first impressions

[skinpop]

I've played for maybe 10 hours by now. My main issues with the game so far:

Looting/searching. This is becoming detrimental to my enjoyment of the game. Whenever I enter a building and see a chest full of drawers I just sight and get annoyed because I know the next few minutes will be a boring chore. Please just remove the search bar and the need to search each drawer, it serves no other purpose than to frustrate. Just have an inventory screen pop open instantly for the entire object being searched.

Condition of canned foods doesn't make any sense. Either it's sealed and fine(canned foods pretty much keep indefinitely) or it's broken and unusable.

The Characters. I think The Long Dark would be a more pure and powerful experience without the characters. I generally don't like defined characters in first person games since the point of the genre/perspective is that it allows the player to be the character. Especially the voice over is so jarring and immersion breaking that I ended up turning VA volume down to zero.

It's not that the character designs or VA is bad per se, but it's rather the dissonance between me and the character. Every time I'm reminded that I'm actually playing a character I'm "thrown out" of the game. I'd much prefer if the game fully allowed me to take the part as the main character. Maybe you could have something like "starting gear" choice instead, this could be a way to balance the starting conditions as well - but leave the characters completely undefined(thus allowing me to be the character).

Love the atmosphere and potential of this project, I look forward to seeing what new stuff you add in future updates.

[Bill Tarling]

For the characters voices, you can turn them down/off from the Options menu.

Before you do though, you should be aware that the voices provide a lot of audio clues so the HUD isn't needed on screen all the time, so you might miss some warnings.

[Dobian]

I've been playing for ten hours and I'm on day 12 in my current game. It's been great fun, even with the nitpicks over wolves, etc. I haven't felt this immersed in a game in ages. I plan out objectives for each day now. Today it was to make it up the hill from my little village and explore. I found some small cabins that had firewood in them. I grabbed all the wood so that I was over-encumbered and slowly walked back down the hill. It became foggy at one point and I heard a distant howl and the sound of scurrying feet. I kept going, repeatedly looking back to see if I was about to get jumped. What a rush! I finally made it back to my cabin in the little town and unloaded the wood. I haven't had a rifle or a hatchet at all this time, so I've been making it on scavenging and foraging, with some fishing. My next goal is to sleep outdoors one whole night now that I have warm enough clothes to do it, then fishing tomorrow.