Has the global pandemic got you feeling down, lonely, and lazy? Well, boy do I have the miracle cure for you. Introducing Forager, a game that is primarily based on foraging anything and everything you can get your hands on. This simple yet satisfying game is guaranteed* to help you forget your woes with its cutely designed “collect, craft, and expand” model. No longer must you be held down by the darkness that is reality. Instead, forage away in this colorful and magical community where you are in full control of everything. Give in to temptation and let the curse of addiction spread through your veins as you remain happily imprisoned within the world of endless resources, craftables, objectives, and other possibilities.

*this claim is not scientifically proven. ready2b is not liable for any back pain, addiction, actions or decisions taken as a result of this review. Proceed at your own risk.

Played with mouse and keyboard

The simple and intuitive gameplay, endlessly-spawning resources, and exponential expansion make for an incredibly satisfying and addictive experience. Given how intuitive the game is, a tutorial is not even needed; simple suggestions and hints are all you need to progress. You spawn on one island equipped with your trusty pickaxe and off you go.

Hours fly by and suddenly your little island has turned into your very own empire. You can now forage a larger array of substances, build new structures, craft more complex compounds, upgrade your tools, beautify your home, visit different biomes, fish, farm, fight monsters, take on dungeons, help NPCs, and the list goes on. Considering that resources, animals, and enemies spawn randomly and regularly (every 30 seconds or so), there is practically no downtime.

Similar to the likes of Minecraft or Stardew Valley, there is practically no end to what you can achieve in Forager, with only time and your imagination being the limiting factors. The simple, instant, continuous and never ending gratification this game provides makes it a dangerous but ideal pastime during the quarantine. Buy at your own risk.

In addition to the satisfying and expensive gameplay, there are some other notable features that I really enjoyed:

• Hilariously quirky and wholesome NPC interactions. These really add to and fit with the chill/enjoyable tone of the game.
  
  
• Intuitive/clear skill tree and crafting requirements. The game does a great job at providing sufficient information so I rarely had to consult the wiki page to understand things.
  
  
• Easy inventory management and every item stacks infinitely. You will have countless items by the end game (millions of rocks for example) so it is really a blessing that items stack endlessly. Vaults can also be easily built to store items. As an added bonus, the vaults clearly show which items are stored in them (from the overworld) and act as extended inventories - which means that newly collected items go directly to the vaults and items don’t have to be withdrawn to be used in craft recipes.
  
  
• Crafting made easy. As you can see here, the game makes it incredibly easy to craft multiple of the same item with just a few clicks of your mouse [craft infinite, craft all, craft half, or select number yourself]. I only wish there was a way to input a specific number using the keypad instead of clicking +1 numerous times.

• In my experience (with mouse and keyboard) I noticed that it can sometimes be difficult to select the correct item you want to interact with. Since there is usually an abundance of stuff at all times, whether it be the structures you built, animals and enemies running around, trees, ore, flowers, etc, you are bound to come across situations where things seem to be stacked on top of each other, making it difficult to click on what you actually want to click on. Although annoying at times, based on how the game is designed I doubt this can be fully avoided. At worst, this will only cost you a few seconds of your time and require some mouse-moving finesse to resolve. Perhaps this issue can be avoided when playing with a controller?
  
  
• There are some additional game modes: including speed run, single island challenge, and hard mode. I can’t say much about these since I didn’t try them myself but it is a nice addition if you’re into that. The addition of multiplayer is also announced and expected to come out soon - looking forward to that update!

• My main criticism of the game is that the pace plateaus towards the end game. Once you are close to unlocking all the items and upgrading all your tools/weapons, the excitement and allure of the game drops significantly. By this point, it is likely that your character will be overpowered, so it comes as no surprise that foraging and slaying enemies becomes mundane. Most notably, high-end materials take very long to craft (sometimes several minutes per unit). As a result, I spent most of my end game time idling just to allow my items to be crafted. As far as I can tell, the end game mainly consists of entering the void biome, to battle increasingly difficult waves of enemies, and customizing your world (AKA make it pretty), neither of which interested me much, so I stopped once I was satisfied with my progression. Clearly this is a matter of personal taste and I’m sure some players will spend hours making their worlds uniquely theirs.
  
  
• It is also unfortunate that dying has little to no consequence. Most of the time, there is no punishment for dying - the game will simply reset to where you were seconds before you died (like a save-state). As far as I could tell, you don’t lose EXP, coin, or resources, just a few seconds of your time. The worst case scenario is dying in a dungeon or the void, causing you to respawn outside and lose your progress. This discovery came as a disappointment to me as it took away all the thrill of failure; health management no longer had any meaning in the overworld.

Forager is the kind of game that you will struggle to put down. It is remarkable that this was all developed by one person. Excellent job, Mariano Cavallero![hopfrogsa.net] The expansive yet intuitive nature of the game provides you with near-endless entertainment and rewards you with constant low-effort productivity. WARNING this is a dangerously addictive combination. The only downside, in my opinion, is the slow endgame. There are more than enough features to allow players to customize their worlds endlessly but at a certain point I simply had enough. On the bright side, the rush of dopamine this game provides is exactly the kind of mindless morale boost that I (and maybe you) need to get through the pandemic. Get your feels-good vitamins and embrace your inner instant gratification monkey with Forager.

Has the global pandemic got you feeling down, lonely, and lazy? Well, boy do I have the miracle cure for you. Introducing [b]Forager[/b], a game that is primarily based on foraging anything and everything you can get your hands on. This simple yet satisfying game is guaranteed* to help you forget your woes with its cutely designed “collect, craft, and expand” model. No longer must you be held down by the darkness that is reality. Instead, forage away in this colorful and magical community where you are in full control of everything. Give in to temptation and let the curse of addiction spread through your veins as you remain happily imprisoned within the world of endless resources, craftables, objectives, and other possibilities. [i]*this claim is not scientifically proven. [url=https://steamproxy.net/id/ready2b/]ready2b[/url] is not liable for any back pain, addiction, actions or decisions taken as a result of this review. Proceed at your own risk.[/i] [u][b]Played with mouse and keyboard[/b][/u] [h1]✔️[u]Positive:[/u][/h1] The [b]simple and intuitive gameplay, endlessly-spawning resources, and exponential expansion make for an incredibly satisfying and addictive experience.[/b] Given how intuitive the game is, a tutorial is not even needed; simple suggestions and hints are all you need to progress. You spawn on one island equipped with your trusty pickaxe and off you go. Hours fly by and suddenly your little island has turned into your very own empire. You can now forage a larger array of substances, build new structures, craft more complex compounds, upgrade your tools, beautify your home, visit different biomes, fish, farm, fight monsters, take on dungeons, help NPCs, and the list goes on. Considering that resources, animals, and enemies spawn randomly and regularly (every 30 seconds or so), there is practically no downtime. Similar to the likes of Minecraft or Stardew Valley, there is practically no end to what you can achieve in Forager, with only time and your imagination being the limiting factors. The simple, instant, continuous and never ending gratification this game provides makes it a dangerous but ideal pastime during the quarantine. [u]Buy at your own risk.[/u] In addition to the satisfying and expensive gameplay, there are some other notable features that I really enjoyed: [list] [*][b][url=https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2257432688]Hilariously[/url] [url=https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2257432356]quirky[/url] and [url=https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2257431407]wholesome[/url] NPC interactions.[/b] These really add to and fit with the chill/enjoyable tone of the game. [*][b]Intuitive/clear skill tree and crafting requirements.[/b] The game does a great job at providing sufficient information so I rarely had to consult the wiki page to understand things. [*][b]Easy inventory management and every item stacks infinitely.[/b] You will have countless items by the end game (millions of rocks for example) so it is really a blessing that items stack endlessly. Vaults can also be easily built to store items. As an added bonus, the vaults clearly show which items are stored in them (from the overworld) and act as extended inventories - which means that newly collected items go directly to the vaults and items don’t have to be withdrawn to be used in craft recipes. [*][b]Crafting made easy.[/b] As you can [url=https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2278061938]see here[/url], the game makes it incredibly easy to craft multiple of the same item with just a few clicks of your mouse [craft infinite, craft all, craft half, or select number yourself]. I only wish there was a way to input a specific number using the keypad instead of clicking +1 numerous times. [/list] [h1]➖[u]Neutral:[/u][/h1] [list] [*]In my experience (with mouse and keyboard) I noticed that it [b]can sometimes be difficult to select the correct item you want to interact with.[/b] Since there is usually an abundance of stuff at all times, whether it be the structures you built, animals and enemies running around, trees, ore, flowers, etc, you are bound to come across situations where things seem to be stacked on top of each other, making it difficult to click on what you actually want to click on. Although annoying at times, based on how the game is designed I doubt this can be fully avoided. At worst, this will only cost you a few seconds of your time and require some mouse-moving finesse to resolve. Perhaps this issue can be avoided when playing with a controller? [*]There are some [b]additional game modes[/b]: including speed run, single island challenge, and hard mode. I can’t say much about these since [b]I didn’t try them myself[/b] but it is a nice addition if you’re into that. The addition of multiplayer is also announced and expected to come out soon - looking forward to that update! [/list] [h1]❌[u]Negative:[/u][/h1] [list] [*]My main criticism of the game is that [b]the pace plateaus towards the end game.[/b] Once you are close to unlocking all the items and upgrading all your tools/weapons, the excitement and allure of the game drops significantly. By this point, it is likely that your character will be overpowered, so it comes as no surprise that foraging and slaying enemies becomes mundane. Most notably, high-end materials take very long to craft (sometimes several minutes per unit). As a result, I spent most of my end game time idling just to allow my items to be crafted. As far as I can tell, the end game mainly consists of entering the void biome, to battle increasingly difficult waves of enemies, and customizing your world (AKA make it pretty), neither of which interested me much, so I stopped once I was satisfied with my progression. Clearly this is a matter of personal taste and I’m sure some players will spend hours making their worlds uniquely theirs. [*]It is also unfortunate that [b]dying has little to no consequence.[/b] Most of the time, there is no punishment for dying - the game will simply reset to where you were seconds before you died (like a save-state). As far as I could tell, you don’t lose EXP, coin, or resources, just a few seconds of your time. The worst case scenario is dying in a dungeon or the void, causing you to respawn outside and lose your progress. This discovery came as a disappointment to me as it took away all the thrill of failure; health management no longer had any meaning in the overworld. [/list] [h1]🏅[u]Verdict:[/u][/h1] [h1]★★★★☆ Simply addictive[/h1] Forager is the kind of game that you will struggle to put down. It is remarkable that this was all [url=https://hopfrogsa.net]developed by one person. Excellent job, Mariano Cavallero![/url] The expansive yet intuitive nature of the game provides you with near-endless entertainment and rewards you with constant low-effort productivity. [b]WARNING[/b] this is a dangerously addictive combination. The only downside, in my opinion, is the slow endgame. There are more than enough features to allow players to customize their worlds endlessly but at a certain point I simply had enough. On the bright side, the rush of dopamine this game provides is exactly the kind of mindless morale boost that I (and maybe you) need to get through the pandemic. Get your [i]feels-good[/i] vitamins and embrace your inner instant gratification monkey with Forager. [table] [tr][th][url=https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/26827738/]If you found this review helpful, please give it a thumbs up and follow me on my [b]curator page[/b].[/url] 🇹🇭🇦🇳🇰 🇾🇴🇺 🇫🇴🇷 🇾🇴🇺🇷 🇸🇺🇵🇵🇴🇷🇹! [/th][/tr] [/table]