Above Snakes: Prologue

The artwork in the cinematics is nice but doesn't cross-over to the movement of the actual player character which moves awkwardly for human movement. Mostly though, I can't recommend this game because of the writing and logic of the story. What the characters say after the catastrophe does not really align with realism - i do realize it is a fantastic story, though - all the more reason to ground it in realism. And why would the other survivor just stand there and watch the player character rebuild a whole house without helping? That was super annoying. It's little details like this that make me think there are more issues like this in the full game.

Above Snakes: Prologue is a surprisingly relaxing survival crafting game that mixes Wild West themes with cozy exploration and tile-based world building in a really unique way. Instead of exploring a giant pre-generated open world, you slowly create the world yourself by placing biome tiles as you travel, which gives the game a very different feel compared to most survival games. That tile system is honestly the biggest reason the game stands out. Expanding the world piece by piece makes exploration feel much more controlled and rewarding, and it adds a nice sense of progression as you gradually shape your own little frontier adventure. It also helps keep resource gathering and exploration from becoming overwhelming. The overall atmosphere is also very cozy despite the survival mechanics. Hunting, crafting, building a home, and traveling through forests and rivers has a relaxing pace to it, especially combined with the soft visuals and calmer soundtrack. It feels more focused on exploration and creativity than hardcore survival punishment. Being a prologue/demo experience though, the content is obviously limited. Just as the systems start opening up and becoming more interesting…

Game has promise but the controlls suck so bad. like why invent new buttons schemes outside of the norm every other survival game uses. Constantly pushing the wrong button and doing the wrong thing. Like it's almost there but is it on the level of enshrouded? Hell no.

It's a nice little game, you can just take your time and play your way.

Kiiiiind of interesting in that it ties progression to how nice your house is (literally) and the world chunks but other than that it's a standard crafting game that feels like a clone of Len's Island with awful AI character portraits and barks.

Fun and interesting. I had seen it on Kickstarter and have been following it for ages, but figured I'd let it mature before jumping in since I like to be cautious with 95% of Early Access titles. Not to compare it but to give you an idea, it's basically a fleshed out and more playable version of Carto. They've done a really great job with it. That said, I won't go into too much depth because this is only the Prologue (it's free, play it yoursself lol). You get a decent amount of things to do, but you're kneecap'd at very early game...but it's still worth 3 or so hours, or even more technically if you really wanted to. There isn't a time limit. It doesn't give you any idea if it's actually worth paying $32 or not for (which is a steep ask for any game these days, particularly with this genre), so if that's out of your budget range get over the FOMO and just wait for a sale :) It'll always be here and there'll always be sales.