Aiyana

This game isn't perfect, obviously (no game is). However it is genuinely one of the best indie games I've played. The easiest way I can describe it is "Minecraft but for grownups and with purpose". It's a huge sandbox with a huge amount of stuff to do and accomplish. Build, see, explore, gain, live, grow. What I especially love is the progression. You get better at things by actually doing them. Run, and you become better at running. Use a skill, and you improve that skill. That might sound like a small thing, but it makes progression feel natural. Your character gets better because of the things you've actually done, rather than because you chopped 100 trees and dumped the resulting XP into something completely unrelated. The crafting has depth without becoming a second job. The game gives you things to work toward without constantly wasting your time. Exploration feels worthwhile. Progress feels earned. Most importantly, I regularly find myself wanting to see what's over the next hill or wondering what I'll eventually be capable of doing. There are plenty of things that can be improved, but the foundation here is fantastic. I want the dev to know that this is the kind of game development I wish I saw more often. The general idea of growth, exploration, etc. is SO amazing. Games should aspire to the same general philosophy: respect the player's time, make progression meaningful, give players freedom without making that freedom pointless, and build something that's actually fun to play rather than something designed around keeping people on a treadmill. Aiyana has enormous potential, and I genuinely hope the developer keeps building on what is already here. If you're looking at this game and wondering whether it's worth giving a chance: yes. Absolutely.

You can tell in every facet of the game that the developer is aware of what components make a game awesome! When you discover that this is one guy putting all this work in you will be stumped out how far along this game is even in early access. The consistency of updates and bug fixes, responding to the community within days to fix major and minor bugs alike, while also giving us new pieces is freaking amazing. The dev is onto something here. Mark my words Aiyana is here to stay.

its not without its problems. but I like it. Pros: looks really pretty for a minecraft-like voxel game The animal models in particular look quite good upgrading your totem to increase the safe zone of your base is a fun form of progression hybrid progression system is really great -get better at tons of stuff by doing the stuff -doing stuff also gives xp, and you can spend xp to get better at particular stuff -doing various achievementy things gets you perk points -surving waves in the "wave assault" minigame gets various things including perk points systems like alchemy, crop/pet quality and enchanting have a lot of depth and are rewarding if you are willing to figure them out and put in the effort. in-game and steam achievements are fair and rewarding. not spamming you, but also not demanding years of grind Cons: biomes are quite small, and each biome has a unique flower, grass, log, sapling, leaf. most enemies drop meat, fat and bones at a minimum. most also drop sever different types of leather/pelt or whatever. You only start the game with 20 inventory slots, and so early inventory management on outings is a bit heinous combat (incoming and outgoing) lacks any physics, and hits feel very flat. couple this with the fact that swing speed scales very high very fast, and you get a melee combat system that kinda feels like "face enemy and hold button until it dies" Spells use stamina, which is fine, but it makes archery just feel like worse magic that you have to carry ammo for "learn by doing" for melee/archery/spells can make you feel locked into an approach to combat, as the one without all the stacked benefits will underperform even if you invest in the gear/perks A lot of the perks require doing relevant things, and so sometimes I'd find myself sitting on perks unable to get anything I actually wanted Crafting some equipment requires very specific animal parts, and there are a lot of animals. I can't craft better armor because I need deer hides. My world has tons of wolves, cows, and sheep, but deer are very hard to find, which reminds me: mobs have VERY low base drop rates. as you go on you can get perks and potions that raise drop rates. progress also increases enemy level, and higher level enemies drop more stuff. This all sounds fine on paper, but I needed 3 wolf leather strips to make the first bag upgrade and I had 1 leather strips at 30 wolves killed. UI is a bit unusual and is tough to get used to, UI for spells especially is cludgey and easy to mess up if you want to have easy access to casting more than one spell Lots of places with "coming soon" signs, which is a little worrying given how longs its been out (2+ years) and how long the dev says he's been working on the project (10+ years)

The game is kinda fun, quite a bit janky though, there are some basic bugs that needs to be sorted out. mostly UI stuff or inventory stuff that i've noticed so far. for example, you can get locked out of the crafting tables etc, or move items and they disappear, in some cases you can craft stuff without actually using materials. Doors can't be walked through when opened, tested this with different doors. the game would be better with some cool fight music. more quests to do would be nice, but guessing that in the future there will be more stuff, the tutorial or whatever ends fairly quickly. decent graphics, The game has a lot of UI issues, issues with crafting and items disappearing. when my portal disappeared i felt kinda done, (it had not been placed and was on my second action bar or in inventory at the time) i can't get a new one, can't craft one since it's a reward from building the oracle level, no way to reclaim it. the achievement: "it's a lie" is actually very apt in this context since the portal actually disappeared and so can't be used with portals around the world xD i'm guessing this portal disappearance is either because of the common inventory bug or a different one due to moving the totem thingy, not sure. either way it's annoying that it can't be crafted after earning it. game's good, needs some love but all around fun to play. however it's littered with the most basic of inventory bugs, if you buy the game, don't expect to keep any of what you work for, because it can randomly disappear when moving stuff around in chests or your inventory/hotbar. just a bit lacking in content but that's expected for early access games. hopefully these issues will be fixed quickly. EDIT: the new update fixed some of the inventory issues and other bugs. the portal is still an issue since i still don't have one or a way to reclaim it, but otherwise at least the dev is focusing on bug fixing which is great! i had a crash after using the teleport which kinda sucks, game hard crashed after the recent update.

good game still needs a lot off work. likes to pause the character quite a bit for no apparent reason.

A very good voxel ea. I'd compare it to Vintage Story, but with less annoying enemy mechanics and much more streamlined crafting. I ran into a couple bugs, but nothing game breaking. A simple save and reload fixed them.