I didn't realize that at time of writing this, the game only had 25 reviews.
Land Drifters is a pretty fun idle game, while it is in early access and eventually you reach a point you realize that certain systems aren't implemented yet, or that you're running out of content, etc. I have like, actively played it for dozens of hours and left it running on my computer throughout the day to check in and fiddle with some things, so I'd say having gotten almost "300" hours of game time, (915 hours of... account age..?) the price tag is well worth it, and I'm still enjoying my time with it as I try to get millions and millions of cactus for no reason.
My main criticism for this game for all players, is that the lack of transparent information is crazy, like it's basically impossible to know how some systems work because there's no like, functional way to check what anything does, so you just kinda need to intuit it based on vibes, Stamina/Focus/Mana is a really strong and important, but how many people are realistically going to click the question mark and open the help page? even if a system is simplistic and easy to understand, the way information is presented in this game is nonsense, because even if you do find the question mark button, some things don't get help menus. What do Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence do? damage. but how? what's the scaling, how does it work? does intelligence benefit a hunter? you can't hover over any of your stats in any page to see what anything does. What do debuffs / resistances do? you literally have to get hit by them, and then look at what happens to see, and the game still doesn't really fully tell you, some debuffs have detailed descriptions and some don't. Like the first debuff darkness, what... does it do? like actually? It makes it harder to hit the enemy sure, but how? and how does darkness resist mitigate darkness debuff? How should I know? (does 10 darkness resist equate to 10 darkness debuff? my first intuition was, that the torch would allow me to fight on an even level as if I had no debuff at all, and then i could swap my combat trinket out for something more useful, but that, never happens, in any zone, at all. The combat trinket you get that gives you the resist for the next zone, is always the correct choice 100% of the time.)
Another thing that deserves brief mention, is the lack of character customization in the game, it's woefully lacking. There's 9 character skins, most are pretty difficult to unlock, and both default characters John and Jane doe, cannot be customized, so you will be the generic white boy with no drip, or the pink haired anime girl. Custom image support for character skins, or like a color slider for changing outfit/skin colors, would be very welcome. (Combat Avatar customization is quite good though, but the aforementioned color slider or color editor for sprites would be really nice.)
I'll heartily recommend the game for anyone who likes idle games, but I will list some of my feedback here, please note this is relevant to how the game is in April 2026, I would also preface this by saying this is very "meta" / balancing related, so for a new player, I'd recommend just experimenting with the game and going at your own pace:
1 - Despite being identical in function and mechanics, woodworking and mining are absolutely unbalanced in reference to each other(they also have minor differences in the skill trees), Woodworking makes weaponry for all three classes, and is the only crafting that makes weapons for Hunter and Sorcerer, while metalworking is entirely based around strength and armor, giving you everything for one class. (armor, weapons,)
2 - nodes can be pointless depending on how the player interacts with the game, I was in no rush to optimize the game or hurry, as yes, there's a wall of "the game is not finished yet" that an early access game is like to have, however even in my lazy vibes based gameplay, I skipped vitality level 0 copper almost entirely, leaving it around like level 14, and then got to vitality level 40 bog iron, bypassing leveling Iron, Mithril, and only briefly dipping in to Specterite. Now that I'm on the last zones in the game and have nothing left, I've been retroactively going back and leveling everything, wood working was infinitely worse, as I essentially skipped everything, vitality level 0 through 50, straight to 60 Cactus. The only reason I leveled any mastery was when I unlocked hunter / sorcerer, which made me make a mastery 7 bow, and eventually fully leveling each for their mastery 50 and 52 cane / wand. (Farming is somehow better and worse, because you do level linen/cotton/silk, but, coarse and plain are useless, I only level them when I have enough crystals to upgrade my tool capacity for tailoring or cooking, other than that, you just do everything on fine/linen/cotton/silk because it's the highest stats.) I think some sort of "zone prestige" or "ascendency" system would be good to provide relevancy, or maybe make higher tier items/tools at 60+
3 - Combat resists and zone buffs/debuffs are whack and kinda one-note, there's no point in a resistance when you can farm all enemies in the zone / the zone itself freely. Maybe modifiers which make dungeons / zones harder (higher leveled enemies, bonus debuffs and buffs added, make monster attacks more diverse so a witch isn't hitting me with skull crush, and is instead doing ice bolt cold damage that effects my cold resist, and slows me, or make more enemies inflict poison and bleed, or nausea. Have enemies hit you with temporary debuffs that last like 30 seconds or something(cleansing on zone clear), a heat enemy leeching your max HP and that lasting until after the next fight in the same zone, something like that.) Basically, combat needs more variety, and even if it slows progression in new combat zones, you can add more mastery weapon actives so the player can keep up, or buff passives (or add more of them, or make certain types of gear give resistances alongside armor and their respective stat, so if Specterite was cold or whatever, it'd give you heat resist, etc etc.)
(P.S as a random aside, food buffs should probably be re-worked, since I don't know how satisfying or meaningful well fed is, it's just eat fish every time you log on so your food buff stacks infinitely and never runs out, but it means you just ignore every fish besides the two most recent ones.)
(P.S.S as another random aside, my friend, doesn't like the font when I show her the game. she's a stickler for stuff like that, if there's a way to change the font she'd buy the game. I think the font is fine. But it doesn't spark joy.)
(P.S.S.S Getting a submarine and woodcutting coral and like mining aquatic metal or something would be sick af ngl)
