[i]This review was made for Elite Giveaways by Anna from [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/malkavianmadness]Malkavian Madness[/url][/i]
[quote=][i]DISCLAIMER[/i]: This review is intended primarily for the developer since the game is still in such an early development phase. All my commentary aims to be constructive, and if you would like me to expand more on any given point, feel free to reach out!
[u]DEAD[/u] is game with a heartbeat. Developer Matthew Ionsdale is committed to creating an open-world game where you must craft and build to survive a race of mutated dead beasts that hunt down to eat flesh. It is important to note that DEAD is still in Alpha, and it is commendable how dedicated the developer is to his passion project. There is a dedicated Discord channel for bugs and technical glitches, to which he is increasingly responsive, and since its original release date on August 19 of 2019, there have been a total of eight patch fixes.
Even though DEAD has come a long way since I originally played it in August, it still offers a lackluster experience because it features a bland world that pales in comparison to other games in a similarly situated position, like [i]The Forest[/i]. There is little biodiversity, texture detail, some of the mutated dead’s design just look like glowsticks, and the biomes do not invite the player to thrive and survive, but more to take a walk in the park. That being said, one of DEAD’s distinguishing features is the [i]taming[/i] of the mutated dead. Currently, this is a fun mechanic where you must maneuver yourself over an open world to drug the beast under your control. Once tamed you can mount and ride them or insert implants into their brain to help you gather resources faster.
The continual patching is also a double-edge sword because players (or the developer) continually encounter bugs, glitches, or balancing issues that need to be addressed. There was a cozy feeling of having built a fire and sitting under a night where not one more star could fit. I felt small in the universe, and was ready to get up, harvest my resources and create a house for myself. The only problem was that the ‘door’ for my house ‘glitched’ and I could not create an enclosing. Other small issues include losing all water texture and character skin underwater, trees, rocks, and other objects overlapping, and enemy encounters not registering hit boxes properly.
Back in the Big Update Patch 2.0, he added more story to the game that explained why the characters were in the situation they were, and even added a tutorial that I definitely needed the first time I played the game. To me, this shows consistency in the developer’s ability to listen to the community and apply feedback. Plus, I want to stick around for the multiplayer capabilities that are being worked on. All of this said, I will remain playing [u]DEAD[/u] and continually check for more update news.[/quote]
