16 hours of play time, my current thoughts

[2vsU]

Game is wonderful. So mellow, so tense, so scary. I have had many "oh sh*t!" moments where I literally said that out loud. I will separate into three sections on "What Works," "What Doesn't Work" and "What I Would Like to See Worked On":

What Works:

* Inner voice over dialog. Both characters. Fantastic. The breathing, the thoughts, everything.

* The challenge of surviving the cold, hunger, sleep, thirst, the wild etc.

* The graphics. I love the stylized setting. Works so well. The colors. Mostly all of the important stuff looks perfect.

* Sound design. From foot steps, to pant legs rubbing as you traverse, the wind while inside the cabin, the wind outside the cabin, caves. It's all so golden. It's so subtle. Even the calmness has a spectacular sound. Totally nailed the sound design.

* Music when it queues is fitting. I don't really notice the lack of music until it chimes in during a dangerous moment and it's just icing on the cake for the sound design. I love how there's no music playing initially.

* The scariness of the beasts. The in your face chomps from the predator's mouth trying to kill you. So scary. The crows overhead.

* The animation feels so spot on. From the moment of a full gait when you have full strength and down to the moment you're slightly staggering from lack of strength, the running animation just feels so spot on.

* I know there is more but can't think of anything else.

What Doesn't Work For Me:

* The inability to gauge cook times along with the fire times. Fire went out? Failed meal. Same with water.

* Can't multi-task. Cooking venison but can't work on something else while it cooks. It feels like the day is so short in getting anything done.

* No warning for much of anything. I'm crafting deer legs but there's a bit of a draft indoors but I didn't notice, four hours later and then I'm near death from hypothermia. Same goes for harvesting pelts and meats. One moment the weather is perfect then all of a sudden it's a blizzard without any indicator telling you. I think the sound queues you but I don't think it allows me to hit escape to cancel. I think the moment that there is a drastic temperature change there should be a notice indicating that.

* Crows are always flying above the corpses even after you've checked them. Would be nice to send them away after checking corpses. Seeing the same crows circling the same body for two weeks seems a little ridiculous.

* Inability to make a makeshift bed. When you left the bed roll wear out without repairing it, you should still be able to make a place to sleep in either card board boxes or on top of cloth. Or even the floor with a penalty in doing so. But not being able to sleep at all when there is no bed roll is kind of silly.

* It seems that head shots on the animals is the most effective way to kill them. Upper chest shot on the lungs or heart would definitely be a killing blow on an animal. It took me some a bit of hunting to figure out that head shots are the most effective. When wounding the animals they run forever only to slow done and walk on forever causing you to waste another bullet. I had shot a wolf near point blank in the chest only to see him scatter off then slow down and hobble for a long while. I got tired of waiting so I shot him again. Poor suffering animal.

* The time to cook meat feels way longer than it should. An open flame cooking meat should take about 10 minutes to fully cook. Unless I'm not noticing the temperature of the flame? Maybe a visual indicator showing how hot the flame is?

* So many wolves. And they're not in packs. It doesn't seem like the smell of cooking from a fire interests them least. Maybe I need to play more to know for sure.

* Where do the water bottles come in from? The gallon jugs just randomly appear after melting snow.

What I Would Like to See Worked On:

* Seeing the dead bodies is really interesting. Would be really cool if you happen to get settled into a place you can decide to bury them. Or remove them from the area.

* Would be a nice thing to find matches at the start instead of starting off with them. Maybe ultilize some boy scout method of fire starting?

* A way to see what your character looks like as you are progressing. Torn up pants from wolves? Would be nice to see what kind of shape your clothing is in a menu screen of some sort. I don't need to see a third person view, just an ability to see what I look like.

* A way to carry larger items. Like a sled, maybe made out of hide and cured gut? You drag it behind you in order to trans port to new location.

* Would be really awesome if you stumbled upon a body that's not nearly dead and you decide to help them get better. I understand this would be a massive implementation and probably will be too much but damn that would be awesome to run into actual people who are alive, maybe they provide you with a tip where shelter is near by. On some occasions I thought I heard what sounded like a human or gun shots in the distance. Maybe this could be easily implemented through side design. A gun shot off in the distance indicates a struggle. You head in that direction to find a dead man and animal.

* An end goal. A way to call for help. Not sure if it's already implemented but it would be cool when you find batteries or equipment to fix a radio that you get in touch with someone. Or you make attempts every day until one day you get ahold of someone for a rescue attempt ending the game. Or maybe that's the story mode? Whoops if so. :mrgreen:

* A change of seasons. You stock up on stuff you need during the fall then winter hits and then challenge really kicks in. Then spring, then summer. Would be amazing to see the changes. Maybe a separate map could provide that atmosphere. Would be amazing if this was included in the story. Or maybe there are plans already for it? See above.

Anyway sorry for the long post. The game is really amazing. With some minor things that remind me it's in alpha. The team is talented! Can't wait for more! Thanks for doing a spectacular job!

[Patrick Carlson]

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed feedback! And welcome.

Lots to work through here, but one question I had about the need to carry larger items: How do you feel about the need to choose what to take and what to leave behind? Would the game feel differently to you if this choice were reduced or eliminated entirely through some kind of sled? How rare would such an item be in the world?

Great to have you here and looking forward to seeing you around!

--Patrick

[KD7BCH]

Water jugs are magic just like snow for melting. Hoping one day the devs require us to acquire these or make them from cans for realism at least on Stalker.