UAYEB: The Dry Land

Thank you to the one man jack of all trades at ICA games, Francis Courchinoux for creating a fun adventure game for me to escape and enjoy. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2832938979 UAYEB meaning: a period consisting of five nameless days added to a tun to make the 365-day year of the Maya calendar *crafting bandage* Let's be clear before getting started, UAYEB is a single developer indie project. This usually for myself will mean poor optimization(check), limited graphic options(check), repetitive game loop(check), lack of attention to QoL(check), and usually longer than needed(check). However, despite these issues, the adventure outweighs those negatives. *crafting bandage* The game begins with you Uayeb being awakened from cry sleep with no memory in the basement of your friends house. You will go through a tutorial at this point where you will learn everything you will need to know to play the game. This includes survival(food and water), avoiding dangers, keeping your PC charged, gathering resources, crafting, deciphering clues and combat. *A quick positive, the main resources for crafting in the game are pretty abundant and respawn very quickly. Once you retrieve the computer your friend Joanna sends a message explaining you have been frozen for 100 yrs. She also explains humanity has fallen, as predicted by the Mayans, and you being frozen was a decision made to preserve life. The remaining interactions you have with Joanna for the most part until the last mission will simply be getting clues for blueprints and artifact locations as she searches herself for what happened(she awakened a week prior). There are a few story beats here and there within some messages, a small twist and it’s just enough to keep you interested. The ending was well done setting up the next adventure leaving some ? and I was surprised it was fully voiced and not too bad. *crafting bandage* The game play loop for UAYEB is pretty simple and will make or break your interest. The first real missions Joanna sends you on will again be very tutorial and are all located at the house. The messages are simply telling you of a blueprint (12 total) and a clue for an artifact(20 total) she has located. After completing these first missions at the house you will then be directed to a nearby city which contains the remainder of clues and blueprints. The locations of each of these are located on the map so you just have to enter the building and look for the items. While to constantly return to the city, rinse and repeat it makes sense to make sure you are resupplying yourself with the three most needed items of the game: water, bandages(cotton/cloth) and recharge the PC. Once you retrieve these items again, it's off to the best part of the game, the dungeons.. *My 2 cents: In a shorter game this cycle is not a problem but I think a solution to save hours would have been Joanna sending you the blueprint and clues via the PC. Also an increase of carrying more crafting materials and as the car is powered by solar it could be used to charge the PC. *crafting bandage* There are a total of 20 dungeons(you also have to exit the same way you came in with sometimes additional challenges) to complete and all continue to build upon the previous into a collection that would make Lara Croft sweat. The clues you collect will be your only guide directing you on where to go, what route to follow, traps to avoid and correct sequences to input if needed. These clues are not overly difficult to decipher but a few can trip you up especially the late game. The variety of the dungeons are really impressive and what makes it work is the perfectly executed driving, jumping and platforming mechanics and physics. You can also save the game at any time and there is a very frequent auto save in place. This weakens any sort of anxiety/ tension of failure but still completing each dungeon there was a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. *There is one part of a late dungeon where you have to perfectly execute a swim through a cavern. It's pretty frustrating as I died over and over in view of the exit, only to run out of air. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2835337397 Performance and graphically UAYEB is not a bad looking game as it reminded me of Far Cry 2 with its desert setting but it suffers tremendously starting at the main menu. There you are limited to choices of resolution, quality and fullscreen. I have played other indie CE titles and they are really beautiful and while the menu and .cfg file says it is native at 3440x1440 it looks like it is rendering the game much lower like 1080P. The only other issue I had with performance is the city. My frame rate would tank to single digits every time but luckily it would stabilize a little once inside the town. *crafting bandage* These are some more QoL issues that could have been done better and hopefully will be addressed in the sequel: -While I approve of no hud, a stamina bar has to be visible during swimming sections -I was driving in the wrong direction so many times, a compass on the dash would be great -I crafted maybe 300 bandages…one….. at…. a… time. If you could make it so you could craft multiples and then just see the animation once, that would be great. -Outside the plot at the very end, combat was never needed in this game. It works, but totally could be absent -There are a few dungeons requiring specific time of day in order to enter, make sure to include the ability to wait so time passes at the location instead of only a bed. -Swimming was a challenge in itself in most parts and adding spikes didn't help -Thank God for fast travel to the house, but would have loved for fast travel to the city. Maybe an option where a bed is located? - A little bit of a highlight to the areas where spikes will rise out of the ground. This was very noticeable when picking up idols -As jumping/ platforming is very important in the game, lighten up on the damage. *crafting bandage* I know a majority of this review has been somewhat negative, but as I said at the start I am prepared for these issues. The main thing for myself is the cost of admission, gameplay and does it work. While those annoying QoL issues exist and make no mistake they are annoying, the dungeons were excellent to explore and the story and setting are just fun. The game is longer than needed because of those absent QoL issues but knowing if there were more dungeons in the game, I would still be exploring. *crafting bandage* That is the best recommendation I can provide. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831939791

First I played the game with a under spec PC configuration! About my experience,UAYEB is a wonderful adventure ,survival,action game! There is so much to explore,the puzzles are not so easy so,safe often with F5:-) The grafic and details is very beautiful and the day and night change is well made. Negativ point is the quit long loading time but that's maybe because of my system. The developer was right it took me more then 50 hours to complete the game and I didn't get all the archivments.The developer made a good job and I am waiting for the second part.

Recommended, but only for patient Indiana Jones'es! ;)

Not Recommended

It's ight

The game is stable just a bit too long loading screen. The textures and color saturation could be better but not bad for 1 person team. I'm not excited about this game it's just not bad for a 1 person team.

Optimizasyon ve kasma sorunları başta olmak üzere oyun problem dolu