ASKA

After 300 hours of playtime, I'd like to share my conclusions. The game truly deserves it. First of all, the game concept is absolutely brilliant. City building combined with survival. I've read many complaints about the NPC AI. I can't understand any of them. The NPCs do what you want, and if something doesn't work, you get a message telling you what's missing. There are just a few bugs, which are being corrected. What still bothers me, however, is that once you've mastered everything, the story doesn't progress. At some point, the invasions and attacks no longer pose a threat, and all the puzzles are solved. I've made some suggestions to the developers to keep the suspense alive. As an early access game, I absolutely recommend buying it. I'd even donate to this masterpiece.

I bought this game on sale because I love survival games and my friends and I play them a lot. My favorites are Valheim, Empyrion, Conan (before the major change to the game) and 7 days to die (love that game). I've played about half a dozen survival games but this one is different. This game has a lot of potential. Lot of more work needs to be done. Do you like constantly searching for resources and trying to get your villagers to work properly? Do you like building a building of any kind using a three step time consuming process? Do you like searching the same POI over and over again. Then this is your game. So let me start by saying this is mainly a city building game. You look for resources to build your buildings and explore the 6 POI's. That's it. The 6 POI in the game are the 4 elemental bosses you must defeat. They're scattered around the map at random places and there are multiples of the same POI's. There is the spire which I'm not 100% sure what you get out of it except for killing the monsters around it and getting certain resources that you can get around the map. And the mines, Which are needed in order to obtain Iron. You need to hunt, fish and Forage for food which you absolutely need to do, But that's it for exploration and combat. There is an event where a wormhole opens up and starts counting down by days before an invasion strikes your village but I can't say that there's anything else. Building anything in this game requires a lot of time and resources. It becomes easier when you get more workers in your village to build and do things but the AI in this game is not good. I can't tell you how many times I've had villagers run up to me wave at me and tell me they need to do something but the material is right there literally next to them. At times I just grabbed the material myself, start to walk to the project and then the AI will realize the material is next to them grab the material themselves and finishing a project. Just frustrating! I'm not a big fan of the way buildings are done. I like the simplicity of games like Valheim and any of the dozen survival games I've played. Here's an example. Let's say you're going to build your first shelter. 1) First you have to level the ground. Then find the resources for the base of your shelter then you build the base. 2) Then you have to find the The materials for the framework of your shelter then you build the framework. 3) Then you need to find the resources for the final construction of your shelter and finish the shelter. Building anything is a 3 step process and it's long, tedious and it feels like work than fun. Again it does get easier when you get more villagers in to help out but still the AI isn't what you call smart. Combat is okay and can be challenging especially early on. But once you get iron and better equipment the challenges become relatively easy. The exceptions are the bosses. They can be a bit of a challenge. Lastly is multiplayer, my friends and I have been playing this game for a little over a week. And we have seen plenty of bugs that the devs are working on fixing. But the one game killing bug for me is the disconnect. If you disconnect from the main host whatever you have in your inventory before the save is lost. It is unbelievably frustrating to make new armor and mine ore to suddenly find yourself disconnected, then to reconnect and everything that you have on your person and inventory is gone and reverted to the last save. On top of that you lose all the resources that you collected or mined is permanently gone from the World. Apparently the game does not save your character stats and inventory unless the hosts manually saves or you wait for one of the two save points which is morning and evening game time. There is a way for the host to adjust the save times but the host has to remember or know about it. I'll end this rant by simply saying this game has a lot of potential. But more work needs to be done to make it fun and adventurous. It feels more like a real job than a game. Too much work goes into buildings and worker management then exploration and adventure. Maybe I'll look back into this game in six months and see what the devs have done. But right now I rather play Valheim and explore a world than spend 15 minutes building a tent.

This is the perfect combination of survivalcraft and colony builder. You get to assign the mundane tasks of survival games to the villagers and focus on colony building, but you're also part of the colony and get to participate in a direct hands-on way as you like. I cannot stop playing. Honestly, I may have a problem. And the devs keep making it better at every turn! Oh, I wanted to add: I primarily play on my steam deck, and it plays really well on there. I know there is a warning about the text being small, but I've not had any problem (at least, not when I wear my glasses).

This is a game I've been looking for. Its a lot like the game I love called "Banished" only you can also live in your village. Combat is not the focus but an element. This is more about recruiting and managing the needs of your town and people. You never run out of things to do. Its almost too many spinning plates and prevents most of your free will, forcing you to nudge progress forward before you get raiding by even bigger waves. But you don't get raided very often. My only complaints is I wish the starting biome had a bit more diversity graphically and torches fuel lasted a bit longer if not forever. I do not wanna play Torch Management 2025.

I would love to love this game. The graphics are fun, the idea is great. Its great fun to play. Have played for 14 hours so far. But the problem is the workers AI. Its like trying to manage a room of toddlers. The AIs in the old age of empires game were more intelligent. At least they didn't stand there and starve to death next to a full basket of food PLEASE PLEASE fix the workers and give a better tutorial. example I caught seabass, built a fire, shelter, BBQ. Assigned a worker to the bbq, gave him fish and a knife. He just sat there beside the fire for a day, As I said Im still playing the game, but not sure for how long.

Hey guys, im wavering between recommend and not recommend. The game has great potential and a lot of the core mechanics are working fine. The building system is insane and easy understandable. You can upgrade literally everything in the game and has the possibility to build literally 50 buildings+. And every of this buildings has its unique usage. The delivery and construction worker are sometimes doing nothing and u dont know why. The descriptions of the problems that exists lack a lot of informations and that has to be fixed. But the biggest problem are the invasions. Let me be honest: "Nobody" wants to play without every invasion. But even if u activate the invasions at the lowest possible difficulty you are getting at a point you cant to anything against them. Today i had a save with 20 workers. And literally the second invasion included 15 enemies, 5 of the big draugr that receive 0 damage and 3 hit you. You need to find a balanced solution. In this way this is really antifun and just a waste of time. I would say this game is atm a 6/10 but without a recommendation with potential to be a 10/10 Greetings

The AI is laughably stupid. Your villagers will starve to death while holding food in their inventory. There is the potential for a mediocre village management game here, but don't buy this looking for more than that.

Ultimately the problem behind this game is that the tech works and they have great bones, but the game designer doesn't know what makes a game good and seems to have put things in simply to be different or more "difficult". I highly doubt the vast majority of things I mention will be changed but here goes the phenomenal list of hubris induced gamplay choices: - One save file per game. "DeAl WiTH yOUr ChOICes" mentality. There are no choices? The game gets harder over time so losing people is not only not necessary due to simple combat, but nothing about it is interesting to work around. So you will simply load, and the only time you won't be able to do that is when the default on auto-save in morning is checked and overwrites your save at an in opportune time, essentially bricking it. How do you work around this? Turn it off, remember to save on your own at actual safe times and get used to having to re-do hours of gameplay if you forget. What does this promote? Overly cautious gameplay, pedantry and autosave being useless if not an outright trap. I.E. nothing. Feels like it belongs in another game... - This game is so far from a Dark Souls game it couldn't see it on the horizon, yet desperately wants to be "hardcore". The combat is by no means difficult, but is slow and ponderous all the same. Enemies rarely roam, and sit waiting for you in camps. Again the save function feels like it belongs in another game where you aren't spending 2 in game days chopping trees or gathering plant fiber like it was more important than food itself... - Because it is, food is everywhere and plentiful, 2 gatherers and a hunter would feed a huge village. Meanwhile the rope economy is out of control. I have two fields just producing fiber. - AI is passable unless you step in front of one of its task. If for instance an NPC was going out to get a tree and you move it, it appears it might cart the tree you just dropped in town back out to where it was going to pick it up. They are not fast at accomplishing anything and start tasks, but if interrupted, won't return to them. I have had no problem with them accessing inventory, as they will walk quite a distance to pull things out of my sled. - Convoluted "gotcha" crafting system. Why are we doing all this with Iron? Smithing? Why do I have to tell them to make an axe head for an axe? Or better question why do I need to maintain one axe head in inventory at all time so that I can also ensure there is one complete axe at all times? The UI become less usable as you scroll through the massive list of items you have queued (which are quotas by the way, unexplained to the user). - The tutorial is hot garbage and you will likely restart out of frustration on your first playthrough. Placing buildings an flattening areas is finicky, difficult and requires prior knowledge of everything to lay out a town that doesn't look like a pile of trash. - Why do buildings have GIGANTIC footprints, let alone the ones with addons? You can just build a smithy you have to build a crafting hut, then a smithy addon. It makes laying out a town insanely difficult. Never mind surrounding a town with walls. Insane requirement, I am two years in and have a stick fence and complaints (that I ignore with no ramification) about defense. Wall building itself is atrocious. - Every action is a "hold key" button. In a survival sim this gets taxing extremely fast. Why no toggle? On top of that the animations don't line up with press and release, so the game feels unresponsive. It's a good game, but the collection of mindblowingly bad dev choices purely to sate a vision that no one cares about (clearly by your sales and reviews).

ASKA is an ambitious and immersive Viking-themed survival and settlement-building game that blends deep resource management, base construction, and cooperative play in a rugged, myth-inspired world. Developed by Sand Sailor Studio, ASKA sets itself apart from other survival titles by introducing a robust NPC system and a dynamic seasonal world where players don’t just survive—they build thriving, self-sustaining Viking villages from the ground up. Whether playing solo or with friends, the game offers a challenging yet satisfying experience that hinges on careful planning, environmental awareness, and community building. Players begin stranded on an uncharted island, equipped with little more than basic tools and the will to survive. From there, the world opens up into a vast, procedurally generated landscape full of trees to chop, animals to hunt, resources to mine, and secrets to uncover. What immediately sets ASKA apart is its integration of villagers—summonable NPCs who can be assigned to tasks such as building, farming, defending, or crafting. These AI companions are surprisingly smart and add significant depth to the game, turning what could have been a solitary survival grind into a lively management sim. Watching your settlement evolve from a collection of wooden huts into a structured and defended community gives every action a clear sense of purpose. Building in ASKA is tactile and rewarding. Structures are constructed piece by piece, often requiring manual labor and a sequence of resource conversions—logs to planks, ore to ingots, and so on. Unlike many survival games, building is not instantaneous or overly simplified. Instead, it feels like a communal effort. The aesthetic is striking, drawing from Norse themes with stylized visuals and atmospheric lighting that reinforce the harsh but beautiful setting. Seasons pass, weather changes, and time of day matters—especially as harsh winters and mythical creatures can emerge as real threats. Players must prepare not just for the next day, but for long-term survival across seasons. Combat, though not the primary focus, is impactful and weighty. Blood Moons and corrupted enemies offer serious challenges, requiring well-planned defenses and well-equipped villagers. While early encounters may feel punishing, especially before acquiring decent gear, they also introduce stakes that push players to think strategically about fortifications and resource prioritization. In cooperative play, managing these threats with friends adds another layer of enjoyment, with clear roles forming organically among players—some farming, others crafting weapons, while someone else builds walls and towers. However, ASKA does have a learning curve. The tutorial is minimal, and players are often left to figure out essential mechanics through trial and error. Systems such as village hierarchy, resource automation, and even the summoning of new villagers could use clearer in-game explanations. Additionally, the micromanagement of crop rotations, villager behavior, and production chains can become tedious in the mid-to-late game without more robust automation tools. AI behavior is competent but not flawless—pathfinding issues or idle villagers occasionally break immersion. Despite these rough edges, ASKA’s potential is immense. As an early access title, it's already packed with content, and the developers have shown a commitment to ongoing support and community feedback. Players who enjoy slow-burn progression, layered survival systems, and creative building will find plenty to enjoy here. With future updates addressing polish, AI improvements, and perhaps late-game goals, ASKA could easily grow into one of the genre’s standout titles. In conclusion, ASKA is a thoughtfully designed survival and colony-building game that blends Norse mythology with immersive, hands-on gameplay. Its combination of settlement management, strategic survival, and cooperative exploration sets it apart in a crowded genre. While still rough in places, it lays a strong foundation for what could become a long-lasting and deeply rewarding experience for players who enjoy building not just a base—but a living, breathing Viking world. Rating: 7/10

While it has a great atmosphere and environment, the progression is extremely linear and choked full of chore labor.

I loved this game, but after 50 hours on it gets to the point were i don't want to micro manage every single villager. If I want something crafted I have to do it myself or it wont get done. Ex - If I want something to be made I will have to grab the supplies for them and put it in their inventory, even though I have work stations for this exact reason so then here comes the micro manage per station. This is a short and simple review! I would recommend this game if the AI gets better...

Decent game. I'm probably not going to play more until the game releases. There's unfortunately very little substance to the game, even a year after early access. I played during the demos before release, and while there's some progress on the management and building front, the game world, exploration, and combat still feel like they're the exact same. There's been no new lands to discover. No new biomes. No new enemies (as far as I can tell). You can build a boat, but there's no where to sail. You can explore the map, but there's nothing to see. It's still just really unfinished, even though they said they wanted to launch this year. It's not a bad game, and it has a very good foundation, but I wouldn't get it until there's a lot more content.

tried with 3 friends. it feels really bad compared to other survival games. odd UI, tedious building, slow start..it needs a lot of work.

I've really enjoyed this game so far, and the developers seem very receptive to feedback and suggestions (to a degree - shouldn't always cow to player demand), which is always promising.

I bought the game in May 2025, if i gave a review back then it would have been to avoid this game. The villager AI was just bad. Now in July 2025, only 2 months after some updates, i cant recommend this game enough. The villager AI has been fixed and now the game is playable and really fun.

Great game i just started playing about 2 days, LOVE IT, Please Devs make more updates and add new things like new maps, new enemies, new stuff,

Love this game. For fans of Medieval Dynasty and Valheim. Great management system. AI villagers aren’t terrible to deal with. Hours of content and fun plus multiplayer. Snag this on sale for sure.

Really fun! I'm addicted! Once you get your villagers tasked out the game flows forward. There aren't many tips on how things function. I would watch a video with hints and tips before getting started or you and your settlement will be suffer.

Superb and somewhat brutal game, from adventure, combat, strategy, base building, crafting, survival and "tribal" survival... yes is a game to play and have on your game list if you like a bit of all those types game plays I mentioned. HOWEVER, npc automation is below average, take for instance wood cutters, leaving tons of needed tree resources on the ground in an absolute mess and yet they keep cutting more trees for the logs leaving sticks and bark behind, then they destroy the logs to get the bark... well that is just one of the automation issues there are alot more issues than that... builders not building... and so on. NPC pathfinding... what path finding... pole-dancing more likely and attending to the latest patch/aka fix that got just worst. As it currently stands (19/07/2025) the game is brutally frustrating.

I'm going to keep this review short and sweet. The game is fun, I am glad I bought it, and I am glad I gifted it to friends. If you like a city building game with a lot of managing of your villagers, this might be for you. If you like exploration and combat, this is less likely for you, not a lot to explore, and combat, while mostly enjoyable for me, does seem relatively basic. But it is still enjoyable. What makes me unhappy about it, and has caused me to decide it is currently unplayable in its current state, is the villager behavior. First off, they litter the terrain with seeds. Dropping them everywhere rather than taking them to the numerous seed bins you have (farm and gathering hut seed bins are NEVER full, but there are always villagers dropping seeds randomly on the ground). But you know what I could look past that. What has me mad is the villager behavior around how they chose what food to eat. Lets look at this ... there are raw foods and there are cooked foods. In the beginning you and your villagers will probably be eating raw foods. But once you have a BBQ pit, and especially a kitchen, YOU will be eating cooked food. That is as long as you keep raw food on you, because if you put raw food ANYWHERE the villagers will eat it instead of your cooked food. Have a kitchen with 20 bowls of soup on the outbound counter ... don't worry, that will still be there for you. Your villagers will eat the raw carrots and onions and cabbage that are sitting in your gathering hut. Think moving them to the kitchen's inbound veggie bin will make them safe ... wrong again. The villagers will go to the kitchen and IGNORE your 20 bowls of soup on the outbound counter to eat the raw veggies out of the bin instead. Think making a warehouse dedicated to only raw foods will stop them ... NOPE, they will go there and eat the raw veggies. Wait ... the game has a whitelist you say ... you can whitelist buildings only letting specific villagers have access to the storage bins in them ... cool, white list your gatherers hut so the villagers will not eat the raw veggies there, does not work. White list the kitchen so they wont eat the veggies there, does not work. No matter what you do the villagers will almost always skip your cooked food and go for the raw foods instead. DESPITE HAVING A WHITE LIST ... WHAT THE HELL IS THE PURPOSE OF A WHITELIST IF IT DOES NOT ACTUALLY WHITELIST ANYTHING??? Honestly though, despite my rant about this issue with the food I have been enjoying it. There is a LOT of potential in this product. I would not have 76 hours playing it if I did not like it. But this issue with picking raw food over cooked food despite 20 bowls of soup sitting there waiting to be eaten has got to get fixed. A whitelist should be a whitelist, if the villagers can override it just because someone was accessing the kitchen at the exact same moment in time they wanted to so they go somewhere else to grab raw food rather than wait 1 freakin second to get a bowl of soup ... then its not a whitelist. So ultimately I am saying "Yes I recommend this game". There is a LOT of potential here, and I think as the developers continue to work out issues in the game and continue development on it this is going to be a great product. But please for the love of everything ... make a whitelist actually be a whitelist. Let the villagers wait a second to get a cooked bowl of soup instead of raiding the raw food stores like rats.

the colony system where you build a little mini city is exactly what I want. It just needs a lot of small improvements and also the combat needs a complete revamp as it's very basic and not very fun.

ASKA has some really nice quality of life things that other survival games/village management don't think about or even consider. One is "material vision", which not only highlights things you can pickup, but temporarily reduces the size of nearby foliage to make it easier to see. Another is a modular storage system, which allows you to decide which things you want to warehouse, and which you're fine with just having maxed out in a resource gathering building. There are of course things that I would love for them to add, but I've seen consistent iteration across their last few patch notes with a good mix of both content and QOL upgrades. Can't wait to see what else they have in store for us.

remarkable creativity, and as someone who has tracked this game from near release its progress and improved quality has been impressive, dedicated dev team, so much potential, and i think the right team is on the job. its a refreshing unique project, gives me hope for the future of gaming to see projects like this.

fun game beautiful graphics i hope they continue to develop this game. it has alot of potential on what it could become

WOW.... All I got to say is Wow.... Please take my money why did I not try this sooner! I wish the map was bigger, I wish there was more in depth sailing. It's alright, Ill wait to see what you guys have in store for the next coming year. My only real complaint is the carpenter, just turn both the spots can make both beams and shafts. It's so time consuming if it was myself or NPC making all the wood post. I also think Wood planks should take up half a spot in the storage not a whole. -Thanks!

First off, i exclusively play the game without raids enabled. I don't enjoy this in any game that have this feature. So take what you will from my review. It's a very fun idea, merging village sin with survival rpg, and it works quite well. That said this is early access and there are some small annoyances; Items seem to spawn in at a certain range, and if they are in a container or storage, they tend to "jump" out of said container and get strewn all over the ground or floor. And the villagers seem quite happy about this and just leave it there. This frustrates me :) I really wish the devs would make idle villagers with no current task (they will just stand at their station and complain about not having resources, or that the storage is full) go into some secondary task mode and haul items to storages and tidy up the stuff strewn all over the village. I feel like combat is a bit clunky or maybe i just suck :) And crafting decent items comes so late game that it's almost a second game after you finish the village one.. But i bet there will come balance updates down the road. All in all i really enjoyed my time in the EA so far and looking forward to playing more after future updates.

This game has a perfect blend of survival crafting and colony sim that scratches all the right itches.

It's like a Valheim with Medieval Dynasty mechanics and I'm loving it. At times it can be hard to automate some tasks so you might end up grinding it yourself for a while, but once you do, it's just great. Overall the game is at least decent in all of its aspects so far and the overall gameplay loop just works for me. 8/10 in early access and I have feeling it will get a lot better in time. So if you're in that kind of survival, don't pass on this. I'am already thinking about my next playthrough. Just one note from me.... Do something about thatch. It is unnecessarily grindy and you need it for almost everything once you build the carpenter. I spent a lot of time just running back and forth between the settlement and the beaches carrying ten of it each time. Just let us plant it on the farm in some way, or make it a small item, so you can carry a bit more. That would make the experience much much better,

If you like games valhiem, runescape and Sims all put in one then youll love this game

Nice pacing, beautiful world, very engaging. Have enjoyed playing so far.

It has a few bugs which is expected at this point, but it's a fun game and the mechanics to build structures and to manage your village and the search for resources are fun and challenging.

Very good game.Hopefully it will keep be that way and get some good updates with more stuff to do

This game had good bones on the launch of EA, and the devs have been tirelessly releasing big updates every month or two. The combat feels pretty good, it is a relatively bug free experience, and it is pretty fun from a survival and base building / city management experience. The content could use some more fleshing out, and the 4-6 week releases seem to be focusing on that. Overall this is a good game now, and will likely be a great game on release. My only advice for actual gameplay is to avoid crafting things yourself unless you really enjoy the easygoing repetitiveness. It is best left to your villagers.

I love this game, it's cozy but not without adventure! It scratches that Valhiem itch but cuts down on the tedium of doing every task yourself with the settlers. The visuals are really good, nothing beats watching the sunrise and sunset on your ever growing village. I can't wait to see the finished product, it's been great so far!

The direction of colony RPG game is unique in the level of tasks that can be done, automation and customization.

I love the concept. Have only made it a few days in and as I thought it would feel repetative, instead new options are poping up that I get to chase.

Fantastic, Coop works great, dedicated servers work great, minimal bugs nowadays. Now with CHEESE!!!

I'm having a lot of fun! despite the bugs and other things you encounter in the game it's just way too fun to let go. I'm finding myself playing hours and hours almost I forget I have a real life! It's not perfect but it is enjoyable and very fun to play, I highly recommend giving it a try!

Great game, best with at least one other person

Good game but too easy. U can "beat" the game in like 10 hours if u speedrun. Bosses are easy asf.

ASKA is a more casual experience at this point than say, Soulmask. Very enjoyable and easy for an old and apparently fussy about his games person to get into. I've clearly gotten my $$$ worth with the hours I have into it already, so anything the devs do from here is a bonus.

Wife and I started this game together and we are both pretty dam hooked. It is fun and challenging enough to keep us occupied. only downside if I would have to say one is the villagers are dumb af and are a huge annoyance. but dam we are loving this game!

The game is really easy to get into, and is really fun. The optimization in the game is sadly very bad and there are bugs here and there, but i can only hope it gets fixed along the way :D

I was shocked at how well this all works, and how much fun it is. Really impressive colony sim blended with a survival/action game. So much fun played co-op too. Can't recommend this enough.

i may not understand some parts of the game still and get frustrated at times but really fun game none the less (im probably just dumb af) the combat is weird though im dodging and still getting hit

Okay this one sucked me in, take some valheim vibes and throw in a bit of colony management so theres something to do with the viking inspired town you just built and you have Aska. And I say this in a good way not a bad way. But its not a pure survival crafting and its not a pure colony management game. Trying to play this as a pure survival crafting game or pure colony management is not gonna be fun, or sustainable past the first couple of events. So get that Jotun blood and expand your colony. Getting the pawns to make the interim crafting stuff to make armor and keep tools in storage is key, those numbers in the workshops are "make until x in storage" numbers. You can always move pawns around, leave one for a day on the cook top, bank up some food, next day throw them in the workshop for early on optimization when you have more shops than pawns. Have some pawns setup as non combat pawns, and have your militia people (set that on the eye of odin) be the ones that are out harvesting and whatnot. Get that farm down to get reeds and fiber coming in asap, so much easier and less "work effort" for you and your pawns to get the fiber that way. Then its easier to make some clothes for some minimal armor and temp protection. Then its just a bit of thatch harvesting for making more beds but no more thatch runs. Dont forget to drop the flags for wood harvesting, stone harvesting, foraging and buildings mats gathering so you pawns know where to harvest. Set an area for harvesting of what you want, also throw a flag for building materials, then go around and break up the stones and chop down the trees and let your pawns do the hauling work cause you can generally break things faster. Get a warehouse with some raw mat storage so you can have more of a buffer of that for rapid building expansion or repair needs. After the first winter you wanna rapidly build up to get 3 pawns training in the barracks and 3 in the archer for the next winter invasion. Like preferably have those building done by the end of the first winter. No need to surround the portal, theyll come to you, build a defensive spike wall 2 walls thick with some watch towers and hedge towers, and you should be able to tank it with the upper tier of leather armor on your pawns. After that first invasion swap out your pawns in the barracks and archer range to spread some of the combat training love. In terms of patrols you can either drop patrol flags or select watch towers as patrol points, you can also tell the patrol to hang out and train at archer/barracks place as part of their patrol. Rename your watch towers and hedge towers so you know which ones which. makes setting the patrols easier.

I recommend this with a gigantic caveat: this game isn't about fighting until you're done defending your base and teching up. This takes a LONG TIME (15-20 hours IRL and I never reached Iron) before you're going to even be able to think about fighting a boss or raiding something for loot. Be prepared for that before you dive in. ---------------- I do Logistics as part of my IRL job, so I figured this would be a good bit of fun... a game blending open-world survival and Banished-esque elements. Unfortunately, this game is a more logistics and survival than anything else. The main character can't do anything alone and is hopelessly outnumbered in any fight after the second Blood Moon. You can supplement the logistical process of your NPCs, but they're slow to act and inefficient in their movement [they pick up things one at a time and won't sprint while moving heavy items (big rocks, long sticks and logs)]. I spent 30 days in-game just making it through the winter to get a Blood Moon attack from no less than 12 Draugr and 4 Skeletal Warriors. I had a bear (it's a boss) mangle my base in a previous run on day 14. I died to Fenrir after clearing a wolf den, because why not spawn a boss after defeating the natural low-level threat to your outpost. You almost never get to participate in combat, and if you do, it's hilariously easy or you're outnumbered significantly. I just now shut the game off, moments ago, when the War Horn I used to rouse my villagers (it has a proximity aoe for some reason), caused them to mill about outside their houses and they didn't engage the Draugr mangling the base because I built my houses on the opposite side of the random invasion spawn. the TL;DR: Good: Fun Logistics game-play loop Feels good once you have sustainable food, water, and shelter Surviving that first brutal winter feels really good Methodical progression system (though sometimes ambiguous) Good value for the price point! Cons: You're useless alone, just another villager essentially Villager AI is clunky on the Logistics, but manageable Villager AI is absolutely brain damaged when things get real Cost to summon villagers is too high imho (only when you consider how many you need) When villagers go on break, they drop the stuff they're using for their current task. There was trash all over the village constantly. If you like logistics, you prolly have OCD. This bothered me really, really bad. Villagers want way too much free time for how slow they are when they're working Attacks are too frequent and ramp up too fast Seasons are too short The death penalty is really really bad, you shouldn't penalize the player that hard (lose skill points forever or KILL A VILLAGER) Once your supply lines start getting really long from exploiting the close proximity environs, the inefficiencies of the NPCs really start to hit hard. They really need to be able to use sleds/carts. An NPC moving a single heavy stone from far away takes an eternity. Durability of weapons and tools are too low when you factor in the cost to build them Cannot blacklist items from crafting use by other crafting stations. My toolmaker was constantly obliterating my bark. I don't want her to use the bark, I want her to use the flax that comes in periodically from farming. Once I made the weaver, It was a struggle to build anything with a bark-based roof. Having to physically walk to a location and build a marker (that has material costs no less) for Patrols, Gathering, etc. is unbelievably tedious. Let me set the gathering areas in the workstation itself without running all over the place. Limit it to what's been uncovered on the map if needs be. There's no way to set secondary or fall-back tasks, should primary tasks be complete. At the very least, have the villager default to builder when their gathering station is full, or they can't find more resources. Have the problem show up in the General Problems tab so I can address it without them talking up and bothering me all the time Can't disable the NPCs constantly waving at you. They're slow enough as it is, God forbid you get near one. They'll stop moving, wave then stand there drooling for a good 5 seconds before remembering what day it is. The game doesn't tell you who will process what resources. It took me three runs to figure out the Campfire Cooking job will process the fish and the large chunks of meat, but not until I set a task order for them in the fire itself. Would add information to the item tool-tip to help the player figure out how they can process a raw material.

Good base building game. Mechanics/UI are ok and still need some polish. I'm enjoying it now that I can understand the work flow.

This game is enjoyable. its nice to hop on and spend time cutting down trees after a long day at work. The advanced gamer would find the max UI capabilities enjoyable too. I find many of my friend (yes one) and family members asking to see what im doing; its nice to quickly switch modes and host the same village. If youre like me and are lucky enough to find a bug its nice to know that you can help get it addressed by the Devs.

I like it and it runs great on the Steam Deck. I played the initial demo and it ran very choppy, but just picked it up on sale and it runs very smooth. It's like Valheim and Rimworld had a good looking baby. I haven't really sunk my teeth into it yet, but running really great on the Steam Deck is a must for me so I want other Steam Deck users to see.