The Ensign

This was farther down on my backlog, but after multiple days and no reviews or forum posts I feel compelled to offer my thoughts: It's great! I don't know if anything appeals to me more, personally, than a text-based soulslike. Much like the exploration elements in A Dark Room, you make excursions from a base camp, pushing farther and farther out each time as you gain resources and knowledge. Death is expected, but with each death comes fresh knowledge and a fresh map to explore. The writing is clipped and evocative, perfectly conveying the bleak setting. I'm enjoying the story so far, told in scraps through flashbacks and snippets of dialogue. I could imagine the exploration getting a little repetitive after awhile, but you keep your upgrades between runs (if you want) and I think the pacing works. My only real complaint so far is that the loot screen, even after playing for awhile, is a headache to parse. This sticks out because you end up in it so often. So yeah! It's great, I highly recommend checking it out if the tone and aesthetic appeal to you, because it nails both. Very minor spoilers ahead: [spoiler] There's been some very slight fourth wall breaking so far that feels very random, but also impossible to judge at this point without seeing if/how it builds to something later on. [/spoiler]

The "base" mechanics from A Dark Room dissappear and only the exploration and combat perdures. It's different, but it's not bad. However, there is a bug in the "scroll down" button that made me quit the game as sometimes I had to leave objetcs behind that I needed because the game wouldn't let me drop anything else. With limited storage this completely destroys the gameplay. Please take into account that this is a much more difficult game than its predecessor. If they fix the scroll button and you know what you're getting into, this game can be recommended to you.

Astonishingly bad. There is no aspect of this game that isn't bewilderingly poorly designed, and a massive step down from A Dark Room, even down to basic functions of the UI. I don't understand how you ♥♥♥♥ up this badly.

yeam

Incredibly fun

I owned both games on my phone for a while now, and finally decided to get them on PC too because I love both of them so much. This game is a prequel to the infamous "A Dark Room", a game I fell in love with. This game is much more difficult however. But it's such a one of a kind experience, just like it's predecessor. I actually hope that this world will have more expansion in the future with a possible sequel or maybe another prequel because I can't get enough of it.