Sapiens

Fanboys in reviews will probably try to convince you that this game is still alive and well and try to appeal to your soft heart with sob stories about how this is just a single developer with four kids who is struggling with real life and money issues and you shouldn't be so harsh if there are no updates coming in months and years. Thing is, before the four years it has been in EA on here, it already had been many years in development privately, making this game roughly about ten or twelve years old and it is still not finished. It is on the contrary a very buggy mess with very little content. More on that further down. Over quite some time in the beginning the developer was very industrious with not only regular game updates but also monthly communications on THIS platform, concerning the status of the game/development. Then, some day this changed and the developer refused to keep his customerbase updated on the very platform he sells his game on for a steep price of 25 EUR and he now exclusively posts on Discord. That happened because he was butthurt that people were asking for a finished product after paying the full price and waiting for years for a full game. Imagine you buy a washing machine at Woolworth, but it is not fully operational and is still missing components so you can only ever wash dirty socks and nothing else. And you regularly go back to the Woolworth to pick up little gadgets and now you can also wash dirty underwear and talk to the clerk about when you will be able to wash your bed sheets, but one day that Woolworth is closed and if you want to have some information you have to drive 30 miles over to the next town where there is a message board and on that message board is a message that reads: "Yeah, I've lost interest in developing the washing machine to completion, instead I started working on another project, namely Aqueducts, because I want to replace the water system that is already currently in place. Also, my three hundred children keep eating the hair off my head, so please keep buying that very pricey, unfinished washing machine that I am never going to complete, teehee. <3" (Not verbatim, of course, but kind of close.) Let's look at why this game is NOT fun even in an unfinished state, as fanboys will try to convince you, so Steam, stop hiding my reviews (like my glorious Stardew Valley review that everyone should read.. on my profile, since it is hidden on the Steam store..)! Advancing/Progressing is such a slog fest and usually locked behind finding certain ressources. So, if your whole tribe decides it is now time to collectively catch a cold, but you never found let's say marigold (cannot remember the actual recipe), you can never research (and grow the components for) the medicine to cure cold or rather the flu and as we all know, a real flu can certainly kill you. Resulting in half your tribe being extinguished. There is no way to send your clan members on missions to automatically look for a certain thing or for anything new and unknown and then bring it back automatically. You have to search for things you have never seen YOURSELF visually on a HUMONGOUS map where, if you zoom out too far, everything turns into undiscernible polygon mush. You also cannot outfit someone for an adventure, like giving them a sleeping bag or a tent, provisions for a trip and so on. There are sledges in this game, but the really stupid tribe members usually just use them as another storage and not as a means of traveling long distances with provisions or as a means to haul heavy ressources over a long distance. Rafts do not work at all, because tribespeople are too dumb to actually realise or acknowledge how traveling over water works. Travelling long distances is a massive problem because of this: People are sent to harvest that one marigold you finally found after squinting your eyes scrolling and hovering slightly close enough above ground to spot it and you manually send someone to get it and that person begins walking, no food, no clothes, no sledge, no sleeping bag, no tent, no weapons, no tools, nothing, he just begins walking. Then night begins to fall, he gets hungry, cold, scared of the dark, scared of animals, exhausted from walking and he gets slower and then he just sits down and refuses to go forward, but also to go back. You have to send them running, because SOMEtimes that seems to override their reluctancy to be mildly intelligent human beings. Then they just get mauled by some mammoth on their way and that is that and also I completely lost where the marigold was that I marked for pick up. If you try to solve this by building roads, so they can travel faster and also on the path that you provide for them: Forget it. They are too stupid to build the road and if they do, when they get too far away, they do exactly the same thing I just described: Sit down until they die of hunger or cold or animal attacks. Also, if you have a part of road build, THEY STILL DO NOT USE IT, WTF??? This game is frustrating to no end because of the horribly programmed villager AI. Usually they also just sit around, when they are hungry, right next to a group of banana trees. If you are lucky, someone is not hungry or exhausted enough (from sitting around on his/her bed all day long) to actually pluck the banana and immediately eat it, not giving priority to the most hungry in the clan. Or they run 20 miles to put the bananas into a sledge that they decided to be the designated banana spot, in spite of there being still four perfectly fine empty spots in the warehouse five feet from the banana trees. Don't get me started on the storage system. Those people deliberately put the smallest of items into the largest of storage spaces and then stack a huge tower of wooden logs in the most miniscule of spots and then you have to MANUALLY plan to have them swap everything around, but they never do it, because they are too busy SITTING AROUND for no reason at all. Why isn't there a game mechanic in place that designates certain storage to automatically only store certain items? Like why aren't there designated tool spots or food storages or storages that exclusively store wooden logs or polished stones?? Is that too much to ask, to have any decent common sense in this game about how humans evolved to be the most intelligent (questionable) beings on this planet?? (Rest of the review - ♥♥♥♥ Steam and their ridiculous character limit - on my profile.)

did the game die?? that there hasnt been any updatees?

Probably one of the most immersive & relaxing city builders I've played. With thought provoking research systems, unique & customizable MASSIVE terrain, & quirky humans, Sapiens fulfills every checkbox for a great city builder. Not to mention, the community mods are incredibly fun to play with! Endless replayability & infinite ways to play.

[b]Is it fun?[/b] Could be better. The main mechanic is researching tech by interacting with things in-game. For example, the Sapiens bang rocks together to discover rock knapping. This unlocks progressively more advanced techs. Cool. But it's so... slooooow. My pet peeve with gaming is waiting around for something to happen so I can actually make a decision or take the next action. Fun should always take precedence over realism. I've played this thing for 70+ hours now, and I've never even gotten to the mid-game, never mind the late game. I just get sick of waiting around for something to happen, and quit. When I come back, I start again from scratch. There should be a difficultly slider for research. Easy makes it happen almost instantly, with various levels all the way up to hard, for those who want to micromanage their play experience. [b]Does it run well?[/b] Yes. Never had a crash. Didn't find any major glitches. The people and animals jump around a bit, rubber banding to new locations now and then instead of smoothly walking, probably due to lag. But this usually only happens with distant actors. It's not game-breaking or anything. [b]Will it get better?[/b] Probably not. majicDave has taken a break, apparently. He's moved on to work on other projects. He's a solo indie dev, married with kids. I don't hold it against him. But people did pay for this game, and it should be completed before other projects are tackled. The question is, do you trust him to eventually slap a 1.0 on this project someday? We can only hope. [b]Is it worth the money?[/b] This entirely depends on how patient you are. If you're the kind of person who gets zinged by realism and has no trouble waiting out the progress bars, then yes. It's an interesting and well-thought out game. It takes a look at actual world history and how humans got to the technologies they did. But if you're the kind of person who needs a fast-pace, constant action, excitement, and development, maybe pass on this one. If it's on sale at some point, definitely grab it, if you're a history buff, or slow methodical game player. This just barely passes a recommendation for me. It would definitely be a thumbs up, if it was less than $20. But it's $32(CAD). I'm giving a grudging thumbs up to support a solo indie dev. Hopefully, things get fixed/finished.

Es muy buen juego, aun que que cuando, descubres todo el final solo es crecer ya no hay mas avances se que es mucho pedir pero si hubiera al menos hasta la arquitectura de la era de roma y conflictos belicos el juego seria un 10/10

why do seeds exist if there is options for stuff like sea level on world creation? world creation options arent as clear btw. so much game mechanics that i dont want to care for, you pick a tribe and take care of everything they do their hunger etc, maybe this sort of game isnt for me, but the game crashed twice while i was just at tutorial anyways. music is odd and out of place. R.I.P The Blockheads, which was better than this game, recently opened an apk of the app and tried expert mode, the unreasonably hard crafting recipes and level locks on workbench, along with music was a good indicator that the dev would make something like this in the future

got it cheap a while back and enjoying it so far. would wish for future updates as it has great potential and would be a shame if completely abandoned

Fun and relaxing game. Don't try and beat it, just play it. Still some unintended results if you run out of food, or let a virus run rampant. Easy to just restart in a different climate for new experiences.

Jogo abandonado! Não comprem!

有潛力，可惜更新太慢， 資源及建築多樣性的部分還不夠豐富的時候， 開發者卻轉向重心開發戰鬥及交易系統 甚至去年底就停更了 今年初公告他沒心了 遊戲宣告死亡