Echo of the Wilds

I wanted to like this game for it's beautiful aesthetic and chill gameplay loop, and sense of mystery/mysticism. But holy heck, the writing. It's not just bad and distracting, it's so poorly done that it actually prevents you from understanding what to do next. I found a shrine with a description on it that said, "Slatherous bestowith brazen goldenith of bantam boulder radiaiest of lightly light orb at powerith magnificentiestio." No those are not typos on my part. I copied this from a screen shot. This isn't the kind of game where you have to translate things like Chants of Sennaar. All the descriptions are literally like this (but this is the worst offender.). I found myself having to reread sentences multiple times just to figure out what they might mean. And I'm decently well read. This isn't a skill issue. Was the writer writing with a thesaurus? Were they implementing some sort of word conversion algorithm where they write normal sentences and the algorithm spits out a "mystical mysterious" version of the sentence? Were they just putting ly, ith, and est on words at random? Were they doing all three? Another thing. You need rocks to craft some items like an axe and hammer. But all you can find are pebbles and boulders. Where are the rocks? You find a sign that says the pebble is a "humble pummeller." Ok cool, maybe you can use the pebbles to throw at enemies later. No, it turns out, you are supposed to hit the boulders with the pebbles to break off rocks. Do you mean to tell me that you use a small rock, to hit a big rock, to produce a medium rock? Do you know how small a pebble is? Do you think a pebble can be used as a hand tool? I spent so long insisting on going in blind, with no help, just vibing and enjoying the game as intended. I explore the whole map, not a single rock. I finally cave and look it up and you're supposed to use a ONE INCH PEBBLE on a THREE FOOT BOULDER to produce axe-head sized rock. Get F'd, game. You're bad and you should feel bad.

Neat atmospheric game that I forgot about in 2014, and picked up again because of the dev inexplicably supporting it so many years later and even remaking it in a new engine with some community requests implemented. The gameplay involves juggling straightforward survival-craft mechanics with exploration, with season progression creating a bit of a time-crunch. My first run hit a few walls so I went into winter unprepared and died, at which point a lore-friendly reset put me back at the beginning to zoom through most of the progression. The survival aspect can be easily trivialized with game knowledge, so once that happens it's a game of budgeting time to explore efficiently while occasionally sparing some inventory space for firewood. The atmosphere, visuals, and music are all excellent. The story is very vague and didn't seem to build up to anything, but maybe I'll feel differently after digesting it. Either way, an interesting experience and good to see it's been supported for so long.

I absolutely love Echo of the Wilds and what it has become. It has evolved into a wonderful game combining adventure, survival, puzzles, and beautiful pixel art. There is a major spiritual narrative that plays over the adventure/survival gameplay that left me in a state of despair, hope, and mystery. It challenged me during the winter to come up with quite creative means of staying alive that added a wonderful layer of value. I would recommend NOT using any outside sources of help and being open to fail a few times, then giving the game a full play through from the start. The game is somewhat linear so there's not too much replayability, but it's worth it for the survival, mental, and spiritual adventure. :) Much thanks to Caiys for all the work.

I have played this game twice. The first time, before the update, the game was unplayable. But now, it's actually really fun and enjoyable! It has a neat aesthetic that is really fun to exist in. Although the weird wordings and pixel art make some of the puzzles difficult to solve without help from the wiki. That being said, it is possible to beat the game now. Hooray! Before the update, when winter came, it would last forever and you'd be stuck with no way to gather certain items if you didn't know to gather them ahead of time. Now, winter ends and rolls back into spring, giving you plenty of time to beat the game at your own pace. Before the update, you had a limited number of map spaces, so you'd have to "forget" important areas. Now, you have a set map with all the space you need for all the areas. No need to forget anything important anymore. Before the update, you'd have to "forget" crafting recipes. Now, you can just learn them all. The one thing that I find is still a problem with this game is the Cavern Altar. It's a random maze that is extremely difficult to solve. It took me 3 hours of intense concentration, a pen and a piece of paper to solve it. No video game maze needs to be that difficult. Especially since this game has a very "casual" feel to it. I strongly advise the creator of the game to rethink the maze. If it has to be random, give it less rooms? My maze had 17 rooms in it. And 65 doorways. That's absolutely ridiculous for a game this small. If they insist on keeping the maze that large, then don't make it random and let players share the solution with each other. Anyway, I still recommend this game. 8/10

[h1] DISCLAIMER: This is a first impressions review, and NOT a full review [/h1] Echo of the Wilds is a game developed and published by caiys The game offers some nice graphics and a beautiful aesthetic which is pleasant all the same and has some amazing attention to detail even though it is a little rough around the edges The game does suffer with some repetitiveness at certain areas of the game but a fun game nonetheless and ends just at the right time Echo of the Wilds overall, however, is a fun game to play, yet sometimes repetitive and it does get boring if being played for a long time, but is a good survival game to play in short bursts! [h1] RECOMMENDED :) [/h1] [b] REVIEW SOURCES: [/b] [list] [*] None

absolutely fantastic game, kept genuinely enraptured for weeks.

its cool