What can I say other than, holy mackerel this game is absolutely phenomenal. First of all the variety of ways that individual runs can go and the sheer amount of items available, makes this barely feel like an "alpha" to me, if this were advertised as a finished product I'd definitely buy it, even if it currently lacks a conclusion. That being said there's so much potential here; and I can see a version of this game tenfold its current size still maintaining the clarity and feel offered in this early stage; maybe I'm dithering but I think I'm just trying to say that for me, this game felt like something really magical.
That's the synopsis, I'm going to give a detailed rundown of all of my thoughts as best I can, in the hopes that it is useful, but everything past this point contemplate as much or little as you like, its all intended as ideas stock
Context, I downloaded this game 4 days ago and I've probably played about 20-30h, with my run count approaching 35 by my estimate. I've just beaten the final stage (in a way where I didn't die shortly afterwards), so that puts the difficulty at around 4-6 hours per level, I think the first one took me around 3 and the last one around 10. Difficulty feels extremely reminiscent of games I used to play that I considered "challenging", these include terraria (flashbacks to early hardmode), don't starve, and rain world; but definitely not rage inducing, which is the emotion I typically in games that are unpolished. If I had to describe this game to somebody, I would describe it as being reminiscent of those three, while also something of its own. I don't feel like I'm exaggerating in that comparison considering how this game made me feel; my interest in playing games peaked around 4-5 years ago and its rare that a game holds my attention long anymore; this had me practically not sleeping. Had this existed back then I'm pretty sure I'd have played the hell out of it exactly the same as now.
The atmosphere of the game is bleak and tragic, but made me confront and appreciate some of, that despite its occasional failings, the things we humans have built to make the world a better place, yes perhaps a bit sappy, but I guess the appeal of tragedies is to remind you how different things really could be; that's how I felt while playing anyway. I also feel like the exi species are relatable in some way; perhaps because they are a mix of human and survival-instinctual traits, but it hurts to see them suffer. I think a lot of the appeal of rain world comes from a very similar kind of mixing of man-made and natural elements. The set and setting of this game made me feel depressed and like a bad person for not being better at keeping my character alive, but in a really good and refreshing way; its kind of hard to describe.
As far as balancing goes, I find most things are balanced pretty well (at least at my current level of skill, hindsight included). It is difficult but not impossible to scavenge most of what you need to enter into more dangerous areas, but usually you are missing at least a few important items unless your really taking your time; so you often have to have a kind of reactive playstyle, which I like. I also really like that despite the importance of items, things are still mostly skill based; my best run by distance was one of my worst runs by loot. It really feels like there are multiple viable strategies, depending on how you choose and play your cards, and I love that.
I've given some thought to what makes the game difficult. I haven't been able to figure it out exactly, but I think it has a lot to do with the balance between food and medical resources, and the kinds of playstyles each enable. For example having a lot of food and water allows you to play slow and recover naturally from injuries, which is often more efficient than using medicines, there's also a nice interplay between the law of diminishing returns and the snowball effect: needing to heal a twisted ankle is far better prepared for by having apple juice and a burger than by using a whole bruise kit that could be far better spent elsewhere, and this logic applies generally to non-lethal injuries. Contrary to the previous point, having a lot of medicine allows you to move quicker and loot more aggressively, with a small risk of critical injury that is just about liveable but will use up most of your resources, I also tend to find this playstyle makes my character more unhappy over time. This breaks the gameplay up into at least two main phases, "caution mode" for conserving medicine, while depleting food; and "looting mode" for restocking food and medicines at an elevated risk of using up medicine. Knowing which mode to be in at any given time, I find, is the main challenge of this game and produces a large number of very different ways a run can go, depending on how you handle your situation. Since figuring out this by trial and error was a lot of fun for me, and this was the knowledge that won me my first "run", I figure this is the core gameplay loop, but there's definitely more going on than that as well, more subtle interactions I haven't quite mastered yet.
I've seen others talk about game being too dark or too difficult to traverse. I didn't experience these things as walls or downfalls but just as being part of a rather steep learning curve, for example by run 20 I learned that its far better to explore in open areas, even if there's an increased risk of falls, because there's less digging involved and you cover far more ground. I can see how these things could become frustrating, but I think that just puts this game into a category that leans into sharp learning curves, and there's definitely an audience for that. I never encountered anything that felt unfair or immersion breaking, which is the main thing. I would encourage people to play the tutorial though as there's important mechanics that you can't really afford to skip learning
Regarding the individual balance of items. One thing I've noticed is storage is non-negotiable. I generally mandate my character have at ~10 units worth of storage, preferably high durability storage, before I even consider entering the lower levels. Most items in the storage category are useful to some extent, though the ones that attach directly to the body are by far the best. Initially I struggled to find any storage items at all (except for one hilarious panicked attempt to remove a grav bag from my inventory that ended in gory death) but traders are actually a fairly reliable source, and that gives me a reason to overstock on certain things with the hopes of selling them in early levels; which is good I think. Some item prices are interesting, as there are several items I consider too heavy to carry long distances (and thus lower value) that nevertheless fetch a high price (mostly tools/yellow blood bags), however sometimes that gives me a reason to go for these items whereas I otherwise wouldn't. Overall, the requirement for storage forces me to scrounge around and gather more items so that I can pawn them for better stuff later, and this feels very in-keeping with the spirit and atmosphere of the game.
As discussed before I think most items and mechanics in the game are balanced once you get a knack for it, with the sole exception of infection. I think I've died to most things that you can reasonably die from (at least once), but never really have I had to fear infection, and I don't prepare for it to any extent. Notably, its far too treatable, and compared to the other dangers little more than a relatively minor concern; and largely that comes down to the abundance of light fruits. I wouldn't like to see less light plants around (they add to the atmosphere if nothing else), but I think they should either heal infections a fraction of the amount they do now or cause extreme pain as a consequence of doing so. Functionally speaking, their relative value needs to be massively reduced for me to begin to consider other solutions; if infection is to be a serious threat light plants need to be worth less than alcohol or bleach, two items I consider very low-priority when deciding what to keep and what to discard (notably, they are very heavy, and don't really do a good job of treating infections relative to other countermeasures, though they do fetch a price that can make them at least worth holding onto). Also, different types of and more dangerous infections would be a fun thing long term, though that's obviously a bit more of a request. On a slightly different but similar note, I haven't really found a use for fluid drain, I'm assuming that I'm missing something or that it has a planned role, as I never really find myself being significantly hypervolemic, either way it seems a little redundant
Creatures/enemies are decent, I have plenty reason to fear them; I'm curious whether you plan on adding more though. I know I quite like when enemies are few and environmental hazards are great (in most games), but that's a personal preference, that said if enemy density is increased, there may need to be more and weapon options to combat them, also adding more enemies would increase the relative value of certain tools and caffeinated foods (I didn't mention this but I've found colas and coffees to be an extremely useful and rare survival tool, used the same way as and on par with life support, its the closest I've found to a "life hack" in this game). Maybe I just dont use tools enough. Most of them are quite heavy though and I only use them in the early levels.
That's pretty much all I have to say about balance, generally speaking I think almost everything in this game works extremely well at present, I've just tried to give some constructive criticism in a couple places where I think the creative vision differs from the present mechanic. Below I'm just going to list some specific thoughts I had while playing about specific items, but that's more or less the gist really.
Dynamite: seems useful in principle, in practise, far too dangerous for my blood. I think I played around with it twice, in fairness it was hilarious carnage, but honestly the blast radius is just too big for me to feel comfortable using it at present. I thought perhaps it could be changed so that the explosion is smaller and more manageable, but the stick had a small chance of exploding if you fall while holding it; that would keep the danger whilst enabling a bit more control. I may just have skill issue also, I've only used it twice
Light: generally I haven't had an issue with visibility or lighting in this game (if I carry light fruit with me), but perhaps some of the other light sources should be buffed in respect to light fruit, as the only light source I consider better than light fruit is the light bulb. Lantern and emissive crystal are far too heavy, rose petals are great but could last a little longer
Crystals: probably too heavy for what is offered, oxygen and blood crystals could do with a weight decrease, soothing crystal however is balanced if not a little OP
Devices: the two main non-tool devices I've used are the structure scanner thing and the digital watch. Structure scanner seems good though I think I remember it being somewhat low durability, but digital watch? clock? (cant remember) should definitely attach to the body in the hand slot, also perhaps a tad heavy considering it only really offers QOL, though is quite a fun item
Life support: seems to have a redundant durability meter? Not sure if its supposed to offer less support for low durability, I didn't notice any difference between a fresh one and a 35% one
Bicycle helmet/Balaklava interaction: balaclava incorrectly renders over top of bicycle helmet, not that this really matters
Jetpack: it is fun, but it feels somewhat incongruent with the rest of the game and goes against the established gameplay mechanics. Could be fun as an endgame item. In either case, has way too high durability for what it offers.
These were all my thoughts, I am really hoping to see this game get popular, I definitely wont forget it and hopefully others share my positive experience. I'll try to support this project monetarily to the extent possible, so this project can be developed more easily into whatever it wants to be, I'm curious to see where it goes. Regardless, I'm certain this has an audience, and I'll try to tell others about it where I think they'll be interested.
