Recent reviews by RitheGuardian

*Grain of Salt*

The decoration & design elements are really all this game has going for it.
So if you enjoy designing and decorating little towns/cities, with minimal challenge, this is perfect for you.
and even then, it gets a bit stale after a while... Very repetitive.
If you want any sense of meaning, purpose, or direction... maybe not the game for you.
There are resident needs and quests, which are all very easily met. If you enjoy designing your city exactly the way you want it, you end up just completing the requests off in a corner and moving or deleting everything that was requested. Which is more of a nuisance than anything else.
It's very easy to stay at 100% happiness, so villagers are constantly showing up, which allows you to be a bit more selective with who you chose to move into your town; which further increases keeping happiness so easily at 100% with a ton of 20% bonus happiness villagers.

I was enjoying it up until I had to switch to a new village & restart everything; but with a new gimmick.. Everything functioned the same except the gimmick aspect (which imho, is not enough to kill the monotony of the rest of the gameplay loop)
Each map is like it's own little micro-biome that doesn't really mesh well with the others. So you end up with rather disjointed 'districts' if you play on a map that allows every type of unlock. (i.e. sandbox)

I really don't know... Something is missing. More variety? More purpose? It's one of those games that is really amazing for the first few hours, then turns totally stale.. and I really can't put my thumb on exactly what causes it.. likely a mix of many things. "Too much of a good thing" type of problem.

Cute, silly and fun.
Game plays exactly as stated, the art is super cute. You can change the animal recordings and names.
I think it's worth it for hours of fun.
Support solo dev/pub <3

The art style, characters and spells are cool, but everything else is lack-luster.
Within half an hour I was already bored of the 'combat' -- it's relatively hack & slash / rinse and repeat.
Playing solo; the 'boss' health pool is so sponge; you might at well take a nap while you spam all your abilities for an hour.
There is a very obvious lack of content and polish in the main game, yet there's already a collection of paid skin DLC + paid character? Not very promising for future content/updates.

It's bare-bones, and it has promise.. but this isn't an EA game... it's a 25$ game that feels like a free mobile MOBA game.

No thank you.

Story & gameplay loop are fascinating and I'm hooked. can't wait for when it's released.

I spent an hour just connecting relevant words and gaining new ones before even moving to the next 'scene' in the demo. addictive and so terribly intriguing.

Yeet delete the cart.

Absolutely in love with the art style & sound design.
The game play loop is really satisfying, the story is amazing.
The meaning & small metaphors throughout are beautiful, can not wait to play this game once it's released.

Only mild personal 'gripe' is that earning & depositing howls for teardrops feels *just a little* tedious. The unlocks are worth the grind and it feels very balanced with progression but the illusion of a grind via multiple deposits to unlock 1/3 of something vs a larger full requirement makes it feel bad. Sectioning out the smaller unlocks make sense since they're incremental, but it makes it feel a little less satisfying to unlock the larger main ones in the same manner.

Critical Gameplay Feedback: Going into the 2nd zone or I guess technically the first zone for the first Great Spirit 'Creek of Spectral Falls and not having a sacred grove in the beginning of that area AND it only being accessible after 2 battles, one being a rather large one from the first zone.. is not it. This was frustrating enough that it made me quit playing the demo at that point, despite wanting to continue otherwise.

The game does not work properly.
Always needs to be online, obv. using the EA launcher.

Doesn't respond to controller or K&M correctly.
Car is stuck in 2 gear, sensitivity is chaotic and acceleration / deceleration randomly stops working all together.

So many other issues. Don't waste your time.

The pixel art is really lovely, very aesthetically pleasing.
The game is simple; you mostly just watch, and sometimes singularly manage, a persons work time.
It is a nice thing to have on your screen while doing other things, checking in and seeing what the little guy is up to from time to time, encouraging them to work if they have the energy.
Though, you can only make them to work. You cannot stop them from working once started or direct them to do anything else.

It nearly plays itself, for the most part, you just check in to make sure he's being productive & unlock upgrades, like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ manager.
You also cannot just leave it to idol without tending/minimal levels of intermittent attention to make sure your little guy isn't 'being lazy'. (Which, calling a solid representation of depression and lack of interest in hobbies/joys as 'lazy' is ... really ♥♥♥♥ and a terribly damaging mentality.)
I really don't think rarely managing with a single click, and unlocking stuff you can't actively do anything with is great for a game that also requires your intermittent active attention. I do dearly wish there were more active things to do with it, even if it's all just optional.

This game feels like depression wrapped in hopelessness. Like a ticking time bomb of burnout you can't control.
A listless NPC doing random actions that may or may not allow them to 'recharge'. You can ONLY control one aspect, click desk to make them 'work' -- even if you buy upgrades to help their rest/recovery, you cannot direct them to use the items/objects. Leaving it to it's own devices does seem to keep the stats evened out.

My biggest gripes -

QOL - EATING SOUNDS/CHIP CRUNCHING. the loudest sound in the game, and it horrid. Needs a misophonia toggle to mute just the chips crunching/eating sounds. Your only option currently is to mute all the activity sounds.

Gameplay - It sucks to not be able to interact with or control anything except peon poke 'get back to work!'
Would be really lovely if you could at least direct them to 'relax' in some way -- like directing them to watch tv / play games / drink coffee etc. -- I understand this would allow the player to control the 'barely surviving' aspect, which perhaps is not the intention of the game.


TLDR - It's BARELY an 'active attention' idle game, with a bit of management of unlocking/buying things that make more $ and passive items that allow the character more energy/creativity - that they use on their own. You can only poke them to 'get back to work!'

I'm torn, as I really like the aesthetic & general premise, but the minimal game-play is not enough for me personally. I think it's still worth it just for the art alone ~
It may very well be just what you want though. :)

Great game. Really interesting story. The art and the vibes are immaculate.
One play-through is really short (1-2 hours if you really take your time)
The ending, or at least the one I got the first time, was kind of ... meh. Very lack luster.
I assume there are multiple endings, which will add to play-time + replay value.
As of writing this review, there is only one ending (with 2 choices that lead to the same end)

The biggest QOL issue is there is no manual save AND it doesn't have any indication of when it last auto-saved the game.

I played the demo for a minute and decided to get the game.
There are more mechanics/aspects in the full game vs the demo; more information on reports and more rules/violation to report on

Steam achievements aren't working. Perhaps playing the demo messed it up.
Upon starting my second play-through I am now earning achievements.

Auto-clicker doesn't work for fishing.

It's obviously intentional, as the auto-clicks register for other aspects of the game.

A single-player idle clicker game that intentionally negates the use of an auto clicker? why??? I've literally never had this issue before with any other single player idle/click game. Intentionally blocking something that doesn't effect anyone or anything else but the players experience with the game is asinine.

I like using an auto-clicker for games like this, not only for accessibility to avoid RMI flair ups, but it's also just how I enjoy playing these types of games; even if the clicking isn't a huge aspect of the game.