There are two sides to me.
One: Fuck early access games! 🤬
Two: Aww, this early access game has potential. Okay, okay, okay. I'll buy it. Please don't make me regret this.
Normally I regret it. I tell myself that I won't fall for it again. That it's just going to be yet another unfinished game that languishes in my library forevermore and it's not worth the money until it actually releases as a finished product. But there are some early access titles that eventually make it. My Time At Portia started out in early access and I love it to bits. Raft recently emerged from the depths of early access. Parkasaurus was once an early access title. Vampire Survivors is still an early access game and I swear that simple, ugly little thing is GOTY, by far. There are some that make the pass!
Yes. That up there is me justifying why I have just bought another early access title.
Dinkum.
Second of all, this game looks as though it's totally up my alley. Crafting, building, farming, exploring, building up a town, all the things! The early access reviews talk about how it has Animal Crossing appeal and Stardew Valley appeal, and that is absolutely appealing.
So, with that said and done... let's begin! 😁
The character creator is minimal but good enough. There are several different eye shapes, a few different clothing options, different shapes of noses, mouths. You can choose from a small selection of eye colours and basic hair colours.
I think the character creator could be improved simply by adding more colour options. Purple hair, for example, and more outrageous eye colours for those of us who like to be more colourful rather than normal. In saying that though, apparently a hairdresser can move into your town, as can a clothing stylist. Looking forward to seeing if I can eventually purple my hair!
Our character begins in a cold and grey city where all seems lifeless and bland. Which could explain why my character looks bland and boring too, until presumably bright people move into your town and allow you to snazz up.
An old woman is seeking a companion for adventure. Your character is the only one who dares take her up on her offer and so our new life begins.
When you arrive, you hop off of an airship and enter an untouched paradise.
Kangaroos are hopping around, dingoes are lapping up the sunshine, there is a crocodile lazing in the creek and there are magpies singing. The ambience is on point, the magpies sound exactly as they should and the red dirt and gumtrees that surround you look as they are meant to. Welcome to the outback.
The little old lady gives us a tent with which we're to set up base camp. We can set up camp anywhere on the island and the island is pretty massive.
I'm overwhelmed by where I can go and where I should go even though it's my choice, and simply set up camp near the airship dock.
The placement controls are pretty standard. You can see where you're going to put something before you put it down, can rotate it, if there's something in the way it'll turn red and you won't be able to place it.
It's at this point though that I begin cursing at the camera controls.
There are two camera methods in the options and both are fairly 'meh.' I ended up going with the middle-mouse-button to move it, but it's still unintuitive when you're so used to using the right-click to maneuver the camera. Instead, right-click is to interact with things and to pick up items. I wish I could keybind that to 'e' instead, like in every other game. I very, very quickly went to the Steam discussion pages, saw the dev had written up a 'suggestions' thread, and popped that idea into it for him, coz, dayum.
After reading other people's camera control complaints, I set my camera back to Mouse Always Moves, and checked the Invert Y. With that checked, the camera felt a lot better.
Not the best.
But, better at least.
Right-click to interact instead of 'e' still feels unnatural.
With the base camp tent placed, and my own tent placed right next door, it was starting to look a bit more like home.
I ran around the immediate surrounds for a bit and picked up various items that littered the ground... seashells, logs of wood, assorted flowers and fruits... roo poo. 🤣 I hadn't finished the initial quests yet though so time wasn't ticking and my energy wasn't getting lower. It was time to go talk to the little old lady again.
After talking to her, she gave me a journal. In the journal were milestones I could accomplish, some daily milestones to complete each day for extra rewards, a little pedia of all the animals, bugs and fish I had come across, my current quests, etc. Your basic journal.
When you complete milestone you get something called 'permit points.' At this stage, I didn't know what those were, but I would the next day.
Before I could finish up for the day, the old lady taught me how to make a campfire and I quickly went about creating it.
Crafting is easy enough. There is a crafting table in the base camp tent and as long as you have the necessary ingredients you just press the 'craft' button and away we go.
Once you've crafted something, you can place it down with ease just like with the tents earlier, rotate it if you like, and then, with the campfire, you just put some food into it and once it's cooked it'll pop out, ready for you to pick up and munch on.
As I was cooking some berries, as you do, there was a commotion!
A kangaroo raced past with a dingo chasing it. Curious, I followed the animals and the dingo howled. More dingoes responded to the howl and closed in on the kangaroo and all together they helped bring the kangaroo down. Where the kangaroo fell was some meat. I picked it up, proceeded to cook it, then ate it because cooked meat is far better than cooked cactus berries!
But I was really impressed with the animal AI right there. I was not expecting that. That was great!
To congratulate me on my cooking prowess, the little old lady gave me a bug net in which to entertain myself with for the rest of the day. She also gave me a sleeping bag so I could go to sleep.
It's worth noting that the only way to save in this game is to sleep. The sleeping bag is portable so if you need to save quickly and go do something else, you can just pop down your sleeping bag and go to sleep.
In saying that, it's definitely worth noting that this game HAS NO PAUSE. That was another suggestion I very quickly threw into the dev's suggestions thread. Oh. My. God. I need a pause in my life. I AFK constantly. I'm always up and down and playing for 5minutes then getting up for half an hour. I'm alt-tabbing. I'm doing this and doing that. Nope, I don't close the game, I leave it running ready for my return. I really hope the developer listens and adds a pause because I'm not the only one who has suggested it. Good grief. Imagine not implementing a pause. I understand if you were playing in multiplayer, which this game has apparently, but singleplayer? PAUSE.
After my person went to sleep and summoned a new day, a shopkeeper arrived in his own tent and had a bunch of items to sell me.
He was also quite happy to take all the junk I picked up from the beach on Day One. I sold him all the bugs I had collected and all the seashells and flowers and he happily gave me $6000 for it all. Score! I had money!
Selling things was easy enough. You choose the sell option and simply click all the things you want to sell. They will highlight. If you don't want to sell something, unclick it and it will unhighlight. Then press the Sell button.
Unfortunately I couldn't spend my well-earned money just yet. He sold a bunch of tools, but I wasn't allowed to buy them as I didn't have the correct licences.
I then discovered that the little old lady quite conveniently sells a bunch of licences. All those points you get with milestones, the permit points, are what you use to buy these licences. I only had enough points for one licence so I deliberated long and hard. Finally I decided that I'd like to be a lumberjack first and foremost. Clear the area of all the trees.
I shoved my licence into the shopkeeper's face and he happily sold me the axe at last, and I proceeded to start deforesting the immediate area.
After I cleared a bunch of trees, I thought that I'd go and collect some more bugs. They sold pretty well, after all.
Turns out we don't just catch butterflies in this game. We also catch spiders. And smile about it. Note to non-Australians: IRL, you don't want to pick up a funnel web. You really don't. You certainly won't be smiling about it.
Because I enjoy living on the edge, I decided to test out the fire in this game.
Turns out, yes, running through the campfire will set you on fire. And no, stop drop and roll is not a thing. You have to run into the water and sizzle the fire out.
(Yes, I was trying to place a table-saw. Yes, I wasn't watching where I was going and I ran through the fire. Woops.)
Fishing is definitely harder in this than I thought it would be. A lot of people complained about Stardew Valley's fishing and I thought it was the easiest mechanic ever. Well, this fishing is actually difficult.
From what I've ascertained so far, you actually need to find a bit of water where you can see the fish. Then throw out your line to near the fish. Then as one nibbles at it, you need to time your reels so that you're not fighting the fish too much or you'll snap your line.
So far I have not caught a single fish. I have not grasped this yet.
Exhaustion in-game is pretty good. You do too much? Your energy gets low and your person looks tired, walks sluggish, and pants a little.
But, your energy slowly rises if you don't do anything! And you can eat to restore energy to your heart's content! Kind of. After three foods, you're "full" and won't be able to eat any more. But when you're no longer full, you can eat again. I'm finding the energy and exhaustion done really well. It's not painful at all like it can be in other games where you're out of energy by 10am and just sleep the rest of the day away.
Not an issue in this.
I'm rabbiting on and on. But my first impressions of this game are really good so far. I'm enjoying it.
There is so much more in the game to uncover, an entire township to build up! Farms, houses, street layouts, convincing people to move in, SO MUCH. I'm building this town from the ground up and it might just be three tents at the moment, but it will be more.
Part of me wants to keep playing, the other part of me wants to smile, nod, say, "good purchase," then wait until early access is over just like I did with Raft.
This game feels really polished already. I'm impressed that this is a one-developer game. He's doing a fantastic job and I hope the final product makes him an instant millionaire. It doesn't feel like an early access title, and it feels much smoother and just, better, than many currently published finished games. There are a few things that need to be worked on like keybindings, adding a pause, perhaps adding more to the item descriptions so we know what things are for and what they're worth... but overall, dang. I'm really liking this so far.
You can find it on the Steam Store behind this link.
And seriously, I recommend you check it out. Especially if you like games like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, My Time At Portia, etc. It's a worthy game and I really hope this winds up being a title that excels and escapes the clutches of early access.
If I were a more punny person, I'd say that this game was... "fair dinkum."
Until next time!! :)
Posted from Kaelci Games with Exxp : https://kaelci.games/2022/07/16/dinkum-an-aussie-animal-crossing-first-impressions/