This review contains spoilers
After playing The Molasses Flood's other game, The Flame and The Flood, I was very excited to play this when it was announced. I really enjoyed it, but I have a lot of stipulations. It's a cute game with an entertaining loop, but it's very minimal in every design. Granted, I played the entire game solo and could have been more positive playing coop.
This really is a hack-and-slash. You tap your melee attack 3 times to make a hacking combination and there is a single jump attack. It seems like they recently added parrying to the game before I played. The combat is absolutely minimal, with some actual diversity in the ranged attacks (about 5). You're to hack-and-slash around islands to clear out enemy structures while fighting off a few different enemy types vary as you progress, but again, only a small number of them (about 6?) which also simply has HP and damage increase per level.
The levelling system is based on your camp, and no new mechanics to the combat system are introduced when your level-up - only the numbers go up for both enemy HP and damage and your own weapon stats. Your companions increase in level when using materials you collect in the world, which increases the camp level and player health. The other statistic change that happens to the player is obtaining buffs from the inhabitants as they level up. Beyond numbers, nothing new really changes as the game progresses.
When camps level up, some new buildings are unlocked, and they perform a very minimal economy. There's water, food and entertainment for your inhabitants that buildings provide. Then there is defense and some auxiliary components to that economy - utility water and electricity to provide resources for upgraded buildings which produce water, food and entertainment. These camps are supplied by what you collect out in the world, which isn't very finite, as it looks like some materials repopulate and the rest are looted from enemies.
The game looks great and the music is good. Except, the music suddenly stops and becomes very absent most of the time you're exploring and suddenly starts again for almost no apparent reason.
So, the loop is: explore the world, hack-and-slash-and-block-and-parry enemies, gather materials, return to build the camp up or defend it from an incoming raid of enemies. Within this loop, you'll be given a quest to do something at a far off island every stage, whether that is read a note, go in a building, or fight an enemy, then return to camp for an end-stage raid (4 in total). Despite the repetition and simplicity, I really enjoyed this loop, which restarts every stage of the game.
I was fairly disappointed with how lacking the combat, building and crafting is, also with the ease in which I finished off the end boss, which [spoiler] is just another enemy your meet regularly later in the game [/spoiler]. Although, it kind of feels like just the right amount, which makes this game teeter between a positive and negative review.
Beating up enemies and blocking their attacks feels great, even though it's just 3 different swings! Expanding the camp for your inhabitants is very charming and enjoyable, sometimes fairly challenging if you're not getting the loot you need! I don't need to craft more than what the game is asking me to, and any more could have been a burden on the system. It actually benefits from its simplicity.
This game brings some interesting mechanics to a survive-and-build hack-and-slash game. Each island is surrounded by a death-fog that you'll need to both craft items to walk through it and build a very fun zip-line that acts as the game's fast travel. The inhabitants acting as your levelling up system is pretty unique from what I've seen, and changes the "grind" from killing-to-exp into killing-for-loot, which is slightly different as it encourages full land exploration. I also believe the maps are all procedural, which makes me curious to try this again on harder difficulties and drop into multiplayer games.
Some of this may change as new content is introduced into the game, but I wasn't entirely disappointed by this game and really felt good playing through it all. I look forward to more updates and getting friends into this to play!
This really is a hack-and-slash. You tap your melee attack 3 times to make a hacking combination and there is a single jump attack. It seems like they recently added parrying to the game before I played. The combat is absolutely minimal, with some actual diversity in the ranged attacks (about 5). You're to hack-and-slash around islands to clear out enemy structures while fighting off a few different enemy types vary as you progress, but again, only a small number of them (about 6?) which also simply has HP and damage increase per level.
The levelling system is based on your camp, and no new mechanics to the combat system are introduced when your level-up - only the numbers go up for both enemy HP and damage and your own weapon stats. Your companions increase in level when using materials you collect in the world, which increases the camp level and player health. The other statistic change that happens to the player is obtaining buffs from the inhabitants as they level up. Beyond numbers, nothing new really changes as the game progresses.
When camps level up, some new buildings are unlocked, and they perform a very minimal economy. There's water, food and entertainment for your inhabitants that buildings provide. Then there is defense and some auxiliary components to that economy - utility water and electricity to provide resources for upgraded buildings which produce water, food and entertainment. These camps are supplied by what you collect out in the world, which isn't very finite, as it looks like some materials repopulate and the rest are looted from enemies.
The game looks great and the music is good. Except, the music suddenly stops and becomes very absent most of the time you're exploring and suddenly starts again for almost no apparent reason.
So, the loop is: explore the world, hack-and-slash-and-block-and-parry enemies, gather materials, return to build the camp up or defend it from an incoming raid of enemies. Within this loop, you'll be given a quest to do something at a far off island every stage, whether that is read a note, go in a building, or fight an enemy, then return to camp for an end-stage raid (4 in total). Despite the repetition and simplicity, I really enjoyed this loop, which restarts every stage of the game.
I was fairly disappointed with how lacking the combat, building and crafting is, also with the ease in which I finished off the end boss, which [spoiler] is just another enemy your meet regularly later in the game [/spoiler]. Although, it kind of feels like just the right amount, which makes this game teeter between a positive and negative review.
Beating up enemies and blocking their attacks feels great, even though it's just 3 different swings! Expanding the camp for your inhabitants is very charming and enjoyable, sometimes fairly challenging if you're not getting the loot you need! I don't need to craft more than what the game is asking me to, and any more could have been a burden on the system. It actually benefits from its simplicity.
This game brings some interesting mechanics to a survive-and-build hack-and-slash game. Each island is surrounded by a death-fog that you'll need to both craft items to walk through it and build a very fun zip-line that acts as the game's fast travel. The inhabitants acting as your levelling up system is pretty unique from what I've seen, and changes the "grind" from killing-to-exp into killing-for-loot, which is slightly different as it encourages full land exploration. I also believe the maps are all procedural, which makes me curious to try this again on harder difficulties and drop into multiplayer games.
Some of this may change as new content is introduced into the game, but I wasn't entirely disappointed by this game and really felt good playing through it all. I look forward to more updates and getting friends into this to play!