Hey everyone! It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted and that's mostly due to actually having somewhat of a life now. 🤣 I've officially started my photography business, I have eight clients booked for this month which I think is fantastic for a nobody just starting out, andddd, on another note, my son has finally been diagnosed with Level 3 ASD.
So it's been busy! Very busy. I'm not used to it. 😅 So I'm trying my best to get myself into a new routine.
ANYWAY. That's not why you're here. You're here to hear me babble about Brinefall.
I added Brinefall to my wishlist a few months back. It's one of thooooose games where you gather resources, build, survive, etc. BUT. In this one you can build up a whole village, populate it, and become a hero in a little liveable world.
Unfortunately, for first impressions, I'm not very impressed.
There are no guides, you have to work everything out yourself. While that could be both a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are and what you are playing, in this particular game it's annoying and unintuitive.
For instance:
there is a talent page full of skills that you can't equip. I thought it was a bug but it turns out these are all the skills in the game and you need to find books to learn them first. Which would've been clearer if they were greyed out or something.
you start the game with a pickaxe in your inventory. My first character lost the pickaxe because I tried to drag it to the keybind #2 slot. You don't do that. Neither do you drag it onto your character, or the rock you're trying to break. You need to open up the character sheet then right-click it into that. Unintuitive.
That's just right off the bat, within two minutes of playing. I'm sure there'll be more as I continue onward.
Next, now that I have my pickaxe equipped, I'm horrified to discover that there are no feedback noises. My person is swinging the pickaxe, the rocks have broken, but there are no tink-tink sounds. Same happens when you go chop a tree down. There are no chop-chop sounds.
I would really like some audio feedback as to the actions I am taking.
Combat is uninspiring. A wolf charges at me, chases me, that's cool! But when it gets into range and I start fighting it... it stands there. It's attacking me, but it appears as though it's standing there doing nothing. A red area appears as it prepares to swipe at me or bite me or whatever it's doing. I move out of it. But the creature itself. Ugh. So basic.
This is a game made by one dude, so I can forgive a few things. But then you think back to games like Stardew Valley which was also made by one dude. Duuuuuuuude. You can do better.
Despite my very initial disappointments, I continued onward. I restarted the game and LO my audio issue was fixed and suddenly I could hear things. There are birds chirping, my person actually has footstep sounds, AND there is audio feedback when logging and mining.
Such a weird bug having no audio until a game restart. Especially for the very first time opening the game. That does not lead to good impressions.
In the end though, I found that I just couldn't play for very long.
While the game has a good premise, it is implemented so very, very poorly. I mean, I probably would've played the shit out of it back in the early 2000's, but it's almost 2024. I expect more.
The final straw for me? First, I couldn't rotate my wooden floorboards to be more aesthetically laid out, AND THEN the one NPC friend had the audacity to not be able to walk through a damned door. In a finished, released, NON-earlyaccess game.
I refunded after 74 minutes played.
Brinefall. Do not recommend.
Until next time! 🙃
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 