Sandwalkers

It’s a difficult game to recommend I really liked it a lot but is not for everyone. it’s a very interesting and innovative title that has created a living world with rich lore. It really puts you in the shoes of a true nomad, traveling from village to village, fighting for resources and struggling to survive. So what’s the downside? It clearly feels like a rough gem that urgently needs polishing. The biggest issue is the game’s balance, which is quite inconsistent. There are fights you’re clearly meant to lose, which isn’t necessarily a problem. However, once you reach a certain level of “power,” every combat encounter starts to feel the same. As soon as you unlock a couple of strong area-of-effect attacks, battles devolve into repeating the same three or four moves over and over again. Boss fights are the exception. In those encounters, the dynamic changes completely. The team setup that allowed you to exploit the game’s weak AI suddenly becomes useless, and you’re forced to adopt an entirely new strategy and a change all the caravan members. Often involving multiple characters stacking armor and focusing on defense. The real problem is that less experienced players will likely get stuck. Not necessarily because the game is too hard, but because of the tedium of experimenting with countless team combinations until you finally discover a properly structured and effective setup. I was going to recommend this game to a friend of mine who enjoys strategy and board games. At first, I was really loving it. But halfway through the game, I started realizing that I needed very specific characters (especially ones with high speed) to progress efficiently. What’s the problem? The game gives you 3 random characters at the beginning until completing a team of four.. That makes it very difficult to build synergistic team compositions. For example, if you want two specific characters to make a strategy work, the game might only give you one and maybe the other will show up in another town… or maybe not. In the end, I completed the entire game without “unlocking” three classes, simply because doing so reduced the chances of new classes appearing in towns. I intentionally limited the pool just to increase the odds of getting the characters I actually needed. This happens largely because the game isn’t transparent about how abilities scale or function when leveling up. Some abilities are clearly worse than others. For example, you can have an area-of-effect ability with a burn effect that ends up dealing more damage than a single-target attack. Or you might find an ability that heals, increases speed, and boosts damage competing against another one that does almost the same thing but doesn’t heal and, on top of that, has no available upgrades. Sometimes, less is more. What’s the point of having four skills if you’re only going to use two? The leveling system actually encourages this kind of behavior. If you rely heavily on one skill, the most efficient approach is to invest almost all your upgrades into it, only putting occasional points into the others when absolutely necessary. To make matters worse, some abilities are impossible to upgrade at all, since they only have a single level and the game never gives you the option to improve them. On top of that, the system mixes exploration abilities (map-based) with combat abilities, even though the latter scale and improve far more effectively. And the game’s optimization deserves a separate mention altogether. Supposedly, a Core i5 processor or equivalent, 4 GB of RAM, and a graphics card compatible with DirectX 11 and/or OpenGL 3.3 should be more than enough to run it smoothly… Well, let me tell you: that’s absolutely not the case. Your computer will start sounding like an oven, and when you open the in-game map, be prepared for the screen to freeze and the framerate to drop to around 4 FPS. In short, the game has a great deal of potential, but its balance and lack of clarity can make it frustrating for a significant portion of players. I did enjoy the game, but at some points I seriously considered quitting because of all the tedious issues I’ve mentioned. And that genuinely makes me sad, because I really, really liked it.

Just like many others pointed out, the game can be entertaining at first. But the first several hours don't justify how disappointing the rest of the game is. 1.Bugs? Bugs. I've never given too much attention to them in other games, and usually, if I like the game, they don't bother me much. In this game, most of the time you are not sure whether the game even works as intended. Quest bugs, combat bugs, visual glitches, etc. It's really bad. 2.Balance? There's none. It's not like there are some characters that are miles better than the rest. It's mostly certain skills, which narrow the amount of options to 1 (maybe 2, but rarely). Combat items are not balanced. There's 1 great one, others just clog your inventory. Caravan management is non-existent if you fail at least once and get to see the metaprogression system. Even with limited capacity and half the gameplay mechanics locked behind metaprogression, you can absolutely beat the game on the first try. It just requires a bit more patience. The game isn't challenging at all. 3.Motivation There's zero motivation to explore. During the first 1-1.5 hours, you will encounter all the events and map objects possible. There are only 2 (one of those is locked behind metaprogression) slots for equipment for each of the 4 members of your party. So you need to find 8 suitable items and you are set for the run. You don't need to chase item upgrades, as there's no reliable way to find better items; it's just random or bugged, the choice is yours. The items themselves are just stat-sticks. Each aspect of the game is very basic... The only reason I played as much as I played is cope. I believed until the credits that I'll see something new, something interesting or challenging. IT WAS NOT WORTH IT. Also, I couldn't skip the credits, which I still can't believe someone would do on purpose.

Nice game with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ balance. If you are willing to spend couple hours in unbalanced mess before you get some progress and upgrades, it can be good game, but the early game and overal balance is so bad, I cant recommend it. PROS + nice unique graphic + nice sound desigh + unique story + it runs well for me + ok gameplay + AFTER some progress, Metaprogression finally starts feeling as a good upgrades CONS - Early Metaprogression dosnt work, it dosnt reward you, it punishes you, Instead of unlocking stuff that you could select and use on future runs, It removes basic functions from you, like the use of basic items or consumable, and rewards them back to you after you have [strike] played [/strike] suffered enough. Furthermore you cannot freely choose what metaprogression upgrades you get, as they are locked behind main quest progression, instead of time spend in the game, so if you didnt progress the main quest further on your last run because RNG screwed you over (again), you get absolutely nothing. BUT after you get past those annoiances, it gets way better and usefull... the early game is horrendeous. - The absolute majority of events are net-negative, with every possible positive outcome being chance based or requiring sacrificing something in return, and the only garanteed positive outcomes requiring you to have specific characters in party (of which I would not consider most of those very good). - While the game still gets updated, the updates are mostly single line changes, with major bugs and balance issues from years ago still unfixed. - RNG and RNG alone determines the success of your run, RNG starting party, RNG starting character traits, RNG skill selection, RNG items avability, RNG events .... I dont feel like I am playing a game, I feel like something else is playing and I only watch wondering what catastrophy will happend next. - BALANCE feels like a joke. All characters start with 2 predetermined skills, most of those are worthless. So if you dont get good selection when startign new game, you may just as well restart immedietly. If you get into fight with higher level enemeis, it garantees losing 1 or more characters. Losing more than 1 character in battle prety much means restart too as there is no way to beat 4 enemies with just 2 (or even 3 injured) characters in next RNG ambush fight. If by amiracle you lose characters while being close enough to a city you may recruit someone but that will cost you items and experience harming you in the long run. Then there is RNG skill selection on level up, if nothing good shows up, you either have to spend time aquiring resources to trade for new replacement character, or you may as well just restart if you are not too far into the game. On top of that there are random traits that can make the whole character burden, if that happends you should replace that character, and go through the whole character RNG gauntlet again... oh and in a case you get good characters, you can get those burdening traits randomly from events, so dont get attached to your characters... like this whole game feels like a burden, instead of enjoying a gameplay, I have to deal with constant BS - Leveling actually hurts you, you get minimal gains, sometimes skill upgrades you get give you actually nothing worthwile, but enemy ambushes scale to your level, which means leveling up makes the game actively harder, not easier. This applies to metaprogression, where one "upgrade" increases your starting level... but at least you get the RNG character selection and RNG level up skill selection right at the start so you can restart the runs immedietly and dont have to invest time playing and get bad skills mid run... - Ending to a run donst come naturally, after certain time you will have to manually end a run as you will get stuck in difficulty, and accummulation of bad RNG. You have to END runs to get metaprogression upgrades to make the next part of the game playable ... and on repeat... this dosnt feel good at all... this game should have been Sandbox RPG with the upgrades avaliabe at all times, the "roguelite" nature of the metaprogression makes the game just worse

Sandwalkers is not for everyone. I cannot emphasize that enough. If your circulatory system is about 20% Mountain Dew and you take the inclusion of an "Easy" difficulty mode in a game as a personal insult Sandwalkers might be for you. If overwhelming difficulty and frequent deaths sounds like your idea of fun, then maybe the game has appeal for you. However, much of the early game difficulty is artificial: the mechanics are opaque and not super well-explained. The game certainly doesn't become trivial after getting over that hurdle (the survival mechanics are punishing unless you get supremely lucky) but it does create a strange and unnecessary difficulty hump. My impression is that this is intentional on the developer's part. Even if you're not hunting for a super punishing game, roguelikes often hold appeal for the exploration and opportunity for emergent story-telling. While the overall design philosophy, execution of the game map, and music are all beautiful exploration does not feel rewarding. The benefits are not encouraging enough for new players to take risks and events are repetitive. The characters' lifespan on each run is simply too short most of the time to get attached, which means deaths and party wipes don't feel exciting, they're just one bit of grit in the grind. Grinding can feel fun in many games but it just doesn't in Sandwalkers. You eventually hit a wall in the meta-progression and need a bit of luck to get passed it. In a good roguelike punishing RNG makes the game exciting or even funny, in Sandwalkers it just feels like wasted time.

Very repetitive, expected better.

I would like to give this game a neutral because it's decent. The over all story is confusing. There is so much stuff going on it's hard to keep up with who's faction is who. The strategy battle portion of the game is really fun. There are a lot of effects and status you can inflict. Abilities and effects are not explained well, and that is frustrating. There is a lot of trial by fire moments. The inventory system is wildly annoying. You cannot sell anything for anything, it's all trade. You find yourself dropping things on the ground. You have no place to store what you have found for later use which is very annoying. The back and forth gets tiresome really quick. Over all, it's a 5/10 game and definitely worth a buy when it's on sale.

4, клик, 3 клик, 5 клик, 3 клик точно в такой последовательности относительно твоих персонажей проходятся 99% противников, иногда ты делаешь еще 4 клик, 3 клик если попались пожирнее, при условии что противники не нанесут тебе никакого урона. Те думать вообще не нужно просто бей по площади всеми и все. Что я делал в этой игре 70 часов?? Похоже меня зомбировало. Лучше бы прочитал 3 книги. Игра не дает никакого сопротивления, но заставляет в нее нудно и без интереса кликать дальше эту последовательность. Нудятина во всем. Фетиши почти совсем не нужны, кроме тех что бьют по площади. Дисбаланс невероятный. В инвентаре куча шмоток которые жаль выкинуть, но вдруг пригодятся и наверное 30% времени ты тратишь на то что думаешь что выкинуть из инвентаря... Я так редко пишу отзывы, но это просто невозможно. В игре мета прогрессия, но я умер только первый раз когда вообще не понимал что тут происходит и все, дальше надо очень постараться чтобы умереть и потратить набравшуюся мудрость или как ее там. Поэтому приходится убивать себя самому.. чтобы использовать эту мета прогрессию. Игра может стать играбельной, после ее развития и ребалансировки. 5/10

Update: I finished the main story. The "major issue" I described below (mid-late game combat balance) is readily overcome by [spoiler]focusing your gear and followers on stacking resistances, especially physical.[/spoiler] Original review below. Great game! *** A lot of good ideas here, and worth trying out, especially if on sale. Don't expect perfection, and realize that you're probably going to get about 10 solid hours, at which point the only major issue (mid-late game combat balance) begins to impede the experience. Exploration (the backbone) is a fun reformulation of Curious Expedition, the story and lore are good, the art is nice, and the music satisfies. I've had a good time. When it hits its stride, the game achieves a nice balance between legitimate survival anxiety and a feeling of confident competence. I was never left without direction, yet also never felt like I didn't have more than one choice about what to do next. The UI could be better, and the game is a tad buggy, but I haven't encountered anything game breaking. A minor complaint is that, like so many other small projects, there are frustrating design decisions which are impactfully anti-player and yet seem like simple oversights. For example, sometimes all of the random event outcomes force me to lose reputation with a faction -- it isn't like I'm choosing between two sides, so why can't I just walk away, like I can in some other events? More frustrating still is not being able to review my caravan's inventory and personnel before selecting an outcome option in events. However, while annoying, these are ultimately tolerable things, as I never felt like one of these situations bricked a run. The only major issue is that combat balance falls apart quickly in the mid-late game, almost to the point of being game breaking. My first two runs were fine, my third run must've landed a busted party comp because it was very successful (until it wasn't lol), but now that my parties start at lvl 9, the up-scaled random mob packs right around the starting zone can slice them up much too easily, so my newest runs are very much struggling to take off. I suppose that I could painstakingly avoid fights & hope for good luck with the triggered ones until I build up some good gear, but besides being tedious that wouldn't completely solve the balance problem. I'll try a few more runs once I'm in a mood where I'd be okay with the time investment not paying off. I am definitely hoping for a sequel, which if done well could easily produce a definitive experience for the genre, given how much good stuff is already here in the first one.

Scratches the same itch as Curious Expedition, but in a more traditional RPG kind of way. I will say this game has a bit of an identity crisis: it has some of the trappings of a roguelike game, but those are really poorly implemented and it's best to think of it as an RPG where your team will die and you'll have to head out with a different team at least once. Thankfully, all quest progress is saved between deaths, so it's pretty easy to continue after a full wipe, but it does make for an odd experience. It took me 19 hours to finish the main story, having only wiped once. The first half was really enjoyable: I found the lore surprisingly captivating and the art is great. Unfortunately the second half kind of falls apart: the plot makes less sense, battles get very grindy, difficulty goes down, but there are several hard-check bosses which will end runs unless you have enough meta progression. If you make it to the end, you get the last three tablet pieces all at the same time at the very end of the game which heavily implies that the plot was pared way down which is a shame.. and pretty disappointing for a really neat story hook to end like that. A lot of the reviews say the game is very hard, but I found it to be quite the opposite. When you're starting out and learning the systems, it can get hairy but that goes away once you get some levels and understand how things work. I had couple deaths at the start, but my first party made it all the way through to the first hard-check boss without too much of a problem (about halfway through the game). After you've unlocked enough meta progression, the difficulty is nonexistent and you'll steamroll everything except one or two bosses. It definitely gets less fun as you progress and I think that's the game's biggest problem. Overall, it's a very odd duck of a game that doesn't quite know what to be. I still enjoyed my time with it and I'm glad I finished it, but it squandered a lot of really strong potential. I feel like it would've been far stronger if it didn't have the meta progression element and you could finish the game with a starting party. Recommended for Curious Expedition fans that want something with a story and less randomness. First half 8/10, second half 5/10, overall 7/10.

I like the game quite a lot, the gameplay, atmosphere and graphics are all really good. Too bad that because of a bug i couldn't get to the endboss a second time after deing to it the first time.