I want to take the time and recommend Savage Lands. I have enjoyed over 100 hours of adventure in the game. At some point you will come to a pass and ask yourself, What next.

The sand box is big. Just with the limited amount of items in the game I have clear cut a path from each tower to the center of the map lined it with torches, buildings and campfires. I have set up camps at each ruin area and made a path to Vek.

The game is what you make it. I have had fun and the little bit of money I have paid, I have got out of the current content. If I never played another day of the game, I would not be disappointed in what I have spent.


The down side is that the game has such great potential. Yes you are hearing me right. When this happens to a game peoples mines go crazy. It could be this, it could be that. Purple flying pigs that poop loot. The game is great just simple. Survive the cold harsh land. Our imaginations set us up for disappointment if we let it. I hope the community aiding in the direction of this game keep it true to its nature.

I love this game, its a perfect blend of Minecraft, Don't Starve, and with a little bit of Skyrim. I would recommend this game to anyone with the stones big enough to face a challenge bigger than blocky faces and manipulated difficulty. Below are some of the things that stood out as good, bad, and some things I believe would make the game perfect.
9/10

(ABOVE IS JUST FOR PEOPLE SKIMMING THE REVIEWS, BELOW IS FOR THOSE WISHING FOR INDEPTH REVIEWS!)

It should be noted that I am at day 4, so some of the ideas covered below are about those 4 days and what was recorded during the process of survival.


The Good:

- Beautiful landscape, I am left breathless at the sheer beauty the land reveals upon each morning.
- Tenacious wildlife, I am often left speechless at the stubborn force of the wolves and wargs.
- Unique resource gathering, I cannot help but grin as my axe fells a towering monument of wood.
- Unique crafting, I am in awe each time I get to craft a new item.
- Unique building, each time I finish a structure, I can't decide what to focus on constructing next!
- Harsh environment, I am always in a state of alert as I prowl the wilderness for food, resources, or game.
- The scary @$$ dragon, actually I find myself running in fear each time I hear that thing roar.


The Bad:

- Sometimes when you drop an item bag (like the Tattered one you start with) it stays with you. Not exactly a bad thing, but when you gather resources, the items sometimes go to the dropped bag.
- Sometimes when you cut a tree down, the tree will stay up, duplicating a fallen tree unto the ground. While you cannot harvest the tree infinately, it becomes a visual nucience and impairs your building spaces.
- Sometimes the Warg-like beasts come out during the day near the tower, they didn't attack me, but I found it to be odd that I couldn't even hit them, as they drifted between underground and overground rapidly.
- I'm not sure if you can, but I can't seem to reignite torches after they get snuffed out.
- Armor durability, I understand some of the armors aren't exactly ment for combat, and thus obviously would have low durability, but I'm far more sure that they should last at least a day and a half for each set.


Suggestions:

- Potion brewing would be a nice touch. Gathering berries, herbs, and various items to mix. Maybe as a potion bottle, a reusable metal container?
- Going along with the idea of the land being a harsh environment featuring wolves, dragons, wargs and bears, how about witchcraft? Drawing runes on swords or armor to augment them or imbuing a stick to be used as an offencive fire spouting staff/ wand?
- Farming? Seeing as how you can build a house, a fire, a forge, and a townhall. Why not a garden as well? You could take unspoiled fruits and vegatables and gather their seeds, plant them, and gather them?
- Rain? Even though the biggest fear in the game is not the cold, why not push the fact that it SHOULD be something to worry about?
- Fences? Wood walls and doors are good, but to push the idea of building a safe residence, utilizing fences would help some people cope with the night.

(Written 3/29/15 at 3:52 AM with 8.9 Hours of play.)

The game is still being developped and updates are farely frequent, however the idea of the game is a real world survivor game against a truly brutal environment. I will list both Pro's and Con's.
Pro's: This game is a great concept and I believe with some changes it can be an epic game unlike any other.

Con's: You are shooting for realism the human body can survive 14 days without food, in the game you cannot survive one night even after eating 2 apples, 2 tree nuts, 2 meat. can we make this a reasonable time say maybe 3 full days from 100% before starvation starts taking your health?
Please stop the animals from running into the ocean, which kills you as well.

Over all, I believe this game will be awesome just needs a few tweaks.

Let me start out for when I first got this game.
>Spawning in, forgets the starter loot, dies from wolf.
>Spawns in again, finds the starter loots, chop down some trees.
>Find an abandoned encampment, decide to camp out there for the night.
>About to leave, random stone hammer spawns in, take it, mine stones.
>Make house in the middle of nowhere.
>Night comes again, two Dreadful Undead Knights invade my camp.
>Furiously rage as It took me 10 minutes to build that.
10/10 Would get raided again.

beautiful game, graphics and scenery are stunning.

game can get too easy once you know what you are doing, but starts out with a Guaranteed to Die format. there is a steep learning curve, but when you get to the top, you pretty much prove the quote from the matrix

"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus."

this game is still (at the time of writing this) early release... so keep that in mind... if the designers add some to the end game, or hike it up a bit, this will be one to watch...

the team working on this game also seem to be working actively to add features and update - something lacking in a lot of other early access games.

For an alpha you this game is already playable. very few bugs. Great concept. I would recommend this to anyone who likes survival games and is into the fantasy type of games.

Very promising 3D 1stP Minecraft. Stable Alpha, workable recipes, nice world.
It already has that "just one more tree, honey, and I'll come to bed" and of course for that tree you need a new axe and oh, you are out of stones and wouldnt a steel axe be way better anyway and the forge is almost finished too and ....

Mind you, it is ALPHA PHASE! So unless you know how to alpha and beta test games, dont bother playing it.
Its worth supporting it though. Could get to be one of the next big things.
I am very much looking forward to beta phase and content filling. Count me in!

For me, this game is absolutely gripping and I simply cannot get enough of it... A big well done to the developers... why, because the balance between surviving and meeting your doom is just about perfect. If you like survival games, in my opinion this one is way above the others (and I have them all). I've spent 38 gaming hours on this the last couple of days and survivng longer as I learn the best way between that fine line of living or dying. Forget all the others, this is the one you are looking for, trust me!

This game has plenty of potential. Pros and cons galore. Let's start with some of my very own game play.
- Armor doesn't last long at all. If you like crafting armor then this is the game for you.
- Adventuring. So much to explore. Not even really sure how large the island is but I get lost frequently.
- Hosting is an issue for me. I'd like to be able to host for more than just 8 people. So far thats all I've seen are 8 man server hostings.
- Mining rocks, this is questionable on just what you may or may not find. Ores are the most sought out pieces for me. Always making new armors because they take just a few hits before they are broken. Don't know if rocks respawn their ores. Needs to be taken up witht he Devs.
- Fun. It's a game for me. I like it. can't wait to see how the community grows on this one. Community is key here.

First things first, this game is designed to kill you...

That being said this game is also ALOT of fun. The crafting is this game is very nice, and the gear that you can make is pretty impressive. The duribility of gear does tend to drop pretty quickly though ( please buff gear duribility devs ). All in all though this game is alot of fun and I must tip my hat to the devs of this game and I am excited to see what this game will become in final release.

Thecrashninja

Super fun game, ridiculous amount of potential. Graphics are beautiful.

This is an Early Access Review

Game could be improved by:
- adding new/more diverse enemies
- tightening up the craft menu (perhaps searching/filtering by ingredient)
- tightening up combat
- adding things to build, like a CASTLE!!!
- allowing you to tear down a structure you have built, getting a portion of the materials back
- allowing you to complete structures you happen upon, like stone houses
- ability to build walls (ensuring you can connect them to existing walls)
- ability to craft traps
- weapons with more reach (great for slow enemies like skeletons)
- maybe a hotbar with more than 5 slots
- revise the armor, either reduce materials or increase durability (wolves shouldnt scratch my metal armor)(i know this is coming in an update, i hope it works out well)
- i havent seen any boars or bears, are they implemented?
- farming... my diet of meat only can't be good for my GI tract.
- ensuring that all houses connect to the ground on all sides, so my stuff doesn't roll out the bottom gap
- DUAL WIELD! two axes would be a great way to make sure wolf is what's for dinner.
- ability to reignite torches
- ability to destroy things permanently (instead of building a house to keep all the skulls in)

But yeah, i dont even really like survival games, but this one is quite fun for you and a few friends.

First thirty minutes:
Spawn on a beach, run around and find stones and an axe.
Ran into the water and died from hypothermia.
Respawn.
Run around naked through a forest looking for sticks.
Find a deer, punch it. Deer runs, continue looking for sticks.
Find a pack of wolves, one starts chasing me, punch it to death.
Continue running through woods.
Come across another wolf.
Wolf bites me.
I'm bleeding.
Punch wolf to death.
Run off into the forest to die from blood loss.

10/10 would look for stick again.

At first glance you get a nice little quest chain to get you going. One hour into it you're getting a house, several tools and some other goodies. "Can't sleep, wolves will eat me." those punks come from out the woodwork to get you. Keep your sound up and pay attention to the noises around you. Otherwise, it is worth every penny. Graphics are nice but I can see the potential if it keeps getting better and better. Gender selection and a few other *glossy* touches will be nice later but for now and the fact I put more than 5 hours in from the time I downloaded it and I'm barely off the beach and just now exploring the wild. It has captivated me in a way that a fantasy survival game should. Bravo Developer for an awesome Early Access Game, I look forward to future patches. I would gladly pay $24.99 for this title as it's worth every penny.

I have only just started playing, so far it's not that easy to play, it leaves you wanting, which makes me wanna keep playing.. fights are juuuuuuust right, not to easy, looking for loot is funny, find a million stones, but the moment I started a stone house I found 300 logs, 0 stones?! I am anxiously awaiting the update, which will provide bow and arrow, make hunting fun I hope.

All I was missing is a safe haven somewhere, a fire leaves you warm but vulnerable, in some cases IMPOSSIBLE, a house will leave you frozen to death. Also, some furniture would make sense, as people lived there once.. a cupboard, chest and torch fixture e.g, and NOT freezing in your house would perhaps make the game more fun for a wider audience.. something with settings, easy, survivor, savage, or some such.

This game is already cool, I can't wait to see how it will turn out.

Tuesday 31st; update

I read a bunch of reviews about this game lacking depth / story, but I suspect that is forthcoming. In fact; the best part can be getting lost in the woods, looking for other settlements, encountering strange towers, and sometimes just actually getting lost and runnin into a bear.
Earlier today I had packed LOADS of stuff in flesh bags, and dragged it across the middle past the dragon tower looking for an alledged "stone city" which obviously brings to mind a Markarth like setting. After about 10 minutes I discovered what I thought to be a second dragon tower, YAY says me, turns out I cirkled WAAAAY around, found the same shanty town again. rotting flesh and a million skulls still there, singing praise...

Ow and I found the safe haven I was missing, just build a blacksmith :P

I can't negatively review this game because honestly, I find it fun. It didn't cost much, and some improvements I'd hoped to see quickly actually came with their latest patch, "....which was nice. " /Fast Show UK

What do I expect from Early Access purchases? That fundamentally, the game is playable (for me, it is). I'm entertained, and find it relaxing to stop thinking about stressful real life crap and just come in here and think, instead, about stressful imaginary crap. So, there's that. I think it's off to a good start, and I think I'll keep playing, and see where things go.

This review has been amended 20-3-2015 following updates that actually gave us some of the items I listed below.

******************************************************

That said:

Does it need more refinement? Yes. Could it use more depth? Yes. Are there some illogical elements insofar as what can/cannot be crafted? Yes. In what world can I build a house with no shelves? Forge armour and not craft a ranged weapon? (yes, I know they're coming, huzzah).

Is the weather and landscape lacking a certain degree of variety/dynamism? Yes. It looks like Skyrim now and then, in some semi-modded capacity...or more accurately, Skyrim: Groundhog Day. It'd be great to see some climate variation, even if this is meant to be a cold island, light/clouds/tones of the sky still change from day-to-day in the real world.

Buggy? Eh...I find minor things - one crash the other day, trees that are apparently made of indestructible material, and the wolfskin helms that bug out and hide your head. On the whole it's worked fine for me in that respect.

Assuming my bows and arrows show up soon, (and honestly you can kill deer without them easily enough, but it'd be a nice touch), this is my wishlist thus far:

1) If I decide to plot a house, I'd like to decide to UNPLOT, (or even unBUILD) it at some point. I made the mistake of dropping a stone house plan nearby, only to see it bug out half a metre above the ground, and apparently I'm stuck with it until we have a way to undo these - bleh. Kind of a landscape killer there, guys. EDIT: 20-3-2015 - Building diagrams can now be disassembled by the player by hitting it. Nice one. Thanks for that.

2)Houses need the ability/capacity to have fires, or at least hang torches, inside them. I get that wood=fire, but again, if we can craft homes of stone, we can craft FIREPLACES of stone, or at least firepits in homes that include the means by which air/heat/smoke can escape, surely. It's not necessarily about having a fire to keep warm, if the home is providing that benefit - it's about that elusive fine line between "survival" and "surviving very nicely, thank you very much".

3)As others have suggested, craftable forges would be nice so that players can live where they like and still get this done without travelling to them. EDIT: 20-3-2015 - loving the blacksmithing addition; this gives you not only a craftable forge at a location of your choice, but doing that gives you another heat source, indoor light, as well as a windowed dwelling of sorts.

4)I personally think the "hunger" timer is too fast - even if you're cold and running around all day, I'm pretty sure you can't eat 5 entire deer, a bucketload of tree nuts, 5 berries and two wolves without at least needing to unbuckle that armour and have a good lie-down. Conversely, I think the cold timer is pretty spot-on, ESPECIALLY once you gear up a bit, and take the time to whack a few trees for some nuts while you go out hunting - it's very manageable indeed. EDIT: 20-3-2015 - hunger timer improved somewhat/some minor food improvements made. Huzzah.

5)IMHO brewing would be cool. Humans have managed to make things-to-drink-out-of-other-things from the earliest days of civilisation. Perhaps a mechanic where drinking anything alcoholic gives you a boost or small benefit - but at a minor cost to body heat.

On the whole, I find this is a promising title and I hope the devs STAY ON IT and flesh it out a lot more. If they do, I think it would have a solid audience looking for something that brings together building/survival and that lovely feeling of an older world.

I'm sure there's more, and I'll come back to this eventually, but I've had fun in here, will continue to do so, hopefully.

*****

I find this game challening but not too hard. I like playing it with friends. I do like the current features and I look forward to what else they produce. However, I would love to see more choices in the hero you play (race, age, gender, advantages/dsadvantages), the ability to set traps to catch animals. I recommend this game to anyone that likes having to plan while they play.

So far so good. Not too difficult to learn and get into. Its really easy to clear cut the land around you though, especially building the Town Hall. Overall, this game looks promising.

30 hours in and I've still only explored some sections of the Island. This is partially due to item durability resticting how far you can explore, but there is so much to do and craft it's easy to forget you're running around naked in sub zero tempuratures. If the devs fix item durability a little, I'd suggest this game to anyone who likes a survival game with an RPG feel.

Was drinking, got a slight buzz, started playing.
Made a bow.
Started hunting deer.
Ran into a boar.
He attacked.
Caused me to bleed.
Killed the boar.
Made a band-aid.
Band-aid didn't stop the bleeding.
I bled out and died.
I didn't know I was Robert Baratheon...
10/10 would play again.

Awsome game with a great team of developers!!! It is early Access so content is limited at the moment but with the great development team behind this game i am expecting very good things. Still though even with its thin content i have a blast playing this game, graphics are sweet and the concept of the game is very appealing, I think this game is deffinately worth a buy!!!