Polylithic

"Polylithic" in Latin means "many stones" but really the developer meant to say "low poly stone age", but I guess Latin is a dead language and the Latin police aren't showing up any time soon. Anyway what this is is a low poly (looks bad on purpose) strategy/city builder/tribe management game akin to Sapiens (which is better than this of course) that's deep, deep in development hell. The developer made a core promise to complete and fully publish the game by November 2024, and broke that promise. Instead, it's deep in development hell and the developer kicks the can down the road on this, pushing just enough empty, token updates to avoid the dreaded Steam Early Access warning about the game being abandoned. Speaking about the game as it is today (and this will probably never change... remember, this was supposed to be fully completed 2 years ago), it's an unpolished mess... sure, many of the core game elements work, but it's really clunky. Production chains are badly designed. The AI is a dogs breakfast, and frankly it's frustrating playing a game and watching NPCs getting stuck on rocks etc. That's not okay. Those are just some examples of this bug riddled mess... I'd say it wasn't ready for Early Access when it launched, but this is being sold FOR MONEY in a completely defective state, two years after the game was supposed to be fully completed. On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with. This feels like it was designed for Sony Playstation Dualshock controllers... it has intolerably bad camera controls, with movement decoupled from camera view. This is awkward and that whole system should be replaced, unless of course this is a game aimed for console peasants, in which case we should be asking why this is on Steam at all. At least console appliances will be able to barely handle those low poly graphics, they have 3D graphics capability now. These technical shortcomings push this game below minimum standards for any competently developed modern PC game. Let's talk about pricing and the actual value this has for gamers. Is this game one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam? Polylithic has the cash grab price of $15 USD, for which you could easily get any number of older AAA games. For comparison, the $15 asking price for this game could get you games like "Horizon: Zero Dawn", "Dead Cells" or "Remnant: From The Ashes". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. It's not ethical for developers to continue to try to charge money for Early Access projects in this way; they either need to complete the game on time as promised, or refund all the money they took from gamers and close their doors. Neither has happened... instead, the developer still wants your money for this. Not okay.

I want to love this game; I wish I could. But there are considerable issues that prevent me from recommending anyone purchase Polylithic at this point in time. First, the pros: it's a beautiful game. The low-poly models are designed with care and interest, and the environments are gorgeous to explore. The low-poly rendering of the rivers, in particular, I really enjoyed, as the water almost looks like stained glass. The soundtrack is soothing and well-matched to the game, and the gameplay itself is engaging. The cons, however, are formidable: bugs and performance issues. The bugs are the less hindering of the two problems, typically involving animals and/or NPCs getting stuck in inaccessible locations. Through sheer luck, these NPCs seem to free themselves from time to time, allowing for key quests to be obtained/turned in. Not the greatest gaming experience, but not the worst. But the performance issues, oh man, watch out. It builds subtly over time spent in game. Save times, for example. Early on, the auto-saves report completion times of only a couple seconds. However, by eight hours of gameplay in the same character, the save times are easily double that, taking 10-12 seconds to complete. It's not the end of the world, but to me seems indicative that the more time you commit to your load file, the more bloat and problems are building in the background. The most glaring of performance issues comes from how the game locks up and freezes in later stages. By time my town centre was upgraded to Tier 6 out of 8, my top-of-the-line laptop could barely go five minutes without locking up and requiring a mercy kill from Task Manager. Simple tasks like crafting rope or accessing food storage upredictably summons the spinning wheel of death. It ruins the joy of playing the game, and as much as I am keen to explore the Tier 6 technologies (houses! seed gathering!) I'm wary of yet another crash lurking around the corner, especially when I am far from base and the controlled saves offered by interacting with the sleeping beds. Overall, there is great potential here. I am rooting for the dev team and their product. But If you are a player who want to stick with this game past the early stages and develop your tribe into the topmost tiers, I'm sorry to say that at present, you are going to be deeply frustrated and disappointed.

Polylithic ---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☑ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☑ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☑ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☑ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☑ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☑ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☑ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10 ---{ Author }--- ☑ https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template

Поиграв в нее пару часов, могу сказать, что игра хорошая. Игра, хоть и в раннем доступе, стоит своих 300 рублей. Ну, ребята, камон, задолбали душить разработчиков: игра стоит как 2 банки колы. Доработки нужны, но они не критичны, игра не вылетает и не лагает, хочется погрузиться и разобраться в ней. Музыкальное сопровождение отличное, качество и визуал хороши. Я рекомендую данный продукт: с ребзями поиграть или почилить соло — отличный вариант.

繰り返しのクラッシュによるフラストレーションが凄いので一旦イライラを落ち着かせるためにレビューを書く。 第一に、グラフィックは十分だと思える。 私はローポリゲーの良さを理解していないので評価しづらいのだが、とりあえず物の判別はつくし、多分こういうグラフィックが好きな人も居るんだろう。 別にハイポリでめちゃくちゃリアルなゲームがしたいって層でもないので、十分。これで十分。これは良いポイント。 次に、操作性。はっきり言うがかなり悪い。 なんと表現すればいいのだろうか。例えるならばXP時代の3Dネトゲ。そう、多分そんな感じ。常に水中に居て、とてもラギー。キビキビと動くことをゲーム側が否定している。でもまあ、こういうのが好きな人も居るのかもしれない。 広い範囲でキーコンフィグに対応しているのは高得点。初期設定では使用アイテムの変更キーがかなり癖なのでさっさと変えよう。私はQとEをそれぞれに当てている。 そしてそれらを台無しにするラジアルメニュー。これ要る？　要らない（鋼の意志） いやマジで、本当に要らない。パッドユーザーならまだしも、なぜマウスという融通の利くツールを用いているにも関わらず、最後に動かした方向とかいう訳の分からん縛りを受けなければならないのか。 まあパッドユーザーにはフレンドリーかもしれないね？　でもこれはPCゲーム。別に消せとかそういうことを言っているわけではなく、普通にリストを表示してほしいってだけ。よっぽど小さくなければさ、マウスでクリックできるからさ。そしてこれPCだからさ。ほぼ全てのユーザーはマウスを使ってるわけじゃん。ならラジアルメニューとかいう特大のクソを強制せずに、普通にメニューをくださいな。 以上、ラジアルメニューと水中操作かのようなモッタリ感により操作感は減点対象。逆にパッドで遊びたい人は高評価なのかもしれない。 ただこのモッタリ操作で30分間走り続けるの、結構しんどいと思うけどね。 最後、安定性。 まあ、分かるよね？　だってこのレビュー、あまりのクラッシュにイライラして書いているんだもの。 ちょっとググればすぐに出てくる最適化不足の声の数々。それら同様、私のゲームもプレイ時間やアイテム数に応じてセーブ時間が徐々に伸び、遂にクラッシュするようになる。 まあ、多少は耐えられるよ？　でもね、肉を100個焼いている最中にクラッシュしたのはいただけない。だってこれ、「肉を焼く」って動作を命令するために100回クリックして、結構な時間をぼーっとする必要があるわけで。 今後さらにクラッシュ頻度が上がるって考えると……まあ、せっかくだから続けてみるけど、正直かなり厳しそうに思える。 結局のところ、「不安定である」という時点でそのソフトウェアが評価されるわけがない。面白い、つまらない以前の問題。評価の土台にすら立てない。料理番組で岩が出てきた気分。いやこれそもそも食べ物ですらありませんけど、みたいなレベル。 おまけ、翻訳品質。 現状はかなりひどい。Control←これも訳せてないレベル。コ・ノット・ロールみたいな感じに訳されてたはず。まあ「不完全」って表記されてたから別に良いけども。 ゲーム自体もそれほど高度な英語は要求してこない。君が15歳以上なら間違いなくプレイできる。 むしろ翻訳の質が悪すぎて、ほとんどの場合で原文をチェックしに行く二度手間が出る。 例えば「Her axe」は「斧」と翻訳されている。さて、Her axeとAxeの違い分かるかな？　分かるよね？　そう、所有格の有無だ。 「斧を持ってくる」or「彼女の斧を持ってくる」の違いは分かるかな？　もちろん分かるはず。斧ならなんでもいいのか、あるいは彼女の斧に限定されているのかだ。 とあるミッションで老婆が斧を求めてくるのだが、この際の訳がこれ。ぱっと見普通に新品でいいのかなって勘違いしかねない。でも怖いから一応、と原文を見に行って、そこで初めて、ああ、探してあげる必要があるのか、って気づくわけ。 このミッション以前にもちょくちょく似た問題が散見され、老婆を引き金に完全に英語に切り替えたので以降の訳は知らない。 あと固有名詞を訳してる問題……なんだけど、ゲーム背景を考えるにRockと呼ばれる彼はロックではなく岩と訳されていた方が美しく思える。これは個人の趣味。 ただ、落ちている方がロックなのはおかしくない？　こっちは石がいいよ。10人中9人は石派に違いない。 おまけ2、現時点での感想。 うーん……上でもチラと出たけどとにかく走る時間が長い。水中を駆けているのか、って感じのモッタリ挙動でまずは5分のジョギング。そして出会ったNPCは「◯◯をもってこい」と言う。特に説明も無いが、言われた通りにまた5分、まずは拠点で物資を取りに。そしてまた5分掛けてNPCの元へ。 すると今度はこう言う。「××の△△を狩れ」。ああ分かったとマップを確認してみるも、特にアイコンは表示されない。 このゲーム、近づかないと表示されないタイプのクエストが妙に多い。だからと30分間走り、ようやくアイコンを見つけ……フリーズ。さあ、マラソン前からのやり直し。今日をもう1回遊べるドン！ やっぱり安定って必須だよね。 さて、イライラも収まったことだし続きをしようか。ゲーム自体は結構面白そうだからね。まだ詳しくレビューできるほど遊んでないんだけども（だから表面的なレビューになっている）。 正式版で安定してくれると嬉しいな。

i get this is early access, but the amount of bugs and constant objectives not responding or working in any way makes this game unplayable.

Very poorly optimized! Even with a 5080 and the game video settings on "Performance" (the only other option other than Ultra) there are constant stutters. Vsync on/off doesn't make a difference either.

After bashing my head against the game for an hour I cant say Im too motivated to play it. The resource gathering is really unsatisfying. Very much suffers from "oh thats not a thing I can pickup its just part of the background." The controls feel very janky. Especially the camera, sprinting and jumping. Overall it didnt really have anything that catches my eye. It has some good bones, but defiantly still has a long way to go.