Okay, so we have a post-apocalyptic setting where mankind has taken shelter underground because powerful solar storms ravages the surface, but now there's an attempt to see if the surface is liveable enough again in the form of a survival contest, with the player as one of the contestants. So, the player along with the other contestants are put in an area with various territories, one for each contestant, with each of these having their own up and downs that could help or hamper your survival. Some territories may have more arable land than others, or other perks that may give you an edge in your attempts to survive. Either way, the goal is to survive in the face of the elements, a lack of food an water and the existence of robbers and mutants - not to mention the other contestants whom you have to outlast to win the contest. To this end you have to spend your in-game days in the game scavenging, building, hunting, and farming a bit, all to survive. Oh, and sabotage things for your opponents if the chance to do so appears as well.
It's a nice post-apocalyptic survival game and a change from those often being of either the zombie or nuclear kind as well. Not too difficult either, once you get the hang of it; once you do, it's just a matter of outlasting your opponents and grab the win. The game also offers several modes to keep things interesting for the player, such as the cold mode, where most of the year will be cold, the hot mode, where most of the year will be hot and the solar storm mode where solar storms will strike now and then causing damage to the player's health if you don't take shelter... Each which means you'll have to adapt and act accordingly to survive, as what works in one mode may not work in another. There's also a number of survivors to choose to play as, all with their own strenghts and weaknesses, though you do have to unlock'em first...
Now, I understand that this game was in a bit of a troubled spot during it's early access period (I arrived after that) and remained stuck in its progress for a while before it entered its 1.0 state. Well about that, I can only say that the game is quite playable as it is now, though there are clearly things that could've been done better, or been fine-polished more, or changed for the better... Certainly I do have some complaints about the game, such as:
- I really think they went overboard a bit overbord with some of the sicknesses. For example, if you get malnutrition, it takes crapload of meat to get rid of it - and even if you start eating meat to get rid of it, the percentage of the sickness will STILL keep going upwards. It either should cost less meat to get rid of the sickness OR it should stop ticking upwards as soon as you start eat meat...
- On solar storm mode, there should be a way to tell when the solar storm is over when you're taking shelter inside a building or underground...
- And speaking of that, there should have been an option to speed up time when you're taking shelter underground or indoors, because waiting for the danger to be over or whatever isn't fun... Really, the ability to speed up time faster than what exist in the game as it is would've been a good thing...
- It would've been better if you could choose the number of times when mining for ores, coal, etc, because having to repeatedly click on the pile every time is impractical and gets boring as well as annoying fast...
- Traps are an aspect of the game I think should've received more attention and worked better. Now, I suspect part of the idea of traps is to put them in the lands of your opponents to catch their animals, but this use of it didn't occur to me until MUCH later and even then I didn't test it out. However, traps still clearly are not as useful as they should be because you can easily take down the various animals by yourself without any need for the traps whatsoever. Really, traps would've been more useful if they could've caught the horses, wolves and hyenas that pass through the areas now and then, but the aforemented never gets caught in traps...
So, all in all? It's a decent game that will probably be worth your money, especially if purchased during a sale or the like, but one that had potential to be a bit better, to say the least. Recommended first and foremost to fans of survival and post-apocalyptic settings/games...
