Ember's Verge

This game is extreme survival... and its not, actually :) Your first run is extreme. You dont know anything, everything is confusing and makes no sense. And then it does. You memorise the map. You memorise animal patterns, you know how much of what you need and you build your cozy existence in a realm where you gotta think what you are doing. At some point you'll be able to switch from non-stop survival race to casually living on a cool island. As a side note: developer listens to player feedback and introduced both bugfixes and QoL changes based on player feedback. Hope to see ya all on this not so little island! P.S.: the game will run smoothly even on a potato

Enjoying the game so far. made it to 18 days on my last playthrough, the codex tells me pretty much everything i need to know. Spent the last 2 or 3 lives just learning the map and where everything is, im excited to start the next. very impressed that this is all made by 1 dude, looking forward to seeing where it goes.

I played the Demo on the easiest difficulty and enjoyed it. No real threat other than meeting my needs and learning the game. [spoiler]I survived until the Demo ended, which I think was about 3 or so days and wanted more![/spoiler] So I picked up the full game and have been trying it on a little bit harder of a difficulty. If the Demo is still available, grab it and try it. If you like it then you'll like the full game. There is also tutorial of sorts available at the beginning (can be turned off) that guides you towards what we should start out trying to do and I found that helpful when I played the Demo. There is also in game guide (Codex) with information and resources to help explain things if needed. There's also tooltips when you hover over items that help explain what they are and do. There is a Spoiler Section in the codex, but I haven't looked in there. But I'd assume it has more specific info for those feeling lost. Took me a bit to feel like I knew what I was doing but the tutorial, tooltips, onscreen prompts and codex helped walk me through it. Felt fitting, like I needed to learn how to survive! Even as the player. Overall I find the way Ember's Verge is doing its interactions to be very thoughtful and purposeful. Most things work quite well, there are some odities with some of the interactions and controls. Though that might just be me not fully understanding them. Once learned however, they work quite well. The pace is slow. That isn't a negative either. The days last a good amount of time and they don't rush by. There's time to do things, plan out your day and explore. The pacing so far has felt great on the difficulty setting I chose. There are 3 difficulty settings but also a custom one where you can change the invidiual settings to your liking. Visuals are nice and I like the graphics. I had no performance issues or crashes. Just some minor visual or placement glitches, all of which were resolved with just saving and reloading. The tree chopping is very well done and aquiring resources is rewarding. Terrain height can be changed. There are customizable controls as well as inverted mouse options so you can customize it to how you play. There might be a bit of a learning curve with the controls etc. But they work quite well once learned and overall it has some interesting mechanics and item placement stuff going for it. I enjoy games that let you organize by making piles of things! My current goal is to survive my first winter. I am playing on a custom game that falls somewhere between the [b]Wanderer[/b] and [b]Explorer[/b] Difficulty. My only real feedback with the game is a desire for more of what it's already doing. A gem of a game and happy I stubbled onto the Demo searching for Survival game demos. Well done to the Dev. Thanks for making it! My personal wishlist: [list][*]I'd love to be able to chop the big quarter log pieces into fire wood pieces. Maybe using an old tree stump as a chopping block. [*] While the game has a good amount of options, some others I'd like to see would be the ability to turn off the Blue Glow on item drops. Increase the Resource requirements on certain builds. More to match what they visually look like they require. Maybe part of a difficulty option at game start? [*] Maybe some more nutrional depth requirments, vitamins, protein, calories. Encouraging foraging and growing of things. As well as making the Liver be an alternative source for vitamins. etc. [*] An alternative way to [b][Set Out][/b] and [b][Pile Items][/b] items from the inventory without the right click. Maybe hovering over the item and using a Hotkey to drop an item, or holding Shift+Hotkey drops pile. The current [b]Unequip[/b] key [b][1][/b] could potentially work for this as it already does a similar thing for items in the Shoulder slot(Sets them out at our feet). So hovering over an item in our inventory and hitting [b][1][/b] could result in selecting that item to [b][Set-Out][/b] or [b][Shift+1][/b] could [b]Pile-out[/b]. Either at our feet or could have it close inventory and have item in hand to place, similar to right click and choosing [b]Set Out[/b]. [*] Hotkeys for all those right click interactions could also be nice, similar to [b][E][/b] for drinking/consuming. One for [b]Harvest, Set-Out, Pile-Out[/b] etc. Also having them rebindable would be a nice quality of life. [b][E][/b] is currently hardcoded.[/list]

Sehr gut

Anyone who enjoys a survival game where it's you against nature should at least play the demo. Thankfully I stumbled onto this game, installed the demo and quickly converted to a full purchase. If you do play the demo, the full game performs much better. This game knows what it wants to do and knows what to stay away from. I was worried about the limited crafting options I saw when first launching the demo but there's more than is first evident. This experience removes the bloat that other survival games have and that's what makes it seem sparse at first. What is here will keep you occupied for a long time. I had a few moments where I was frustrated and thought about quitting, but then I would find that crucial resource or have that incredible breakthrough and I'm back in the mix. After a few rough starts I dropped down to beginner mode and that gave me some breathing room to learn. The dev has put in ways to tweak just about every aspect of the game. There's something for everyone. Learn the basics, tweak what's not your style and the hours just start to melt away. Highly recommended.

it's a little clunky, still a work in progress, but can be tough. As survival games, go there is surviving and that's it... no zombies, no magic, no tech... just wolves!

I have really enjoyed playing this game. It is a straight forward survival game. It reminds me of Unreal World which is one of my favorite games. My only criticism would be the limited interchangeability of resources. For example I have all these rabbit hides but can't make a coat out of them, only a deer fur can be used to make a coat. That being said, it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game.

This is a excellent survival game, which in my opinion still needs more work and additions - as has already been done. It reminds me of the games such as "UnReal World" and mixing it with "Subsistence". Although not as punishing and hard as first mentioned game. Sometimes I get a bit frustrated with it, which means there could be some more randomizing and additions in my honest opinion (such as different island options, randomizing the resources and animals). Hopefully the developer keeps the flame alive and keeps improving this game more and more! But i personally like it and recommend it for you to play! [i]"We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?" [/i] [b]- The Edge (1997)[/b]

If you're interested in a survival games that don't end up being cozy mansion-builders (those are fun tho) and focus simply on survival, this might be the game for you. Somewhere between Green Hell and Subsistence, this game is all about being the only human stranded on an island, fighting against the elements to survive. It's pretty deep in features for a solo-dev game, and the dev is active on the discord, which is always a good sign. I found the challenge to be fairly consistent throughout, meaning that once I quasi-conquered one element of the game, things progressed to give me a new type of challenge. Definitely try the demo. It's a legit honest representation of the game. If you find the demo fun, you'll certainly enjoy the game.

Can I drink the water - not without risk of food poisoning. Need a stick or hoe to get some clay. Need a large flat stone to turn clay into a pot. Now need more a sticks, twigs and stones to make a fire. Now find leaves to turn into tinder and more sticks to light a fire (hope its not raining or windy). Dry out the wet clay pot. Now fill the pot with water, then boil the water. Now I can drink safely. This game is brilliant. Forget what you did in other survival games. You start with nothing but have everything you need. You just need to find it and remember where it is or workout how to get it. You can make a map, eventually. Will need a bow and arrows to kill rabbits and work out how to create charcoal to draw with. Need feathers for arrows, throw stones at birds or birds nests in trees, or search base of trees where birds nests are or level rough ground, you might uncover some. Even on a customised easy game you will die until to get the lay of the land and workout what is important and that's part of the fun and keeps you coming back as you learn what not to do next time. Even the various different species of trees provide different resources and not all wood is the same. You will need to wander the map to find things. USE THE CODEX - it is there for a reason, read what is provided it is essential to understand how things work and scroll through the interaction menus for crafting otherwise you will go round in circles trying to work out how to create something. 5 pieces of birch bark will give you a bag if you have a large flat stone to create it on. You can shape granite on the same stone to use for tools. Make a fish catcher early on for a reliable source of food. Create a smoker to protect a fire from rain (not wind) and create smoked food which keeps longer. Can't use a smoker to dry clay however! The attention to detail is great. You need to think, plan, rethink, replan, try not to die. I'm on restart No 6, not made it to Autumn yet as I thought of yet another way to start and loving it. This game is great as it is and has huge potential and I have no doubt I'll rack up over 100 hours playing this.