CrossWorlds: Escape

This is an early review of the game based on limited time so far. However, since there is only one other review at this time, I thought I would add another viewpoint. The game's graphics are very nice, although there are one or two textures that still need a little work. The effect of the wind on the scenery is well done. I also have not experience lag or frame rate issues. So far, the game has proven to be difficult with respect to trying to determine which items can be eaten without getting food poisoning and every creature is much stronger when you start; all of which makes the game interesting. The objective of a survivial game is, after all, determining how to survive. I am looking forward to seeing how the change of the seasons affects the game; this is a unique aspect compared with most of the current survival games. In moving around the landscape, it looks like there is an underlying plot that may prove interesting, but I am not far enough along to know yet how developed the plot is. In looking through the discussions, the developers appear active and responding to comments which is always an important aspect of any early access game. My opinon so far, the game shows strong promise. I am looking forward to playing it more and seeing how it develops. Update: Ok, I am a little further along, including having died and restarted a few times :) The seasons add a very nice aspect to the game. The flooding that occurs is also well done. It is nice that the weather (wind, etc) affects how cold/warm you are. Shading under trees and wetness also matters. As the seasons change, the fruit and mushrooms become scarce, which is a nice aspect. However, it is difficult to gather enough food and not have it go bad prior to the change of the seasons (which change slowly as you play). I am still working on how to survive this change in the availability of food. The effects of injury and food poisoning are severe and absolutely must be avoided, which is realistic. Although, in the beginning, avoiding them while learning the basics, is very challenging, expect to have to restart a few times as you learn the ropes. There is crafting in the game. Food can be cooked. Weapons, clothing, armor, etc. can be crafted. It is possible to build buildings, but it takes a fair amount of work to harvest enough supplies (which is also realistic I suppose). The trees seem to grow (at least they seem to, I have not stayed still and just watched one to be sure that is what is happening). The game is hard... it is a survival game, so that comes with the territory. The developers are active, following the discussions, responding to questions/comments, and are providing updates already. They also have plans for future development, based on some of the responses. As far as this survival game compared to the many others in my inventory, this one shows great promise. Certain aspects are still being deployed, but the aspects that are there are well done. In my opinion, the seasons, the effects of weather on the player, and the effects of the seasons on the availability of food all make this game unique and well worth adding to the collection. Second update: I now have close to 50 hours in on this game. Since the game's release, the developers have remained very active, adding new content and responding to both suggestions and bugs reports. Since I started playing Crossworlds, I have seen many of the suggestions made by the community implemented in the game. The crafting system has been further developed with seeds & garden plots, beds, and other items added. The developers have also responded to the criticisms regarding difficulty, etc. in so far as several aspects of the game can now be tweeked, depending on the degree of difficulty that you are looking for. The rate of food consumption and thrist can be altered, the length of the seasons can be changed, as well as several other aspects that affect game play. Based on responses from the developers, additional parameters will also be adjustable in the near future. All in all, this game is continually evolving and the steam community is playing a role in the development, just as all of us are hoping for when we choose to participate in an alpha release. If you are looking for a survival game that has several unique traits, this is one well worth looking at. A few of the items that I have found to be fairly unique include: the seasons change (i.e., leaves appear in the spring and drop in the fall). The snow builds up on the ground in the winter, it snows and the lakes freezes so that you can walk on them. The rate of food production for mushrooms, berries, etc. is also season dependent as well as the amount of leaves that you gather from chopping trees. Wind, rain, wetness, and shade (yes, the shade of a tree) all make a difference in how warm or cold you feel. The water level of the lake rises and falls due to flooding. Trees actually grow (not just appear as happens in most survival games). Different items burn at different rates (branches, logs, coal). Some aspects found in other games that are also in this one: items have durability (although a somewhat unique aspect here is that durability affects function, i.e., a worn axe does not chop a tree as fast as a new axe), you can build a home, a campfire, a forge, etc. One interesting aspect of a house though, it makes a difference in the winter if you leave the door open (or don't have one). Another common aspect, if you run, you use up food and water faster. And many more. Overall, I highly recommend considering adding this game to your collection if you are considering acquiring an additional survival game.

This is a great survival game, and I can only imagine it will get even better before release. It takes a while to figure out how things work, but I never object to that in a game, I like a challenge. The weather and seasons are great. I absolutely love the ambient insect and animal life, even though some of them startle the blorp out of me occasionally. Staying alive through winter actually feels like an achievement, especially if you underestimate how cold it is going to get (and are a real cheapskate like me, who don't want to use your resources on making shoddy clothing that don't last terribly long). There are plenty of enemies to fight, but you can also avoid them if you just want to focus on surviving the world. Unlike games like 7 Days to Die, enemies do not constantly seek you out, so your base seems to be safe enough. The creatures in the game are also very believable. They look good, move well (I am VERY impressed with how the deer flee if you try to hunt them). The hostile ones have made short work of me, particularly when I want to "just look a little further, even though my health is at 24%". Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. At least if said cat had a statue of ressurection placed in some nice spot. This is also a game that sucks me in, alllowing me to forget my troubles when I require it. I may think I've been playing for a few minutes, but suddenly, hours have passed. Which is invaluable when I have a bad day, one that I need to get through with a minimum of fuss. SPOILERS: *Unless you live in the desert, save your smelting and baking for the winter. You're going to need that extra heat then anyway. *Find a good pine forest to go lumberjacking in, in order to get enough tree sap; you're going to want those water barrels. *When the mists come, stay where you are, or go straight back to your base. You'll get hopelessly lost if you're not careful. When it's dark, you can at least see the horizon and keep track of your position, but in the mist, all you can see are your closest surroundings. *If you don't live in a dense leafy forest, you will want to harvest clay during your first summer. Midsummer may be the only time water level is low enough.

After 14 hours of game time. This is a unique survival game. This one has seasons and flooding. Like most survival games you have to worry about the basics. Food-Water-Shelter. Because of the seasons you have to plan ahead. Stock pile food and wood. Winter is harsh. Have to keep a fire going to stay warm. Make clothing to help resist the elements. Make a shelter. I recommend taking care of the basics before you explore the map too much, or explore places of interest. Yes there are caves, and abandoned settlements that contain good resources, however they are usually guarded by unfriendly NPC (Spiders, maneating worms, demon dog, dwarve archers) and other unknown mobs. There is a "lives system" in effect. There are these resurrection statues that represent your character lives. You start off with 2 or 3. You may build more, but if you run out of lives you can't respawn. (Unless you go to main menu and click continue) Currently only Singleplayer, with Online in the works. The game is in Alpha so it still needs a lot of work to make it more enjoyable. It is pretty hardcore IMO, and I have played many survival games. Due to this new style of Survival game featuring Seasons and Flooding/Tides. I give this game a 8/10.

I was happily surprised by this game. When buying it I read several reviews first and expected it to be in much rougher shape than it is. FIrst off, I love the changing weather. It adds a whole new depth and sense of urgency that is lacking in other games. The building is fluid and quick though a lot of work to gather things which is alright by me. Hunting is hard but also how it should be I think. There is enough content to keep you busy with just enough struggle to make it realizstic. ANd no you dont have to wear your fingers out like it stated in another review when cutting down trees. You only need to click and hold down and it will continue cutting for you. I have ran into a few bugs but nothing game breaking. For some reason my water icon keeps popping up in my chest inventory when I look inside covering the item that really is in there. There are still several issues that need to be addressed though the developers made a good start with the sliding settings at the start of a game so you can set how quickly you get hungry, etc. I still think that food rots way too quickly. Even dried and in the ice box things seem to go down fast. The durability of clothes is awful, It takes a lot of work killing animals to make a set of hide clothes, then they rot off you so fast. I have yet to go through my first winter and hope I survive. If you like survival games then I think you will enjoy this one. I look forward to the devs adding more content. I mean what else am I supposed to do on those long winter's nights?

This game has huge potential, but it is not for casual players, it is an unforgiving survival game where mistakes are punished pretty hard especially in winter where you currently can end up in a death loop if you respawn in a random location after dying, then it is close to impossible to reach a safe or warm place. The temperature in winter can come as low as -40C and below 0C you start taking damage which is visually shown by a growing blood splatter on the screen disrupting your view + the cold weather also degrade your visuals and if you are really unlucky respawning in a blizzard your vision is even more limited. After death you respawn wearing nothing but shorts and t-shirt + a knife, so you got a very limited time to reach a desert or other place where you can get warm and usually the degraded vision and limited time will kill you in a few minutes so that you might end up in a death loop that just goes and on until either winter turns into spring or you (rage)quit and start a new game... like I did *lol* No matter how experienced you are with survival games I suggest you start on easy or custom difficulty to start the game in spring because leaving the tutorial on in normal difficulty starting in fall just 3-4 days before winter will kill you because following the tutorial will leave you unprepared for the winter and you end up dying a lot. Once you have become familiar with the controls and how basic stuff works in this game you can either continue your game on easy difficulty or start a new with the difficulty settings you like. [b]CrossWorlds: Escape[/b] is set in a massive world with hostile Goblins and Rat people + hostile creatures. There are lots of different biomes: Dense forest, open fields, deserts, mountains, lakes, vulcanos, caves and more where life goes on and is affected by your actions. There are seasons and they differ a lot from each other depending on where you are in this huge world, environment, foliage and animals act accordingly to the current season, fx you won't find berries in winter, swans will move to warmer places. [h1]PROS:[/h1] [list] [*]Massive world that you really can get lost in [*]Seasons that change visually with weather effects and impacts on the environment [*]Good and non intrusive background music that changes according to the danger level [*]Graphics are quite good in places especially in dense forests [*]Actions have consequences, you can deforest an area making wildlife move away, plants and trees do slowly grow back again [*]Survival is hard and unforgiving especially in the beginning, but even later in game mistakes can be very costly [*]Devs are nice and active on the forum trying to help you with problems [*]Updates seems to be roughly every 3-4 weeks [/list] [h1]CONS:[/h1] [list] [*]Currently craftable objects are a little rough around the edges and there aren't a lot of them and once placed they cannot be moved, you have to destroy them and build a new [*]The building system is very basic leaving little room for creativity and removing a door, wall or other part will make parts of your house collapse even in places that are nowhere near the destroyed part - This will hopefully be fixed [*]Enemy AI is in some cases rather stupid, fx if they attack your house they run into the wall and stay there facing the wall and sometimes you can kill them one by one from behind [*]Random respawning after a death can in winter leave you in a death loop unable to reach a fairly safe spot before you die again [*]While I do like that your sight is lowered when hurting or in bad weather they also in combination feels too intrusive making you unable to see where you are heading [*]Some item descriptions are confusing and in some cases misleading, hopefully this will be corrected [/list] So will I recommend this game? If you like hard survival where you have to learn from your mistakes and you like a fairy-tale like environment with Goblins, Rat people set in mostly a forest then absolutely YES. I have enjoyed this game so much and can't seem to let go of it... just one more hour turns into several :D There is so much potential to this game and it is already so immersive, for now forget the not so pretty textures and objects they are ok, but hopefully as the game develops they will get an overhaul + more things to craft. I don't know why this has gotten so many negative reviews, perhaps because the game was in a bad state when they wrote their reviews. I also found this game by chance, it is not being advertised very good, close to no Youtubers are making LET'S PLAY videos of this game and that is a shame because this game is a diamond in rough that keeps getting more bright as the development progress, and it is fairly cheap for what you get so far :) [i]There's nothing like walking in a dense forest in spring and suddenly discover a pond with playing Swans, deer walking around eating and doing their stuff, seeing a wolf chasing a deer and perhaps deciding that you might become a better meal - The sounds and the way sun beams play in the surroundings making small bugs and plants glow a bit - This game is beautiful in a magical way at times and unforgiving & tough at others :) [b]CrossWorlds: Escape[/b] is definitely a big thumbs up from me :)[/i]

I had given this game a good review but have sense changed it for many reasons. It's actually a good game for the exception who ever the developer is has left the building and is not returning. With all the time that has passed from when it was released many things could have been fixed, more content added and more people purchasing and playing. Not sure why steam allow these things to occur and the game to be sold to this day. So I like this game and have been trying to play and enjoy. As i struggle through the many things that need to be adjusted or fixed greatly slow me down but i push forward, it's a survival game after all correct? So i finally get enough stuff to craft the roof for my base and after the grind to do so I come to find out the pitched roof only snaps to the walls that have windows, very painful. Also noticed the windowed walls are a different size then the regular walls with no windows and are taller and in a different position and don't snap into place correctly. It's not like the game is totally unplayable it just lacks detail, the food water drain is way to fast and you find yourself spending most of your time trying to get water and food which leaves you next to no time to gather matts to build and craft. By the time you cut down a few trees and craft some planks it's dark again because the time of day goes by like in no time at all. You can't keep playing because shortly you will need food and you can't hunt in the dark with a bow. So you have to sleep. So from what i experienced your day starts and you must hunt and kill a deer, by the time you find a deer, kill it, cook the meat, get water you have to literally rush off to to get wood to make planks. By the time you do all this and get two or three trees cut down it's dark or getting dark and you can't see jack! So bottom line is the game is really unbalanced and a total struggle just to do a few things to progress, I spend most of my time getting food and cutting down trees and sleeping. It's repetitive and after a few hours of game play gets old super quick. I think if the days were more like 30 minutes and then night for like 20 minutes with the ability to sleep in your tent and wake up in the am would be a huge improvement. Extending the food and water timers and fixing the building of structures so the roof actually works etc.etc. i am done playing this game because it clearly seems abandoned and I would not suggest purchasing this unless you actually see updates and bug fixes and i am not referring to just one update or the last update which wasn't really an update at all, i am talking seeing actual progress over a period of time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Developer response: lex [developer] Posted: Mar 20, 2020 @ 5:21pm Hello. We recently released the game from early access. Previous patches have improved performance, completed the first chapter of the story line, added new items and changed some of the old ones. Perhaps this time you like the game more, and you change your mind about it? If you look through all the negative reviews you see one thing, the developers copy and pasted the same generic reply to ever single review, very lazy and if i am not mistaken i bet he never even took the time to actually read through all of them.

The game looks abandonned. No more update and no change

I won't recommend this until the problem of freezing is solved. After 15 to 20 minutes the game starts to stutter and after a while it freezes. Only thing helps is restarting the whole game. And rinse and repeat. Until it's fixed this game is very much unplayable.

This game has been abandoned.

Game was abandoned and "released" unfinished. Lots of bugs, multiplayer isn't really functional. Added 'crafting timers' at one point, which I never understand this, (PS this mechanic was meant for multiplayer games like Rust, etc.) So unless you can get it for sale for a couple bucks, don't bother. Sadly it had a lot of potential, the seasons and everything was neat, but I stopped having fun when the crafting timer mechanic, and a lot of bugs came up, and it just became more grindy for no good reason. Just another game I bought for myself and my wife to play co-op, that isn't able to be played together. =/