Hi. I like the game!
I'm not really a thorough reviewer, so if you're looking for an in-depth analysis, I'm probably not the person for that. But I do want to talk about some of the things I like about MISERY and one thing I think could be improved.
Things I Like
The world resetting. I think this is a really neat idea and adds a lot of replayability. When the siren blares, you NEED to get back to your base before the world outside resets. If you don't make it back in time, you die. Once you go out to explore again, everything is new: new loot, new enemies, and new places to discover. I really like that concept.
Base building. I really enjoy this. Building your own little base makes you feel comfortable and gives you a place that feels like home. It's similar to how I felt playing Subnautica. When you're inside your submarine, surrounded by the darkness of the ocean, there's something comforting about being in your own little safe space. I get a similar feeling from the base in MISERY.
The survival system. I like how simple it is. You need food and water to survive, but it doesn't feel overly complicated. Some people enjoy more complex survival mechanics, like tracking nutrition, gaining or losing weight, and managing a bunch of different stats, but I personally don't mind MISERY keeping things relatively simple.
The configuration options. I like being able to change things to my preference. If you think weapon damage is too low, you can configure it so weapons do more damage. Being able to customize the difficulty is always a bonus in my opinion.
The guns. I like the guns and their mechanics. There aren't a huge number of them, but I enjoy having to manage magazines and load bullets/shells into them. That said, I do wish the system was a little more involved. For example, I'd like it to actually take some time to load a magazine instead of instantly filling it. I'd also like to physically check how much ammunition is left in a magazine rather than having an ammo counter on the UI. Little things like that would make the gunplay feel more immersive to me.
Things I Dislike
My biggest issue is actually related to the world resetting.
Yes, the world changes and you eventually discover new locations, but you can still come across places you've already explored before. Once that happens, you can sometimes already know exactly what to expect.
For example, let's say you enter House #1 and there are no enemies inside. If you find that same house after the world resets, there will still be no enemies there. So now you know that House #1 is safe.
Or maybe you find House #2 and there's one bandit inside. If you encounter that house again later, there will always be that same one bandit there.
Because of this, once you've learned the locations and their encounters, some places become extremely easy to deal with. The location might be different after a reset, but the actual encounter doesn't feel different.
I think this undermines some of the replayability.
My Idea
I'd really like to see a more dynamic enemy spawning system.
Instead of enemies always spawning in the exact same places, enemies could spawn dynamically throughout the world.
For example:
House #1 might have a bandit.
Or it might have no enemies at all.
Maybe a swamp monster wandered inside.
Maybe there are two bandits instead of one.
Maybe the house is completely safe.
Even better, enemies could potentially move around the map.
Maybe House #1 is completely safe when you first arrive, but some bandits nearby have been roaming around and decide to loot the same house you're currently exploring. Suddenly, what you thought was a safe location isn't safe anymore.
I think something like this would make exploration much more unpredictable. Even if I recognize a location from a previous run, I wouldn't necessarily know what I'm going to find there this time.
The world resetting is already a really cool concept. I just think the encounters themselves could be more dynamic to take better advantage of it.
Overall, I like the game a lot. These are just some things I'd personally like to see improved.
Edit- Also I see people disliking the game because off the economy change. I personally don't mind, while yes I do have a little gripe of, "Everything is expensive," I don't mind it that much. And nerfing bread costs, if I remember it was around 20-30 I didn't mind too. I get what the devs want I assume by, "You shouldn't be comfortable in your base, go out and scavenge." And wheat is something that can be infinitely farmed so I understand the nerf.
