How you live is entirely up to you. It's very open and emergent in that sense and you can truly do whatever you like. The sense of freedom is virtually unmatched. It’s just rich with possibility. And I truly love the respect paid to the natural world that permeates the game. As noted in the exit screen, “Only when the last tree is cut, only when the last river is polluted, only when the last fish is caught, only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." Indeed. For me, it’s an absolutely timeless masterpiece that I could envision playing as long as I’m able to enjoy this hobby. 5/5.



Welp, that's all I got. :P
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Dragon kick your a$$ into the Milky Way!
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canedaddy
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Re: Izzy's 2022

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What a write-up! That sounds very appealing to me in many ways, although the PC-only aspect means I'll probably never play it. Aside from the fact that you're not actually alone, it sounds like a primitive version of the show "Alone," which I really enjoy. I doubt I'll ever do anything like that in real life given my age, obligations, etc., but the idea of going into a totally remote area with nothing but my will and wits (and, yeah, a few items like flint and a knife) and seeing how long I can make it is very appealing. This digital version, with all the depth and options and variety of outcomes, sounds like an excellent substitute.

Thanks for another year of great reviews.
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isthatallyougot
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Re: Izzy's 2022

Post by isthatallyougot »

canedaddy wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 12:31 pm What a write-up! That sounds very appealing to me in many ways, although the PC-only aspect means I'll probably never play it. Aside from the fact that you're not actually alone, it sounds like a primitive version of the show "Alone," which I really enjoy. I doubt I'll ever do anything like that in real life given my age, obligations, etc., but the idea of going into a totally remote area with nothing but my will and wits (and, yeah, a few items like flint and a knife) and seeing how long I can make it is very appealing. This digital version, with all the depth and options and variety of outcomes, sounds like an excellent substitute.

Thanks for another year of great reviews.
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Who knows if it will ever happen again. The world is gone crazy, and life is unpredictable, ha. And sooner or later, it's time to lay in the ground. :P (or get burnt up and scattered to the winds)

Oh, and I've watched and enjoyed Alone as well in the past. I like that sort of thing too.
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Dragon kick your a$$ into the Milky Way!
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