So I stumbled across this game on Itch; decided to give it a whirl.
Despite it being an early version, there's still plenty to cover! For starters, the character creator is really thorough. Despite the limited number of styles, you can mix-and-match different fur patterns to get tons of distinction. If your particular about it, you can easily sink thirty minutes into getting the look to your liking. It's well done! I'd only ask for even more customization options in future builds.
Difficulty settings are also a nice touch. I appreciate that you can customize item scarcity and tweak the mobs.
The story is simple so far. Some of the player character's dialogue is wonky, but it's otherwise fine. I didn't go into the build expecting Shakespeare.
Controls were overall pretty good, and keys could be reconfigured to my liking. There's so many options for mobility. You have your standard walk/run, crouch/crawl, run-jumps, dodge (which is a front-roll), and the run-jump-dodge. That last one is really good for getting over yellow slimes. Having a light and heavy attack also comes as appreciated, breaking up monotony. The only move I didn't utilize was the block.
Combat leaves much to be desired. There's no ranged weapons, like a bow, guns, or even the ability to throw the stones you collect. Weapon balancing is another issue. For example, the Machete (which is super hard to obtain/craft, requiring three different stations and five iron ingots to manufacture) is terribly underpowered for the amount of effort you put into making it. It only has +12 attack damage. Compare that to the Chef's knife, which you can find easily in any fruit shop; it has +14 attack damage and is lighter too. The Machete should be sitting at something like +20 attack damage, and be the best weapon in the game. That would incentivise players to want to go through the trouble of obtaining it.
Mob balancing is also hit-and-miss. I like the slimes the most; they're the most balanced enemies in the game. The only compaint with slimes is that the pink slime doesn't have an extra capture animation like the green and yellow ones. Darkwolves are super easy, even on very hard mode. I can kick them and they'll run in the opposite direction; I'll chase and kick them to death with no repercussions or the AI even fighting back. Sometimes they'll run to the other end of the map, and the process repeats until they die. On the other hand, the Goatmen are crazy hard. Even when I'd try to be sneaky and crouch, these mobs would still confront and attack me. If I fight, they soak up slashes like papercuts, never tire and keep on coming. There really needs to be a ranged weapon option in order to deal with these guys, otherwise I run past them/avoid their buildings on very hard mode.
The UI is easy to read. Though there didn't seem to be a use for the off-hand in this build; I'd try to put my tools in there to no avail. Maybe in a future build, the off hand could be used to hold your pickaxe/axe? That way I wouldn't have to open up my stowage inventory and character inventory, and switch back-and-forth between my weapon and tool while I'm in the forest; I could utilize both hands at once.
Crafting mechanics are pretty good. The only thing they need is the ability to change the number in your item stacks; like taking a full stack of twenty then cutting it in half or toggling to pick up/drop off one at a time (similar to Minecraft). I tried doing that, but there doesn't seem to be a way to unstack your items outside of using them.
Now onto the glitches. Starting with visual; even though my character has a missing eye, the eye would reappear as orange during 'capture' scenes with mobs. If the character is pregnant or otherwise has a swollen belly, when a capture scene starts, the swell will be gone. My character's hair would also stutter back-and-forth as she ran. When the character would turn from one side to the other, the heterochromia would change. In other words, she'd go from being blind in her left eye, to being blind in her right eye.
Gameplay glitches regarding User Interface; my character appears to be permenantly pregnant. There's two status effect boxes for the same effect, "Growing Belly - Lvl 3". Yet there's no status box for pregnancy (despite the character stats UI showing "fertilized!"), nor does any other status box appear. If I eat a nutritious food that would normally give me an effect, that effect will not show up in the UI, even if my character is still affected by eating the food. The same can be observed in the heat cycle. My character is also permenantly in heat, with no cool down. When I use the anti-heat pills, they work, but the UI Status Box doesn't show up.
When reloading my game, the timeclock will sometimes stop. When this occurs, food and water deplete rapidly. Attempting to sleep in the bed does not correct the issue. Sometimes, the time clock will sporadically jump a dozen hours forward, showing something like 36:12. Only after either my hunger or thirst deplete to zero, does the glitch seem to subside. However, eating back to full hunger and thirst stats seems to retrigger time to stop, and once again my hunger and thirst bars will rapidly deplete. Exiting and reloading the save doesn't seem to fix it. The only way the glitch ends is to wait it out, as far as I've been able to tell.
Some items became glitched too. Cornocopias and Energy Drinks can be used infinitly to restore hunger/thirst. I currently have those two items in my inventory at like -135 and -57 respectively. Energy Bars and all the pills are glitched in a similar manner too. But the best part is that these glitched items can be exploited to increase carry weight. The more negative Cornocopias I eat, the more wood logs I can carry, with zero of the regular penalties.
When I get knocked down by an enemy now, there's no way to get back up. I have to wait for the enemy to grapple my character. I can also no longer win a struggle QTE, despite having enough energy and getting the bar 100% filled. This, in large part, is why I find combat untenable.
If my character's healthbar reaches zero, my game softlocks. Brings up a blackscreen with white text that says "128 min have passed", and no key I press can get the screen to move past that. The only way I can get out of it is my hitting the main menu button (the menu comes up, but it's invisible), then using audio ques and slowly moving my cursor up until I reach the main menu button, clicking that and slowly drifting my cursor until I hit the audio cue for the confirm button, and then I can reload the save from the menu.
I once built a wooden storage box, using a stack of ten wooden planks as part of the parts. Despite the recipe only calling for six wooden planks, the game consumed my entire stack anyway.
The park key you retrieve in the town duplicated in the main house upon reloading the game. This is after I had already used it to open the gate.
To be completely fair, many of these glitches started appearing well past day 7. My save is currently on Day 14 with the time settings maxed out for 96 minute days. I've put eight hours easily into this build. Even though the game has rough spots, I still think Global Mutation has a ton of potential to be really good! And I look forward to playing the next build!