It's a fun game with an interesting concept that gets too grindy overtime and is too punishing, unfortunately.
To the point my recommendation only goes for those that don't mind getting very frustrated and don't mind spending hours collecting materials as the game progresses.
The mechanics are pretty simple. You cut tree for wood, píck rocks for minerals, kill deers for food, and kill enemies for them not to bother you while you are doing those. Then you spend a given amount and type of material to unlock new areas, so you can get new material, find more stuff. Until you reach bosses. Then you kill bosses, they'll unlock new materials, so you can get to new areas.
You can also find places to process some of the material so it turns into new materials you'll also need, you can upgrade your tools and weapons so you can harvest stuff faster and kill monsters more easily, and very occasionally you get HP upgrades. The game is extremely linear in the sense you don't really have much choice in what you can do. Since unlocking new areas, upgrading tools and weapons, and all that depends on certain types of materials, it all follows a pre-determined sequence.
The objective is unlocking new areas until you reach a boss, the first couple are not that hard to kill provided you have patience, and then with that you rescue kings which will unlock new materials for you to harvest, and they'll direct you to another boss.
I had lots of fun in the beginning, but slowly the grind becomes a drag. Even upgrading your tools to the best possible level, which is usually only one upgrade per area, won't accelerate harversting that much, so you have to spend more and more and more time cutting trees and mining. The more you progress in the game, the more time you have to spend on that.
That's all still tolerable if a bit of a chore... until I got killed twice. You get killed once, you go back to the beginning with none of your harvested material, and you gotta get to where you died to recover it. That's not too bad.
But then, by some change, you get killed twice - you lose it all. This might mean losing hours of gameplay.
I had spent hours getting all the materials I had, and because I died twice I went all the way back to zero. Which means hours of grinding once again.
And that's how I dropped the game. It's just not worth picking it up again knowing how long I'll have to spend recovering everything that I lost, and the chances of dying twice, particularly at night, are just too big to make me want to try again. Given how quickly the game is escalating on materials needed, on time spent grinding, and areas becoming more dangerous.... it just doesn't make sense to me to spend so much time only to end up frustrated.
If it wasn't for that, and this game had a less grindy curve, everything else is ok in my books. Wouldn't mind if it was a shorter game that only lasted a couple of hours, which seems more than enough for the content here, but the way it is it just feels like playability has been overly stretched to seem like this is a bigger game than it really is.
It's still an indie game with not a whole ton of stuff to do, or much of a story to follow. I had fun for how much I played and paid though.
I just can't recommend for anyone prone to getting frustrated with too much grinding or too punishing of a penalty for death. Too bad, because there are hints of a plenty fun game in there. It just doesn't hit the right balance for myself.
