Smalland: Survive the Wilds

HOLD F for fast pick up, you don't have to do it one by one :] I only mention this because I saw some people getting refunds thinking they had to pick stuff up one by one.

Jumping into Smalland I didn't know what to expect, I wanted to try out a new type of survival game. It looked promising from the trailer and turns out the more I played the more interested I was as I progressed more through the game. The pros: - A theme that stands out, the world around you is mostly ordinary but it presents a good survival situation from your playable characters being very tiny. The world is vast with different biomes and an immersive atmosphere. - Easy to get into and understand, lots to learn as you play more. You got your health, stamina and hunger bars to manage as in many survival games and the rest is up to you to discover. - The freedom, as soon as you're out of the starting tutorial area you can do as you please and go mostly wherever you want. There are quests but the game doesn't hold your hand or force you to a specific route, the world is yours to explo

Before I say anything else, I want to clarify I purchased this game after the 1.0 release and played NONE of the early access. I have no reference for where the game was, just what the devs/publisher decided to declare was a complete game. Smalland often gets compared to Grounded, which shouldn't be surprising but is somewhat misleading. It's the equivalent of saying that D&D is basically Lord of the Rings because they're both fantasy worlds. Thematically, Grounded is Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Smalland is Ferngully, and the difference in gameplay reflects each theme pretty well. On my actual thoughts on the game, the quality of product I received from something that's out of early access is surprising. If you look at the post-launch roadmap, you can kinda see what I mean without playing the game at all: they plan to overhaul major mechanics of the game after saying it's done. In the c

Pretty good. Some people compare this game to Valheim and the comparison is somewhat valid. Progression and base building are very similar, if not identical. Combat is centered around dodging and blocking, there's no parry mechanic. Food doesn't give you health/stamina buffs, since there's a hunger/thirst bar. Food doesn't spoil, which is nice. Tools, armor and weapons can be repaired for free if they're not damaged too much. After a certain threshold you need some resources to fix them. Inventory is only slot restricted, items don't have weight. The game has RPG-like paper doll UI where items like tools, weapons and armor have to be equipped, unlike in Valheim where equipped items are still held in the inventory. This creates a slightly annoying issue I'll get back to later. Graphics and sound design are very respectable. Few issues with audio occlusion when you're in a player-made bui

TLDR - Grounded but fantasy instead of sci-fi, responsive devs embracing a collaborative Early Access With that being said, the game is still in Early Access where as Grounded has released and is much more polished. However, this game has a rare experience of Early Access that doesn't always happen. The developers actually listen and have made core game play adjustments based on feedback. In my experience with multiple Early Access games, developers tend to have their idea and refuse to budge off of it, which can be fine in many cases. They added in a parry system after early complaints of combat being shallow. They wanted the players to visit NPCs to craft certain armors, but player feedback lead them to allowing most armor crafting to be done by the player. They added in boundary markers for the movable treetop bases after players realized they could accidentally build outside of th