![]() All pertinent information is kept within multiple subcategories accessed from a single screen. Essential tasks, like sorting your inventory and getting a broad idea of your current crafting options feel unnecessarily taxing because of the number of steps required. Unfortunately, the user interface can prove to be a source of frustration. The Flame in the Flood keeps you on your back foot at all times. Working out your priorities and having the courage to leave valuable things behind is a stimulating challenge. ![]() For example, keeping uncommon fire-starting materials in order to have a method of staying warm, dry, and being able to build a safe place to sleep is more vital than hoarding food-food eventually spoils, and edible flora is common enough in certain ecosystems to snack on as you come across it. Though it will take a number of failures to understand the ecosystem, learning which items are universally useful and avoiding long-term hoarding are the key to staying alive. But once you embrace the idea of “going with the flow” so to speak, The Flame in the Flood becomes an engaging exercise of short-term prioritization and impulsive decision-making. This design is frustrating at first-the impulse to grab every item and explore every area will cause you to waste far too much time and energy rearranging your backpack and paddling against the current. The protagonist can initially carry only a dozen items in her backpack, and you’ll only be able to dock at one or two islands in a cluster of many before the current pulls you further downriver. ![]() There are two major constraints that make this task both interesting and difficult. Your raft can be upgraded at marinas, provided you have the right components. Finding the right components to create items you need often means exploring multiple islands as you traverse the river on your makeshift raft. But because of the game’s narrative conceit, you’re only able to scavenge on small islands with severely limited offerings. Because the survivor can die from neglecting any of these concerns, players must keep them at bay by either scavenging or by crafting a variety of items using resources obtained from the land. Your protagonists are a seemingly immortal dog and a survivor whose main concerns are keeping her hunger, thirst, body temperature, exhaustion, and any major injuries under control. Together, they give The Flame in the Flood an aura of both despair and quiet beauty. ![]() The musical score is an excellent array of Americana, ranging from mournful blues harmonica, cheerful acoustic guitar fingerpicking, wistful mandolins, and rough alt-country vocals. The rush of the flowing river is refreshing, and the heaviness of the thunderstorms is frightening. The atmospheric sound design is ever-present. The art direction invokes the aesthetic of a gothic storybook. The Flame in the Flood’s audiovisual presentation is integral to establishing its strong sense of place. The entirety of the game’s world consists of a large, overflowing river that has engulfed the countryside, destroyed man-made infrastructure, and isolated parts of the geography, turning them into islands. If you don't mind game so heavily based around RNG, by all means, go for it, it's quite interesting.Set in a rural post-societal America, The Flame in the Flood is a procedurally-generated survival game that focuses on constant movement and improvisation. But thanks to randomness of resources there is no interaction with the game - you just collect everything and move on, hoping that at next spot you'll actually get something you need. Game is difficult and punishing, and it's not bad. So many times you'll start game, go trough several locations and parts of the river, and de before finding basic materials to craft even most basic tool. Sounds great, right? Problem is - locations you'll get to visit are entirely random and there is no telling what you might find, and you can't go back since river flows only one way. Game also has quite robust crafting system with multiple tools and crafting materials. It's a very refreshing take on survival game where rater than trying to survive in open world, you're trying to travel down a river on your raft, while visiting locations along the river for supplies. It's a very refreshing take on survival game where rater than trying to survive in open world, you're trying to Neat idea, terrible execution.
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