Recent reviews by Proletariat

Multiplayer server list is completely empty, yet advertises itself as a "multiplayer" game. I searched online for a solution and the only thing I could find is that I'd have to go third party and join a discord.

2024 and I need to join a Discord to play multiplayer? And apparently a lot of servers have you fill out "applications" before you play.

It's literally just a video game. It's not supposed to be that deep unless people WANT to go that deep - but if there are literally NO other options, then you're just out of luck. Have fun dealing with tryhard "um excuse me u need to be a hardcore RPer for our server" moderators.

I don't wanna pay $19.99 just to have to deal with Discord mods that spend unreasonable amounts of hours managing an inconsequential zombie game server while being paid exactly 0.00 dollars cause the devs are too lazy to set something up on their own.

0/10 refunded

The writing is poor, as if the story was written by a 15-year-old, and it's apparent in only a mere ~15 minutes into the game. I decided to refund this very quickly before I had to spend anymore time on it. That being said, the visuals and atmosphere are A+. I just wish the story wasn't immediately cringe.

First, let's talk about the very beginning scene. The characters legit speak and act as if they are 10-year-olds but they look like they're supposed to be teens at least. They also kiss and the protag talks about the girl being the "love of [his] life" - which is presumably not something a 10-year-old would do. So how old are they supposed to be???

Then, we jump to the adults. And some of the adults STILL talk like kids. Yo! And you get cringe dialogue lines such as: "eh, eh, eh, eh" and "[Protag]! Why didn't you get the bread like I asked!?" Like, yo, "!?" is excessive when we're talking about bread. Maybe just ask the dude like a normal person? Why are you screaming?

Just the entire beginning of the story was a disaster of cringe in every conceivable way. Unrealistic dialogue, childish dialogue, downright strange dialogue - you name it. I can't cite every example cause my brain is already trying to forget the whole 15 minutes I spent on this story, as if it was all a bad dream.

Anyway, you get the point. Refunded.

Maybe this story would have potential with a bit of a rewrite to cut the cringe, but as of now, I definitely cannot recommend this.

There is no challenge to this game once you get rolling. The city content itself is also extremely limited. There is potential here, but I would not recommend buying it at this time. This game is NOT worth 40 dollars, and anyone claiming otherwise is delusional.

Combat is very bare-bones and requires little strategy - it's also laughably easy.

Once you get to a certain settlement level, you've practically achieved everything there is to do. The problem is that this happens extremely early, after which there's practically no point in playing anymore. I've essentially finished the game 5 hours in with the baron AI + increased bandit raids.

This game desperately needs late game content. There should be events, more industries, maybe an AI to actually interact with and isn't just a mindless drone, etc.

I think the city-building aspect is pretty boring. There are very minimal customization options ATM, and the lack of content means this plays at an inferior level to pretty much any relatively competent city-builder out there.

I don't get where the claim of "complex economic and social interactions" is coming from. I've seen none of it. My character can't form relationships with anyone. The economy is extremely straightforward. Where is the complexity? Legit non-existent.

I am wishing this game the best but right now I am definitely not recommending it.

Sometimes the community is chill, but when they are not chill they are EXTREMELY TOXIC. I don't know how someone can RAGE so hard over a video game - and for silly reasons like someone having 1-2 more workers than the enraged dude thinks is necessary. Like??? Chill bro. It's literally just a game. You're gonna be alright. Anyway, these are high rank players, gold and above, so they've 100% been around long enough to be toxic many times before, but I guess the "report" function in this game is just there to look nice while serving no real purpose. BTW there is no real casual mode in this game.

Fortunately, usually the games are chill enough to be fun. HOWEVER- for some reason, the game will randomly crash out of nowhere after an extended period of playtime. This crashing is especially bad on classic mode, where it will permanently lock you out of building with your teammate and just instantly destroy the match for you. WHY is such a bug still in this game? I have literally never had this problem with any of the hundreds of games I've played before. Even if they couldn't fix the crashing for whatever reason, they should have at least fixed the classic mode reconnect bug, but nope, it's still there, and has happened to multiple people I've played with, including myself.

Game-breaking bugs, toxic community at higher levels. Unfortunately, while this game can be very fun at times, I can't recommend it.

Posting this cause the game asked me to write a review.

Do not trust the "very positive" ratings. This game is unbelievably boring. It is a "survival" simulator that only includes walking around and struggling not to starve or die of dehydration, cause the map is huge + empty (even with AI) and you are playing a dinosaur that gets hungry and thirsty after like 2 minutes of gameplay. So, enjoy walking back and forth killing a dino (if you can find any) and then drinking water. Exhilarating gameplay, truly. Oh, and you run out of stamina within like 30 seconds of "running," after which you would've made it about 0.5% of the way to your destination. Congrats.

Want to run faster and have more stamina? Play a small dino! As an herbivore, you can partake in the exciting task of doing nothing but eating plants all day. As a small but fast juvenile carnivore, you can have fun with the 50 bites (you only have 1 attack) it'll take just to kill a single dino.

Want a bit more power? Play as a big dino - where you will go so slow that you will die of hunger or thirst before even getting to do anything. But wait- maybe you get lucky- oh, now a random dino comes along and runs circles around you and kills you, because the game's controls are so bad that your dino cannot even turn in time to attack.

The problem is that this game is BAD. Some people will tell you that it's simply "hardcore" and I'm telling you IT IS NOT. The game is EMPTY. The mechanics SUCK. The gameplay is BORING. You cannot justify an empty, poorly designed game by simply calling it a hardcore survival sim. A hardcore survival sim might actually be fun - it'd be full of life, challenges, good mechanics, and meaningful gameplay. This game is full of bland nothingness. This game is terrible.

This game is trash. It is actual garbage. I cannot stress this enough. This is easily one of the worst games I have ever played on steam. I refuse to play anymore because I am 100% getting that refund.

I do not recommend this game. Save yourself the time, money, and energy.

This game seems like it was translated into English. I don't know how else to put it. It's like, when certain narratives and certain conversations come out of nowhere, and the story acts as if you were told about them when you weren't... and then there are just pieces of the story that seem disjointed, messy, etc. Maybe it wasn't translated into English - but in that case, IMO, the writing definitely needed to be touched up.

That being said, the story from the beginning to the middle was actually decent enough for me to keep going despite the issues. The characters were interesting enough. The plot was interesting enough. The choices added some decent flair and impact.

However, it all just seemed to fall apart from the late-middle of the story and to the end. First, I was forced into a character relationship that I didn't want. The game automatically declared the protag's love for a character out of NOWHERE and offered 0 choice for deciding that level of progression for the relationship. Like, they had been flirting, sure, but there was NO sign of a serious relationship up until the game decided it on its own. But honestly, looking back, I felt like the RO was decided pretty much from the beginning. Like, a single choice from the near start of the book basically determined the only character I was able to flirt with the whole game. So much for, "Tell three characters in one day that they're the love of your life, then navigate the fallout" lol.

Unfortunately, the RO I was left with was also quite unhinged and there was absolutely no way to alter/impact/progress that character. It actually felt as if I had no real impact on any of the characters for the entire game, no matter which choices I made. And slowly, due to the lack of character progression, these characters went from interesting to just plain annoying.

Then the ending came. No matter which choices I made during the final stretch of the game, still trying to pursue my original goal, it seemed like I always got the bad end. The strategy for confrontation didn't matter at all. I tried a mix of many different combinations. Nothing. Always a dull, annoying ending.

Anyway, this one was disappointing. Unclear narrative. Unclear dialogue. Abrupt protag mentality changes. A choice system that started strong but fell apart.

And, I mean, maybe with another playthrough some of this would be different. Maybe a different set of choices at the beginning would lead to a better experience later. I'm sure some people are able to experience more pleasant story paths. But do I WANT to do another playthrough? No. Cause my first playthrough was already a waste of time. I'll pass on taking another chance at it.

That's all I have to say.

Alright, I'll be the first review to not recommend this game. First, I want to make this very clear - this is NOT a bad game. In fact, you may very well enjoy this game! That being said, I personally wouldn't recommend it to others, and steam only gives me two options for my review: recommend or not recommend. In reality, I'd say my opinion here is more so "mixed" than negative. Anyway, let's dive into it.

My biggest issue with this game is that, while it is technically interactive fiction, it doesn't fit the same "CYOA" vibe as many other stories do. It seems like the interactive components of the story are really there for flair rather than shaping the story. This is most apparent when looking at the protagonist's personality. You basically have no agency over the core aspects of the protagonist's personality. He/she will always have the same critical psychological issues and there is practically nothing you can do to influence any form of character progression. You can only shape the "flair" components of his/her mentality. To me, this only offers an illusion of interactivity. It felt as if I had no meaningful power over the story in this, quite significant, sense.

What you DO get control over, kinda, are the relationships that the protagonist forms with various characters.

Now, for many IF works, this can be a significant strength. Like, for your typical IF story, maybe there will be multiple different romance routes and you can choose the protagonist's romantic personality. You don't get that option in this story. Each sexuality has a single romantic option, unless the protag is a lesbian - there are no romantic options for lesbians. If you don't like the designated romantic option for your sexuality, then you are completely out of luck. On top of that, I'd also say that the romance I tried followed a pretty pre-determined path, and the only feelings I got to control was whether or not the protag wanted the romance, as the protag's romantic "personality" was, primarily, unable to be determined by myself, the reader.

The most influence you have over character relationships is whether or not you want to earn someone's respect, or whether you want to have a negative relationship with them. However, both of the characters that are influenced by this "respect" mechanic happen to be terrible people, and this is quickly shown in the beginning of the story. It makes me wonder why the author even bothered to put in this mechanic. Instead, the author could have fleshed out the mechanics for other, actually likable, characters - perhaps creating more nuanced approaches for the romances or more nuances for the relationship with the sister. As it stands, the core component of the protag's relationship with his/her sister is relatively binary - either you are jealous or you are not jealous; I do not consider this to be a particularly good system.

I will also note that the endings are... not satisfying at all. Maybe this is partially because there isn't really any well defined character progression for the protagonist. Maybe it's because you're practically locked into a single ending unless you fail in battle or want to betray your family. Wow! So there is only one ending if you're a virtuous person and successful commander? Great. As a reader, I just have so much agency over this story it's unreal. (sarcasm)

As someone who has dealt with family abuse, albeit not to the intense extent of the protag, I will say that I wasn't a huge fan of the protagonist's mentality. There's nothing WRONG with it. It's very valid. There are many victims of abuse that experience feelings similar to the protagonist. However, it was not MY experience and this is supposed to be an interactive fiction story. Personally, as someone who was abused, I find the self-hatred the protagonist has to be extremely self-insulting. Like, I would have loved the option to control whether the protagonist leans towards self-hatred or hatred towards the world. However, the protagonist always leans towards self-hatred and there is nothing the reader can do. You have no control over how the protagonist views themselves. You have no control over how they cope. You just need to sit there and watch them beat themselves up over and over again. You can't control if they reach out to other people. You can't control whether they try and help themselves. It's entirely linear. You have no control. Maybe if this was clearly sold as a linear story and wasn't framed as interactive fiction, then it would have worked. But as an interactive fiction story, it all just became grating, as I felt like I was being offered "control" options, only to have that control mean absolutely nothing.

Overall, this story was "okay" for me and just not a story that I'd personally recommend. I felt like I didn't have much control over the story, and I felt like I was forced into following the path that the author pre-determined. If I intended to buy any regular novel, then I might've been cool with that - but I was trying to buy an interactive fiction story, where I'd expect at least some measure of meaningful control over the story and/or my protagonist's mentality. The fact that the romance options were very limited, that the character interaction options were limited, that the endings weren't satisfying, etc. all added to my disappointment with this story. That being said, I will say that the overall writing was good and that the plot was interesting enough to keep me going, which is why I don't think this was a "bad" story. I am actually hoping that a lot of the negatives are addressed in the sequel, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to put this review out there as it contains my honest, well-intentioned opinion.

This story might be for you, but it wasn't for me. There is definitely potential here, which may be capitalized on with the sequel, but I felt that this first story was generally unsatisfying. Unfortunately, I'm giving this a "would not recommend" rating, but don't let this review completely discourage you from checking the story out. If you are really interested in the overall premise of the story, and don't mind a relatively linear experience, this may be up your alley.

They built an overly convoluted system to support a mediocre narrative.

#1:

When you first get into the game, instead of actually building the universe, it hits you with a tutorial for a bunch of different mechanics- but you have text boxes appearing on one side of the screen while another narrative text box hits you on the other side of the screen, all while the time is *live* and you're being asked to click pop-ups for resources.

Any game that has you click to collect resources automatically bothers me. I don't want to have to scroll around a bland map having to collect resource pop ups. It's 2023 - is automatic resource collection really too much to ask for? And if it's for "gameplay" reasons - well then that's basically admitting that the narrative is not strong enough IMO.

Speaking of narrative, the narrative text boxes MOVE the other chunks of text whenever a new box pops up. Why would they make the default setting of "normal speed" impossible to read because the text is constantly moving whenever you're 50% through reading a box?

But then you're hit with other moments just sitting around clicking or waiting for things to build... on a live time system... YO. It's like alternating between a feeling of being rushed and a feeling of things going too slow. It's like this game does not know how to establish pacing.

#2

I could've looked past all of that if the story was strong, but it was not.

I mean, in the beginning it's all confusing. You have no idea what's going on, who you're talking to, etc. I get that they're going for the sci-fi mystery style, but it's a bit messy when you do all that WHILE a tutorial is going on, after you just selected a bunch of skills (that are really unclear, btw, as you don't really know what each skill is for). It becomes a matter of trying to decode a narrative puzzle while also running through a tutorial and trying to make decisions you have NO idea how to predict the consequences for. Like, how am I supposed to make a choice between calculation vs gene sequencing vs co-existence when I DON'T know the game implications for any of it?

But okay... let's try to ignore that and jump into our first *real* amendment project on a world that actually counts (since the tutorial world doesn't count for anything btw).

You can pick from 3 different narratives to start, although only 2 are recommended (so why offer the third? no idea). I was about 50 min in here and wanted to decide whether this game was worth it, so I just went with whatever. I picked the one about the scientist being discriminated against. Now, there are good ways to tell stories about discrimination - maybe build a connection with the characters, some decent world-building, and/or some compelling villains. This game does not do any of that. The introduction scene to this narrative introduces an innocent, top scientist getting kidnapped by LEGIT the most stereotypical corrupt-system bad guys you could imagine, equipped with cartoonishly evil smirks (as described by the very cheesy, simplistic narrative). Now, why was the top genius-level scientist kidnapped? Cause he's a foreigner. There is no real evidence that he committed or intended to commit a crime. The cartoonishly evil bad guys just decided to sabotage their own country's science program for no good reason, all while (literally) smirking to themselves like cartoon villains.

This was the story they decided to hit you with after a previous chunk of text about some bad guys trying to destroy the universe, btw. I get that there's the whole "start small, end large" kinda vibe, where you work your way up in scale - but this was NOT the way to start small. If you want to tell a character story, tell a compelling character story. Instead, the narrative just seemed cheap.

Anyway, refunds are supposed to be requested within a 2 hour time limit, so I ended there.

I do not recommend this game.

Decided to pick this one up since I noticed the lack of reviews, and now here I am! Overall, it's a good story. I consider myself to be relatively critical when it comes to these types of things, especially romance-heavy IFs. Fortunately, I can say that I had a decent time and that the romance didn't come across as forced, which I think is fairly common in IFs. In this story, it felt as though I could move things along at my own pace, which I appreciated.

Actually, overall, this IF offers a decent array of general freedoms when it comes to the romance aspect of the story, or at least it did on the path that I chose to play. It was nice feeling that my choices lead to results that I intended, where the consequences of my choices were clear and predictable. I also didn't feel locked into something after any single choice. The story really seemed to want to make sure that I was doing the things that actually I wanted to do.

The characters were enjoyable. This is a fantasy story, but I don't really count it as an epic adventure or anything like that; it's a story that's more character-driven. I mean, you're here for the wholesome romance, essentially, and wholesome it is. Though, It can get a bit spicy too, if that's your vibe.

Overall, a solid read. Definitely good for the price point, I'd say. Would recommend.

Nomi is a cutie. Posting this for Nomi appreciation.

Anyway, overall a solid game that kept me entertained all the way through. Quality storytelling, decent plot. My one big problem was that quite a few of the endings were unfulfilling, especially around character development and romantic fulfillment. If Nomi wasn't an option, I would have given up on this game.

It's not that the characters are bad, but that, and this is a minor spoiler, you will get absolutely screwed on the romance front in some endings and there is absolutely nothing you can do. This removes a great amount of the romance options that you have, assuming you're looking for a wholesome romance ending. I'm assuming the game is trying to be realistic, but at some point I think it's important to consider player satisfaction over supposed realism. It's honestly almost as if the story was written by someone who was heartbroken IRL and wanted to make other people feel bad. Lol.

At least there was Nomi - who was one of the best characters in the game, anyway. Great vibe. Great aesthetic. Ultra cutie. They're great.