Summer in Mara Prologue

I backed this on Kickstarter last year and have been patiently waiting for this ever since. I'll be playing it on the Switch and I cant wait to have a portable world such as this. I really enjoyed the prologue - the animations, music and overall design is very heartwarming and Im hooked. I spent a few minutes just petting chicks and hearing them cheep. 10 out of 10. Very chilled game with the crafting and all. Unreal job for such a small team of developers but you can tell they absolutely love their games and put all their hearts into them.

This is a cute game and it would be fun except you can't use a mouse, it's weird keyboard moves which is really irritating, I won't be buying the game unless the controls are changed.

Positives: -Animated 2D art is excellent -3D models are adequate -Story/environment are interesting enough Negatives: -Depth of Field is wildly overpowering; objects a few meters away are extremely blurred -Mouse is not bound by the game window despite controlling the camera -Demo tutorial is missing details/incomplete -UI is obtuse and outdated -Mouse movement controls camera, though mouse buttons are mostly useless -Animations seem unfinished or exit times inaccurate -Fishing mini-game incomplete or simply uninspired -Dialogue seems on-par with shovelware visual novel dialogue Major Red Flags: -Underlying math/physics issues: When sprinting, jump height (rather than distance) is greatly increased. This indicates a flaw in the basics of the PlayerController. This should be a day one issue that is immediately resolved. -Many colliders do not prevent player clipping/abuse. For example, rather than running around the path on the mountain, one can simply jump up the side. This combined with possible physics issues may lead to major game-breaking bugs. Hopefully this Prologue build is simply a hurried recreation of what the game actually holds. I was looking forward to a new take on the "farming" genre. If the Prologue build IS indicative of the complete game, then I believe it's simply not possible to fix the number of glaring issues in the time given. The developers, or possibly the designer, are just not on the same level as the artists.

Let me put this out first, the at style is GORGEOUS! The characters are cute and adorable. The setting is also very pretty. I like the underlying premise of conservation and the circle of life... BUT... The controls are clunky, jumping feels unnatural, swimming is very slow...and has a stamina bar(?) Menus are strange. Navigating them is slightly unintuitive. I had to go back into the controls screen multiple times to figure out how to scroll through my options. Recipes are also not searchable. Unfortunately I also have to criticise the dialogues. The pace and feel of the conversation feels all over the place, exacerbated by unclear character expressions. The game does have potential. The farming and harvesting mechanics are pretty solid. The animations are enjoyable. The art is gorgeous (again!!!). The story seems intriguing. But, for a game that is supposed to be fully released in 2 weeks, its shortcomings are quite glaring. My suggestion is that the devs should take some more time to finish their project, maybe another 6 months. This game is worth the extra time.

Pros: I wanted to keep playing I like the art style I like crafting games Cons: CONTROLS- terrible for pc, the fact that I can't click with my mouse is bad, completing a task was like a guessing game, I just kept hitting buttons hoping to get something right. No tutorial for what keys you need to hit to do something (for example it took like 5 mins to figure out I had to scroll my mouse wheel to change items/tools). No Mini-Map No guiding marker, like to show you what direction quest objectives are No way to adjust the game video options Recipes- I had to make the resin thing for my fishing pole, I didn't know THAT was also a recipe to make, and I ran all over the island looking for one or a resource. Only to find I already had some resin and it was something to craft. Not intuitive. Overall I think it will be fun, but it also does not seem like a pc game, more like a mobile game, or maybe console depending on the controls, and it's a bit frustrating in it's current state for a new player. Once you figure things out it's fine but it really needs to give you some direction in the beginning.

I don't think I've ever reviewed a demo... I am thinking of breaking my rules and buying this full price as soon as it comes out. Played the demo and just that little bit was charming, beautiful, and fun. There seem to be a lot of complaints regarding blurriness (depth of field), but this is easily adjustable and I think the dev is going to tweak it further. The small trailer at the end of the demo hints at some of the other things we will be able to do, plus new characters we will meet, so I'm greatly looking forward to playing the full game. I have high hopes for this one! :)

I really can't wait for this game to go out. I backed it on Kickstarter too, more than a year ago, and can't believe it'll be on my hands in a couple of weeks. I loved this prologue. Although short, it gave me a grasp of what to expect from the next game, and it didn't disappoint at all <3 Give it a try yourself, and consider buying the game when it launches if you like this short demo!

"Summer in Mara Prologue" is not a game. It's an advertisement for a product called "Summer in Mara". Summer in Mara is a console ported Stardew Valley ripoff with shallower storyline and shallower gameplay... ostensibly a failure for those reasons. But this isn't completely relevant because this is not Summer in Mara, it's just an advertisment for it, so it's not correct to try to review that completely distinct product. We must instead review this for what it is... an advertisement. If you enjoy advertisements, you can consume them for free on the web or on Youtube without needing to add them to your game library, download them, and then launch the advertising. It's impossible in a general sense to recommend people should do that over playing real, full games on Steam, and that applies here with "Summer in Mara Prologue" too. The purpose of this advertisement is to get you to shell out an eye watering TWENTY UNITED STATES DOLLARS on the developers console port here on Steam, and I don't recommend that you do that, either. This is only free in the same way that adverts on Youtube and banner ads in your browser are. This is a game demo that's been dumped on Steam to advertise another Steam store page in the hopes of raking in some cash. Just because advertisements are free, doesn't mean they're worth your time. It's important to understand there's a formal process to create a demo/page for a game which hasn't been followed here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/demos While it might seem like an inocuous mistake, publishing demos and advertisements as if they are full games is misleading and in some ways harmful. This advertisement is taking up marketing space and visibility that would be better made available to a developer that's done the right thing and created a full game. Instead, that visibility is given over to a demo/advert that's been published incorrectly and is polluting the marketplace. It's unclear if this mistake was made through incompetence or a deliberate intent to mislead gamers. Often developers may choose to incorrectly publish demo/advertisements as separate games as a cheap way to bypass paying Valve for marketing presence on the Steam front page, which may seem clever to them, but it's harmful behaviour and it's not good for gamers. Advertisements and incorrectly published demos don't add +1 to your game collector count, they aren't full games. It's impossible for me to recommend this incorrectly published advertising spam to gamers, you deserve better than adverts.

The game seems cute enough, however, the controls are clunky. Would be nice to be able to use a mouse for more than changing direction or a controller. Wont be purchasing the full game. I am glad for this trial so I didn't waste my money on the full product.

Short but sweet. Very excited for the full release in just a few weeks. Cons: - Audio balancing between menu, game and cut scenes - 100% a controller game Pros: - Adorable - Solid base game play for the genre