e-River Cabin Journal

If you go to a store and buy a digital egg timer for 3 dollars, you can save yourself 7 dollars from buying this game. Just choose an action, say "Go fishing". Set your egg-timer for 60 minutes and press start. Then when it beeps make up a random result which is usually negative. I caught one fish in three real life days. I failed at chopping logs, failed at starting fires, failed at making it back from the backyard of my cabin because I got lost and I even failed at sleeping because I'm <my character is> such an idiot and didn't open the window for four hours trying to sleep, I got heat exhaustion too because I guess my character is so dumb. I know my weekly bath would have been the end of my poor guy, He was sure to drown forgetting to pull his head out of the bath water... and I would probably have to watch an egg timer for 2 hours in real time before he drowned I'm sure. Then lets talk about the completely imbalanced game mechanics. For instance, Eating one fish fillet gave me 60 points of energy along with a list of other benefits.. Sleeping for four hours gave me 15 energy, then just walking into my backyard I would burn 35 energy to go fishing. Somebody failed math here. So basically my play experience was a combination of watching timers and reading failed results, Something to note: If you look at the discussion boards on this game it seems the developers are more interested in promoting their product than improving this game. Get ready for their new content? No thanks considering the quality. This is undeniably the worst game I ever purchased on steam. I'm sure I'm way past a refund because I look for diamonds in the rough. NOPE, No diamonds here at all. Sloppy Game, poor interface, poor mechanics, horrible play-ability and terrible game experience that is easily sums up this 4 day experience in one sentence: This was a total waste of my time. But really, Go ahead and give these guys your 10 dollars. How bad can this game be? You have 14 days to ask for a refund. I just read that in the refund policy! Woot! <chuckles>

Sorry, I tried to like this game, but the interface is a mess. The fact that you have to wait in realtime for every action makes it really frustrating. Applied fo a refund.

I tried playing this game for forty minutes before throwing in the towel. It has a great concept, but the controls are all over the place. I wasn't sure where I was supposed to confirm, click, or what. There is a semi control button at teh bottom of the cabin screen, but then half the controls are placed around the cabin. Like choping wood...it's at the top of the screen instead of at the bottom with mining/panning. With a better menu layout, this game would be amazing.

I purchased this game from IndieGameStand.com before it was released on Steam. So, I have many more hours into this game than my account shows. I have to say that they have done an amazing job on a very gutsy project. The music and visual designs are wonderful. The concept and immersion are well thought out. The concept is one that will turn some away, but I think that it a very nice change of pace. The interface has some issues, but the Devs are working on them after receiving feedback. It took me a few days to figure out some of the basics. Boy howdy! It got very frustrating during those first few days days. But, once I had the basics down, the game changed for me entirely. I think the game was designed to make the player feel some something to the effect of what it would be like to be alone in the Alaskan wilderness with no developed skills. A relatvely simple task of gathering firewood risks slipping with the axe and hurting yourself or having a wolf come through camp and attack you. The suspense of potential success or failure because it takes 40 minutes in real time to know how you did. Watching your supplies slowly get consumed as you use all your energy to go hunting, only to return to the cabin empty handed. Developing your skills requires real time. They make it easier than real life, you can just read a book. Although, most take more than six hours to complete as you read them in one to three hour chunks. Even when you get all your skills to 100, you still have to prepare yourself and your cabin to make it through winter. The days get shorter or longer depending on when you play it, because it uses your real date/time to determine what the day will be like, as if you we in Alaska. Everything you do takes a certain amount of real time. LIght a fire, two minutes. Gather some kindling, 30 minutes. But, you don't sit there watching it for that time. Well, you can if you want. You can either put it in the background and a timer goes off when the task is done or close the game and come back in however long it will be. It saves the game and when you launch it again, it checks your local time and tells you how much time is left or shows you the results of your efforts. If you have a plan for what you want to do for the day, it will probably take you less than half an hour to play it each day, five minutes at a time. You can use the "Fast Forward" feature to skip the realtime and knock out all your tasks (up to 12) quickly in one sitting. Things to do before going outside on the first day: 1) Spend some time reading (defense against animal attacks, the pistol manual and the lumberjack book help most at the beginning 2) Load your pistol 3) Fill your belt pouch If you like survival games and like to challenge yourself, give it a shot. If you have to have instant gratification and think games should be made to your limited expectations, give it a shot anyway. You may find that it is OK to take your time.

This game gets alot of unfair critism because it's hard and slightly rough around the edges. But the premise of the game is good. Its a survival game, and survival is hard. Yes, there are various issues with the game that are not working ideally, but the development team has been very active and is working diligently on patches now. They have gone so far as to help individual users with virtually any question or problem, just ask. This is not a sign of abandonware or a money grab. It's a n unexperienced development team that's trying as hard as they can to make a quality product. This is worthy of anyone who enjoy's survival game genre support. Yes, its not an easy game. There is alot to learn, and there are a few rough and buggy bits... but it's getting better, and will have a huge replayability factor once it's completed.

I love the idea behind this game. Homesteading in Alaska in real time. If you require instant gratification from your games, this probably isn't for you. Though there is a mode that allows you to fast forward through 12 tasks each day. But that takes away from the tension that builds as you wait to see the results of your tasks. This is a challenging game that can take a lot of attempts to figure out. You need to consider and plan well to succeed. Take the time to develop your skills before rushing out to take on the Alaskan wilderness. Great game at a great price.

Survival point & click adventure with some potential but wrong execution. This game is recommended only for those who want to play a game in "real time" mode meaning one gaming day = one real day. Some tasks requires really 30 minutes, some even more. Devs stated this game has a year of play time and is meant to be played a little bit each day. And here comes the main reason this game cannot be generally recommended for survival games lovers. The casual mode included makes those 30 min tasks instant, anyway, you cannot proceed to another day in game until a new day in real life begin. If the casual mode could be played separately of the real days, the game would be highly recommended even containing some bugs and some weird control elements. Pos: - there is a lot of things to do - drinking, cooking, cutting tree into firewood and kindles, loading your guns manually, reading books etc. - it is kind of sophisticated. For example using a radio drains battery, you may charge the battery a little bit by hand charger, building wind turbine, solar panel or simply buy a new battery. - from content point of view it is kind of nicely made game, not sloppy. Neg: - casual mode is not a casual mode even though it penalizes you for being casual :/ - some control mechanics are awful, for example during reloading, after inserting each single projectile into magazine the window "reloads" - hides and shows again. - from coding point of view the game feels kind of sloppy.

This game is a "good" game in so much that its concept is well put together and it is fun to a degree to play. However, I have some issues with it from a player's point of view. Not being computer savy and a bit of an older person it was difficult to navigate the game mechanics and figure out how to actually play effectively. The most frustrating part of this game are the constant darkness,the injuries and wild animal attacks that occur. In "real" life those would of course happen but definately not at the rate which this game enjoins. Secondly, the "time" factor for game play is set to a real life pace and this in and of itself is rather disturbing because I only have a very limited time to play having to work a "real" life job, sleep and take care of my own personal business. Therefore after playing it for about 14 days....using up all my "fast forwards", experiencing many injuries, wild animal attacks and basically running out of food and cash I am taking a extended break from this game. Not sure if I shall play it again in the future. I got my $10.00 worth of play and am happy with that. If the game mechanics stay the same and do not address the issues I have delineated above most likely I will not come back nor recommend this game to my many gaming friends. Thank you game developers for what you have done so far with this game. It was a stellar effort and I am sure writing the code was a challenge. Good luck to you in the future.

I like the idea of e-River Cabin Journal. The concept is sound. On paper, this game should work. Unfortunately there are far too many annoying issues that have been left within the game to recommend it. The idea of a "real-world" survival game is appealing, and I was open minded when approaching the game and its "real-time gameplay" features. This title however, needs much more work, and probably shouldn't have been released onto Steam just yet. It's hard to say whether or not e-River Cabin Journal would have benefited from starting off in Early Access, but as it stands, it really does feel like it's lacking quite a few basic features and is still far too buggy for a recommendation from any informed gamer. The gameplay is [b] almost [/b] reminiscent of classic text adventure games mixed with classic point and click adventure games, [i] almost, [/i] but not quite. Instead, it feels more like a turn-based RPG, with each turn taking one whole "real-life" day to complete. If it sounds confusing, well it is, and the way the game was designed doesn't help much in enlightening gamers to the finer points of the gameplay or its mechanics. I've spent between 4 - 6 hours with the game so far, over the course of a couple of weeks after purchasing the game when it was first released about a month or so ago, and while I initially enjoyed the idea of the game, I've found it very taxing to actually continue playing it and have had to force myself to try and get back into it, which hasn't been easy. I'd say that I enjoyed the first hour, but slowly became more and more frustrated as I tried to push myself to continue playing. Since the game was first released, there were many issues that I thought would have been tweaked or fixed by now, but those issues are still plaguing the game and are affecting my enjoyment and the overall experience. Simply put, the game feels unfinished. Due to it's pacing and the sheer amount of slogging and clicking through unintuitive menu's, it feels more like a Spreadsheet and Menu simulator right now rather than an actual survival game, and I would say that as a game it even feels like a less than stellar work of interactive fiction. There are no options or settings menus. You can't adjust the screen size, the speed of the game, or any other basic features, and while I do appreciate the simplicity of it's design and the attempted atmosphere within the game, I find interacting with its "gameplay" to be slow, frustrating, and a bit of a chore. To be perfectly honest, there are freeware games and even classic ascii and text adventure games out there with more intuitive menus, controls, and systems put in place that help the player without actually tarnishing the experience or making the game any less challenging or interesting. Things that negatively affect the experience for me: - Running the game and having multiple windows open at the same time - all the time - No fullscreen option - Very slow load times - Low resolution graphics (the game is filled with low-res static images - making the chances of a fullscreen mode unlikely in a future update) - Defunct tutorial - Untintuitive tool-tips (this game really does need active tool-tips) - A messy and confusing series of menu layouts It's a shame that the game is such a mess in its current state. The developer clearly loves "The Great Outdoors" and there is a realistic sense of survival that almost shines to the surface of the game, even through the chaotic gameplay mechanics and overall design choices. However, everything good within this game is overshadowed by far more glaring issues and a sense of tedium due to the lack of settings, options, and the unfinished manner in which the game is currently presented. This would have been a very interesting game had it been released during the early 1990's, but I find it hard to swallow that the game is selling for around $10 dollars on Steam. To be fair, the developer has an older freeware prototype version of the game on their old website that feels like it was made for Windows 95 and is simply called [i] e-River Wilderness Journal. [/i] It works with WinXP, Win7,8, and I believe 10. If you're at all interested, or want to see exactly how this game plays then head over to the original site and try out the free version which you'll find located at this address: [url=http://www.eriver.webeden.co.uk/] e-River Wilderness Journal website [/url] Be sure to download and try that freeware version first, because aside from some slightly better graphics and sound, the user interface and gameplay are almost identical. Then you can determine whether or not you want to drop your hard earned moolah on the commercial release.

TL/DR: If you want a realistic, or even plausible game, this is definitely not it. You'll be attacked by wild bears and wolves almost every time you're going to chop some firewood, that is of course if you manage to avoid hitting yourself in the knee with your axe which happens like 50% of the time. Seriously, this game is balanced so poorly it's ridiculous. You're either a complete moron who cannot use a knife/axe without cutting himself, or face murderous animals which hide around every corner. Summary: I really wanted to love this game. It has many great features and is quite possibly the deepest survival game there is, but the balance is simply ridiculous. Out of around 10 attempts to chop firewood, in five of them my character managed to wound himself seriously, and in four he was attacked by bears or wolves, only ONE attempt to simply chop wood was successful. My character looks like a complete idiot, with an epicly bad luck - being attacked by wild animals every day, when in reality bears only kill around THREE people a year, in the US and Canada combined. Unless the devs can address this, and they haven't in the past two years, this game is simply unplayable. I really wanted to recommend this game, but I truly can't. It's unique, probably the only survival game in which you wait for the outcome of your actions in real time, but this makes it even worse with balance issues - you wait for 40 minutes only to read again and again that cutting firewood nearly killed you. What works: 1. Amazing depth. Even something like lighting a fire allows you so many options: firestarters or matches, add resin, you have to keep the chimney clean, you have to maintain a balance so your fire isn't too large for your small fireplace, etc. With knives you have to sharpen them, clean them, and everything affects their usefulness. 2. A very nice and well thought map of Alaska, offering quite a variety when it comes to possibilities available in each spot of the map. 3. A lot of different items available for your character, each with its use, sometimes many. 4. Quite detailed and realistic fishing and hunting, with many different fish and animals available for you to catch/hunt. 5. A lot of structures you can build to expand your cabin. 6. Prospecting, foraging, gold mining, woodcutting - there really is A LOT to do here. 7. You can trade and interact with other people, increasing the immersion. 8. Weather varies day to day and season to season and affects you in many ways. You really need to plan your moves, equipment and clothes. What doesn't work: 1. It's ridiculously unbalanced, with your character often being a complete idiot who cannot use an axe without almost chopping his leg off or the wilderness plotting to murder you, sending animals every day, sometimes you will be attacked by a wolf and a bear in the same day. Chopping firewood shouldn't be so dangerous, and it's probably one of the deadliest activities in the game. 2. There is no realistic setting that would make an animal attack MUCH less likely, and them being truly aggressive only when you attack them or otherwise really disturb them. It is simply stupid to have them attack you in your front yard all the time. If you are attacked all the time when chopping firewood next to your cabin, why aren't you attacked all the time while foraging? 3. Resting doesn't restore enough energy - sleeping for 8 hrs only restores 15 out of 100 points of energy, as much as a simple piece of bacon. 4. Overall the energy/starvation mechanic is very poor. In UnRealWorld, eating right things improves nutrition which prevents starvation, and sleeping/resting makes you less tired, which in turn allows you to do more. In this game sleep only restores 15 energy points, out of 100. It forces you to eat, but there surely are better ways to implement - such as being well fed restores your energy faster, and starving makes it diminish faster. Not a system in which eating bacon will always give you 15 points, so you can just stuff yourself with bacon and work hard all day, not caring about anything, and sleep for 8 hours to almost not be able to walk because you're tired. Please, fix this game. It has a truly amazing potential, just waiting to be unleashed.