A few days ago I featured Gedonia in my A-Z of Steam Library Gaming. Unlike every other game I've featured so far, I actually continued to play this one!
The others didn't really hold my interest, or they just weren't what I was wanting at that moment in time. Gedonia, however, despite being a constantly-worked-on Early Access title, made me want to play and continue further.
Steam tells me that I've played for 13 hours so far. That's a bald-faced lie. A few of those hours were AFK whilst the game was running in the background. 😆 I'd guesstimate that it's closer to 7 hours. So, I've spent 7 hours active in the game... exploring, crafting, doing the small amount of quests the starting area offers, 2 world bosses, a few events...
...and I haven't even left the first zone yet. I progressed briefly to the next zone whilst completing the main mission, but then backtracked to the first zone to finish it off. I'm a completionist. Everything needs to be done.
This is the entire map of the game. I'm in that little top left corner, the Green Vales. And it's been 7 hours.
THAT IS SO AMAZING! I love games I can spend hours upon hours in.
I'm one of those people who is disappointed when a game only offers "30 hours of content!" and markets it like it's a great thing. No. It's not a great thing. I want 80+ hours. I want side missions, exploration, crafting, building, an alive and active world I can disappear into. I don't want it to end after 30 measly hours.
I'm sure that other people could probably just get everything done in the first zone in half the time I did. But I'm a slowpoke, stopping to take screenshots all the time. 😅 And I'm constantly distracted by little things like alt-tabbing to check Hive and Rising Star...
Since my first post on this game, I have discovered a few nifty things.
One of my first discoveries was that I could actually rename my companion. So I changed his name from Stray Dog to Xander. And I also noticed that as I fed him more and more meat, his friendship metre grew which, in turn, levelled him up! So I gave him 2 abilities and a couple of passives.
Now he's much better in combat situations! 😁
There are also obelisks hidden around the world that will give you a free skill point and a substantial buff for an hour!
I also didn't realise that a ring of stones I wandered past when I first started the game was actually a Waypoint you could teleport to from other Waypoints. So that's good, having a fast travel system!
Too bad you can't just travel to the Waypoints from anywhere though. Apparently you used to be able to, but it was changed in a recent update to just be Waypoint-to-Waypoint.
There was this one irritating bit when I summoned a great tower of cranky water elementals out of the ocean, and it turned out that some structures are currently bugged.
I mean, that's to be expected in early access. But still. I swam through the water, climbed up into the tower, and my trusty dog didn't come with me.
In the companion window is a handy little "teleport to player" button, so I summoned my dog to fight by my side! But he just fell through the structure. And so, dog-less, I had to fight through the angry water elemental tower all by my lonesome. Luckily I had food and health potions with me. When you've gotten into the habit of sending your companion in first to take the threat while you shoot arrows further back, going it alone is a bit dangerous.
That's the only bug I've found so far, though.
Because I have high charisma, I can have an extra companion! Yet, I wasn't expecting this guy to become one.
Naturally, I talk to every NPC. Most of them just have generic lines, or just say 'hello' to you. But others will have a continuing dialogue. One person with continuing dialogue, I ended up influencing a choice for them. And this person with continuing dialogue, my player character randomly invited him to come adventuring with her.
It was a pretty strange interaction. My lady walks up to him and starts off with a, "You're not happy here are you?" and next minute, Brother Jordan is my friend and follower. I'm not complaining -- he's a healer! But the method of acquiring him... it was just out of the blue, haha.
Instead of feeding him meat to gain his friendship like I would with my dog, he wants money! And so, I threw enough money at him to level him up to get a couple of abilities and passives, and we continued on our adventure.
The game advertises having quests you can complete by various methods. So far I've discovered that that is indeed the case.
This one above amused me.
Drawn to the plight of a shackled man upon a mountain, getting zapped by regular bolts of lightning, I approach the man and enquire as to what caused this strange form of punishment.
Turns out he robbed a wizard. If I have high magic ability, I can free him myself. But I don't. So I can either just kill him or go speak to the wizard. I choose to go speak to the wizard.
And so, I go and speak to the wizard. And I can attack the wizard!! Or ask for further information about this whole scenario.
The wizard informs me that the bandit did more than just steal simple foods from him and I soon discover that the bandit indeed earned his fate. However, we can still opt to help the bandit by finding the stolen goods. So, I find the stolen goods, retrieve them, and hand them back to the wizard...
...the wizard said that he would now free the bandit...
...by exploding him in a shower of blood and gore!!
It was unexpected. I was impressed!
Now that this zone is complete -- I think -- my lady is going to visit her home village once more, stock up on some supplies, craft a multitude of arrows, and head off to the next zone.
Although, out of curiosity... I just looked at the Gedonia wiki, and there is still a Bandit Lair I haven't found yet, with a Bandit Leader inside. I'm not sure if I can go pillage that though since it's apparently where you go if you want to side with the Bandit faction. I'll need to investigate! 👀⚔️
Anywho, if this first area took me around 7 hours, I'm expecting the same of the next zone: the Golden Forest. It looks about the same size on the map, and also has a lot more quests available by the looks of things! And I'm looking forward to it! 😁
Until next time! 🙃✨
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 