We Are The Caretakers

Really loved the idea of this, so pre-ordered it ages ago and just given it a try now it's out of Early Access. Unfortunately, it feels more like a student project - lots of interesting ideas, poorly executed. Combat's an example of this. Instead of shooting foes to death, you wear down their stamina or their will to fight, until you can take them out - do you arrest them, knowing they might not face justice? Injure them so they don't come back, at the cost of your reputation? Aggressive actions also increase a persistent 'threat' meter, increasing the risk for both sides. If your rangers are aggressive, combats are more dangerous and escalate faster. Do you go for slow de-escalation, at the risk of attrition? The actual implementation is a JRPG line-up where you fire red or blue orbs at whichever of your opponent's health bars is lowest. It's made less impactful by the way most of the art and UI feels like a Programmer Art placeholder. The afrofuturist designs are neat, but every character is a lithe person in a bodysuit with a geometric hat who fires the same low-detail orbs, with no clear way to convey their class or abilities. It all feels vague and soupy. The same carries over to pretty much every layer and feature. There's interesting ideas there, but how they work isn't communicated very well and everything feels a bit incomplete and poorly thought through. You can do the missions in each chapter's story out of chronological order, but can't replay them if you miss objectives, even if that means you don't have the money to deploy your party in the next mission. You're incentivised to drag out missions because of daily rewards from towns you capture, but there's strict time limits on each... that are not well-conveyed. It's not really clear what is a design choice (did they decide to take the narrative's interesting "throw you into an unexplained world" angle for the mechanics too even though narrative and mechanics are very different?), what is an oversight, and what is a bug. I'm not sure whether this is accurate, but the general bugginess and quality problems remind me of all the other Early Access games I've backed where over-ambitious devs decided to write too much of the engine from scratch instead of using resources, and ended up not having the time to actually finish the game. I wish this lot luck because it was a great premise with some really novel ideas, it's just a shame it didn't take shape.

I can’t say I’ve played a game where the focus is on conservation and protecting a living species before, so when I heard about this game, I was excited to try it out. Unfortunately, the experience has been lukewarm so far. While I applaud the devs for making animal protection a central tenet in this game, there are some unusual design decisions which affect the enjoyment of this game (in my opinion, taking into account its EA status). Let’s take a look. + Focus on animal conservation and protection is to be commended (you get to hunt poachers) + The Caretakers and their various classes have interesting skill/combat trees and upgrade paths + The ability to recruit former enemies into your teams is an interesting twist - What exactly is going on? Who are the Caretakers, what is the backstory and why is protecting the Raun important? The utter lack of a backstory (even in EA) makes players ask “why is this important? why am I doing all this?” Even a paragraph or two would help clear this up - The above also makes dialogue with NPCs even more confusing and boring -- in fact, it made me want to skip all the dialogue (unfortunately there is no option to do this) - The turn-based combat interface is strange. There are no weapons other than your powers and abilities, which appear to be psychic/intangible. The objective is to lower your targets’ attributes until they are “disabled” and taken out of combat (no one really dies). This is fine, but the UI in combat brings you into a 2nd person view of your Caretaker whose turn it currently is. Why would I want to see my own Caretaker? It would be far better to see all the enemies and mouse-over the tooltips so that I can decide who to attack first, and plan my tactical options more efficiently. Moreover, what is the individual’s “threat level” and why is it important to lower it in battle? - The “Atrium” where the disabled enemies await after you defeat them in combat is strange, and quite frankly, annoying. Why would I put enemies or criminals in an atrium? The lack of choice in the options you have and the penalties you receive for dealing with them also make no sense. Why should I take a hit in reputation for dealing with criminals appropriately? The decision trees provided here are limited and can be far better - There doesn’t seem to be a way to dismiss recruits you don’t need or want. How can you provide overcrowding? - There is a bug in one of the first era missions as well. After destroying the debris, my team could not enter the town/village and just kept circling the entrance to the region. Pretty frustrating but hopefully fixed once it leaves EA - Tagging Raun for conservation purposes seems like a fun idea, but chasing them all over the map is just ridiculous. The process for this should be made more user-friendly, especially since missions are running in real-time Overall, I’m still going to recommend WATC but just barely. I like the theme and attempt to introduce a fresh approach towards turn-based combat (like I said, you don’t really “kill” anyone) but it’s still pretty rough and needs work. 5.0/10.0

An hour in, and I like it so far. Here's what to expect from what I've seen: - Map movement is like the Ogre Battle strategic map; realtime + pause. Within a mission, you send your squads around a regional map to complete objectives, capture towns, and engage enemy squads. - Combat is standard issue RPG, there's no tactical map: squads are face-to-face, it goes through the initiative order picking an action and doing it to someone, then new round. - It's got physical/social combat you might recognize from REIS - beat someone up or sap their morale - with an interesting mechanic: if you raise the "threat level" by going aggro too hard, the bad guys can run. Maybe you want that, maybe you don't. - Whack someone's stamina or will down to 0, and they don't go down or even stop issuing commands - they have to receive a finisher, first. Which is nice! Healing powers are weak, but you can keep shoving someone back above 0 to keep them safe. Also, your finishers can be things like "capture for interrogation", "recruit", or even "break their freaking arm to raise threat and scare off their buddies". Yes you can sap someone's will with your diplomats and then finish them by doing whatever it is that "wound" does to "remove them from the game". - Doesn't look like it's going deep on character building. You can promote people to different classes, and they have kinda variable stats, but it's not super deep. - Yes, you are beating up or arresting poachers instead of killing aliens. It's not all grimdark or anything if that's your thing, but the tone is not hugs-and-flowers. Eco-conscious games tend to get a certain rep, but maybe don't put your kids in front of a game where the poachers flay an animal and carve a message into its flesh with its own horn. Yeah. You want to get back at these guys.

I really don't like dunking on EA titles so early, especially with one that has such a cool Afro-futurist/conservationist theme, and combat that mixes social and physical moves in an interesting way, but for now I'll be refunding. Convoluted combat mechanics (with some real jarring battlefield panning/motion that is honestly vertigo inducing and i don't normally get that), confusing and bare campaign/lore elements and very little in the way of guidance. Not having access to options menus during either the battlefield nor the homebase is a bit confusing/strange too. I wish Steam had a neutral option as I think with time I'd be interested in returning to the game, but not in the current state.

Neat idea and design approach but it's too buggy in its current state for my tastes - I don't have time to Alpha test; I'm not 15 anymore. Needs more time in the oven but worth a look if you're looking for something different. If there was an in-between, I've rated it as such. But as it is, I cannot recommend it right now.

22.04.2021 Увы не могу порекомендовать игру к покупке в данном виде. Получил ключ от разработчиков, за это им спасибо, но увы качество продукта даже по меркам раннего доступа очень низкое, хочется верить что у них есть конкретный план достижения своей цели и у игры есть хотябы минимальный шанс на какой-никакой успех, но пока я его не вижу. Главные претензии - сержант графоуни умер, анимации очень топорные, эффекты очень слабые, низкая детализация всего мира, топорный интерфейс, странный геймплей - разведка очень затянута по времени, в меню настроек можно попасть только выйдя в главное меню и покинув миссию. Ремарка - я играл в большое количество игр в раннем доступе - эта, увы пример того как он выглядеть не должен.

I wanted to like it. I liked the aesthetic. Ultimately, though, it just wasn't that interesting. Although it's pitched as strategic, it didn't feel strategic to me at all. It's not clear that my choices in combat really mattered—I could have made completely different ones, and it would have turned out the same way.

The depth so far is great, I keep pealing back new layers of coolness. I love the setting and overall theme as well. Looking forward to how this game continues to shape up during EA.

Interesting Concept and for a good cause First thing to mention is that Heart Shaped Games donates 10% of net revenue from We Are The Caretakers to Wildlife Conservation Network's Rhino Recovery Fund. Get a great game and support a great cause! - Good incentive to purchase but is it any good. Graphics 8/10 - Fairly detailed map and hub areas. Nothing fancy but they get the job done. Audio 7/10 Music and combat sounds add to the immersion though nothing to write home about. Gameplay 7/10 - Fairly standard missions, Disable batteries and snag those pesky poachers. Combat is a cross between xbox and your run of the mill turn based rpgs. Abilities are varied although samey. You capture instead of kill and can decide to hand over or accept bribes which influences your reputation. Decent array of perks and abilities. Overall 7/10 - Fairly fun game, Just feels like there is something missing to make it truely compelling. Its worth buying just to save the rhinos. https://youtu.be/iIllQkS7tkU

[table] [tr] [th]Category[/th] [th]Rating[/th] [th]Description[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]🎮 Gameplay[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]On the surface, it appears interesting. In practice, it’s shallow[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]📷 Graphics[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]Animations, art styles, and designs weren’t to my tastes and felt duplicated throughout[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]💲 Value[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]For the price of the game, I expected more polish. Nothing new to experience after the first 20 minutes, offering zero replay value[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]😡 Overall[/td] [td]2.5[/td] [td]I kept playing to see if anything would change, but it didn’t. Ultimately, I didn’t enjoy it one bit and cannot recommend it[/td] [/tr] [/table] [i]I love the focus on conservation, unfortunately all other elements left me wanting more. While I wish I could recommend the game based on the beliefs it stands for, I cannot look past what played like a hollow shell of a game.[/i] [h1]📝 Main Pros and Cons:[/h1] 🟩 Pros: + Strong focus on conservation 🟥 Cons: - Poor story and character delivery - Repetitive, unenjoyable gameplay loop - Simplistic combat and skills - Resource hog [h2]I love conservation, but I don’t love the execution[/h2] We are the Caretakers (WATC) captured my interests, not only for its gameplay and visuals, but also because it is built around something important to me, conservation. Unfortunately, it plays as a rather basic turn based battler with a few RPG elements sprinkled throughout. I commend the developers for their focus around wildlife protection, however, I cannot recommend the game in its current state. At its core, the game sees you in control of a group of Caretakers. You traverse a map, selecting missions, recruiting new Caretakers, and spending reputation (research). Who the Caretakers are, how they came to exist, and why protecting Raun (the species being protected) is important to them, are questions which remain unanswered. These might be answered later in the game however, I could not bring myself to continue playing as it just wasn’t fun (for me at least). I was thrown into a new world with no guidance. With no story delivery, I was left with no understanding as to why my actions were important. The premise is easy to understand, but the ambiguity makes WATC forgettable at best. Looking back at my time with the game, core questions I had remained unanswered as new story elements were introduced, adding further layers of confusion. [h2]My experiences weren’t enjoyable[/h2] Gameplay involves using teams of Caretakers to explore a grid like map (scouting) for enemies (poachers), wildlife (Raun), and resources, while completing the necessary objectives. Unfortunately, the objectives and maps lack creativity, leading me to rush through as fast as possible as exploring wasn’t enjoyable. My feelings further apply to Caretaker designs and combat. Comat makes or breaks a game like this, for me at least. Regardless of how engaging a story is (in this case, it isn’t), or how beautiful a game looks and sounds, poorly implemented combat mechanics will see me quickly stop playing. This was the case with WATC, as the turn-based combat leaves a lot to desire. There are multiple classes and skills to experiment with. However, the game doesn’t explain what the classes are (along with their upgrade paths) and the skills lack any depth. Thankfully, WATC has auto combat, which lets you choose attack types (stamina or will) and which enemies to use them against (strongest, weakest, leader, or random), bypassing all the monotony of combat. Defeating enemies earns you coins which you spend in future missions to deploy more unit groups. In addition to this, and a unique element, is the ability to capture enemy leaders. These can be released (to earn gold), recruited (to use for future deployments), or turned in (for reputation). Now, the problem I have with this system is that I was never short of gold, Caretakers, or reputation, meaning my choices didn’t matter. [h2]Closing comments and concerns[/h2] A concern I had which is worth mentioning is the large (and unreasonable) CPU and GPU usage. Sitting at 60% and 100% respectively, despite VSync being enabled, isn’t normal for a game of such calibre. Considering many AAA titles fail to push my computer as hard, I struggle to understand why WATC hogged so many resources. If you have a weaker PC (minimum or recommended requirements), you may experience problems (an assumption, not a fact). Overall, WATC has a brilliant focus - Conservation - Which I would love to see in more titles! Execution, however, is poor, and there’s a lack of, well, everything. Being depicted as a strategy game, I expected more choice, more elements, more importance - What I received fell short. Nothing is explained, choices feel irrelevant, and put together, it’s an overall unenjoyable and unforgettable experience. Due to what I’ve listed in my review, I cannot recommend the game. [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44931904-Bite-Sized-Reviews//]Follow [b]BSR[/b] for more bite sized reviews.[/url][/quote] [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote]