Let me preface this review by saying that despite my positive recommendation I in no mean intend to trick you into thinking this is a good game. This game has a lot of untested elements and unimplemented features that make this game rather unfun to play if you are trying to enjoy it "as a game". However, I am fully serious when I say that it is probably the best two dollars I have spent in recent memory.
What I can say is that, like every other reviewer here, if you go into this game expecting an *actual game*, you will be disappointed. Some positives I can initially point out is that this game, to my knowledge, has completely unique assets and isn't just a asset-flipped game. The goals of the game are rather ambitious and it does have some unique mechanics for an early-dev's game. That being said, this game boasts many flaws. Firstly, upon our first launch it seemed the "fade-in" effect of the game did not trigger and made it so that we were in a black void with the text "Almost ready" and a single red light, which we later figured out was the sun, that pierced through this darkness. Eventually the text and screen began to warp ( pictures depicted in the discussions under this game ) and we had to quit the game. The game doesn't format to different aspect ratios making it in some cases impossible to close the settings menu. The games movement is as if you are drifting on ice and becomes especially inconvenient on higher slopes as you get sent flying backwards at rather quick speeds. If you are not constantly jumping you will eventually clip through the floor, which because of the instant saving feature, means that your progress is entirely moot as you spawn back in the void and you have to start over. Day length seems variable to our knowledge, with it occasionally skipping entire days, but for the most part every day lasts 15-20 minutes, meaning to beat this game, you need to spend 24 REAL LIFE HOURS to get to the ending. Building has no rotation feature so you can only place walls in one direction ( along with some occasional model issues with placing them, most notably with door walls ). The crafting recipe for the crafting station and the walls are also the exact same, with walls supposed to be crafted when placing the items on the crafting station, though this does occasionally glitch out and make it impossible to craft another crafting station. Some crafting items ( rope and wheat, only one of which has a working crafting recipe ) can be picked up into your inventory and become completely useless, no longer able to be used for crafting or removed from your inventory. Eventually all passive entities ( crabs and birds ) will be completely gone ( usually before day 5 ) as either the random movement of the parrot sends them of the map, or the crabs clip through the floor. A good number of features in the trailer ( to our knowledge, farming, torches, and beds, the latter of which is required for an achievement ) are not available in the actual game, and farming is particularly interesting because you can make farm plots and get seeds but you cannot place the seeds. You also can only get rid of ONE item from your inventory, being the crafting station after you place it, so once you fill up your 5 slots with non-crafting stations, you cannot get any other items, with any items you attempt to pick up instead being deleted out of existence as it tries to go to an empty inventory slot that doesn't exist. Eating food restores your visible hunger but not your actual hunger, with any gains immediately being lost when hunger next ticks down to the number it would've been had you not eaten at all, but hunger does not kill you, and instead keeps going down past zero ( going into the negatives then infinitely looping between 0 and -100 as it constantly ticks down ) Some food also eventually stops increasing your visible hunger but does not leave your inventory space, making the item useless and permanently removing another one of your slots ( not that food did much in the first place ). The enemies spawn in the air sideways and do not have a bottom texture, nor do farm plots. When reading the book, you also freeze in place, including in the air or other precarious places you should not be. The achievement "Build the walls" is unlocked by making a farming plot, and the achievement "Kill a living" with a picture of a crab is not unlocked by killing a crab, though an item for crab meat does exist in the game. The LAST things I can reasonably think of is that essentially all playable content and all locations can be discovered within about the first 2-3 in-game days, which for a game that is about surviving 100 days is not ideal for keeping the game interesting.
This game is truly uniquely bad in ways that only an abandoned unity project by an early game developer could be, and it has such a charm to it that I cannot possibly give it a negative review. This game DOES have an ending cutscene, which is why I have any playtime over just an hour testing, and it was honestly such a surprise. It was moments like this and the fact that all assets were handmade that truly painted the picture that this wasn't some lazy cashgrab ( especially with a price of 2 dollars ) but was something that someone was truly dedicated to for a time. I think the developer behind this game is truly ambitious and if they choose to keep exploring game development could help make incredible things. I think looking back at this game it at LEAST deserves 1 good review, not because it is necessarily a good game, but because it does have some passion behind it and has been such a fun little rabbit hole to dive into.
TLDR; if you play this expecting a game, you will be thoroughly disappointed, but if you play this to dissect it ( preferrably with a friend just as invested ) it can be rewarding, and because of this I think this game deserves one good review
