This early access game, that was kickstarted, is hitting 1.0 on February 24th! It has the art director from Bioshock, which caught my attention back when it was being kickstarted. :)
Trailer from back in October of 2014
So what is this game?
A rogue-lite river journey through the backwaters of a forgotten post-societal America. Forage, craft, evade predators. For PC, Mac, and Xbox One.
Yeah, had my eye on this since the Kickstarter. Looks like it could be spectacular. I think it’s interesting that the trend toward rogue-likes has also stirred up a little subgenre of Oregon Trail-likes, which I find way more interesting. At least, I think that’s what this thing is. I hope it lives up to its promise. Anyone played the EA?
The trailer looks good. Great art style, for sure. I don’t like Rogue-Likes, but I do like survival games like Don’t Starve. Collecting resources and building and journeying down the river could be very cool.
But I also find that I feel I’m spinning my wheels a lot, that the systems aren’t creating interesting or varied stories. I can’t tell you about specific runs or particular events in The Flame In The Flood because they don’t feel distinct from one another. The systems don’t layer in a way that surprises me or prompts me to impose a narrative. It’s comfy and I can play for hours, but it’s just not that deep.
Looks like a very pretty game but with limited replayability which is problematic in a roguelike/roguelite.
I don’t know if this is a better lens to look through for Flame in the Flood in particular, but I often feel like we would benefit from distinguishing Oregon Trail-likes from Roguelikes. A lot of games that get called the latter I feel like are often the former.
So with this being part of the most recent Humble Monthly, I am sure a few of you have a copy now to play and report back on! I snagged a spare off someone on Ngaf, so I too will be giving this a try over the weekend. :)
So I guess people don’t like this too much? I was sort of interested in a while I thought it would be a Huckleberry Finn-like picaresque adventure, with lots of choices and wacky character, but it looks like it’s almost 100% crafting and survival-ing. I guess it should be a Oregon Trail-like or similar to Banner Saga. That’s what I had in mind anyway.
Its kind of a weird thing - sort of a post apocalyptic endless runner / survival river rafting unforgiving thing. I find it kind of tiring to play because it’s sort of repetitive yet stressful and depressing. For what it is, it does it well. I
I picked it up for the Xbone a few months ago during one of the sales. I liked it. It was pretty stressful and depressing, as Enidigm mentioned (which I really liked), at last for a while. Several games I died horribly over and over. Then I started having a good run, and learned to identify hazards, and it became super easy. I beat the story mode, and haven’t been back for the endless river/hard mode yet, and probably won’t, but I really liked the time I spent playing it.
Actually I quite enjoyed it. It is actually one of the few survival games that I managed to win. I found the premise and setting charming. The art style can be cute in places and ugly in others. The music is excellent and helps set the mood. On the negative side the game boils down to backpack management and later areas can either become tedious or just quite easy to bypass. It is also not a happy place at times.
My total time played was around 22 enjoyable hours and I purchased it for about £5 so I was quite happy with my purchase. I doubt I will ever play on the hard difficulty or on endless mode as both seem pointless or more challenging than I would like but overall I liked it for what it was.
Yeah, I’m in agreement with Granath although I thought the game was rarely short of gorgeous. I finished it just as it was starting to outstay its welcome so it left a good, if flawed, impression.
I finally fired this up and it feels a lot like Don’t Starve to me, except the land masses are much smaller because they are little islands amid the flood waters. I don’t typically get into crafting games (which I didn’t realize this game was) - I should have read the thread! I dabbled for a couple hours and doubt I’ll return.
Like @Granath mentioned, the music is great. I just don’t find this type of game interested. I hate scrolling through lists deciding what to craft and checking what’s needed.
I managed to complete this at the time and enjoyed it for the most part. It ran out of surprises towards the end and started to get repetitive, particularly the crafting and inventory-fu, but I didn’t come away from it disappointed. Loved the look and feel of the game though.
I never got into Don’t Starve, or as I should call it: Don’t Go Insane. I played it for a good 10+ hours but couldn’t for the life of me work out how to not go crackers. Starving wasn’t ever the problem. As such I found the experience pretty opaque and resistant to my efforts to engage with it!
