Wilderless: Meadowfell

It's a bit jank to be charging for it in its current state. Menus overlapping each other and unable to be closed, character models freaking out when changing genders or clothes, and customizability that borders on overwhelming insanity. A lot of these settings should be set by the developer and never touched again by mortal hands. I appreciate the inclusion of a reset button for the quality settings, but I spent entirely too long digging thru menus looking for a single setting that ended up not even being included (camera sway while idling). While looking for it I was initially impressed by all the options, but then the menus started cannibalising each other, and, well.. It's also very clearly a mobile version port, the way the camera and cursors behave. It's got a really good base and I'm sure the gameplay is fun once you get into it but I couldn't even get to what I wanted to do (dragons!) before the pre-alpha-feel of the game made me not want to play anymore.

So I really love this game, along with the original Wilderless. What's different from the original is that Meadowfall is littered with windmills, tree swings (awesome) and little houses and barns that you can enter. You can sit in the furniture (one I found even had a bathtub so I took a bath after so much adventuring), turn on lamps, lights, etc, open the wardrobe. I'm still figuring out the gardening system and trying to figure out rivers. I was stalked by a chicken in my first few hours. If you turn on the experimental sky skrall (spelling) you get a giant...long, bug thing that flies around making whale noises and has no regard for personal space. I love the ents, the weird little veggie creatures, I can spend hours just wandering, changing the weather, etc. Since I'm chronically ill, housebound and don't have days where I can or want to do much, this has been a wonderful escape. There are glitches (as there are in a lot of games) like ruins in odd places or barns that are half in a hillside, but I take them as hilarious, surreal and they don't really detract for me. Just be careful if you get to the edge of the world, things can get weird! If you are someone who just doesn't w…

How is something so simple made so sloppy? It's just...poorly made. The procedural generation doesn't work well, the character's movement is bad to the point of being unpredictable, and nothing looks good in motion. It's just poorly and carelessly crafted.

I wanted to like this but for a game that bills it's self on exploration and pretty areas there's almost nothing in the game. I got to possess a dragon almost immediately (very cool) but promptly got stuck on a house. There are 3 types of buildings that I saw, a farmhouse, a farmhouse with a barn and a windmill. There are no cosmetic changes to them. They're literally all identical from the outside. Can't recommend this.

I am thoroughly impressed by Wilderless: Meadowfell. In many ways, it reminds me of the early beta versions of Subnautica and No Man’s Sky—back when the appeal was less about player-driven objectives, crafting systems, and progression, and more about simply exploring the potential of the world(s). Meadowfell is relaxing, peaceful, and customizable. There is a good number of options for shaping the procedurally generated world, with a somewhat smaller—but still appreciated—degree of customization for the character. One can essentially shape the pre-existing fantasy landscape to better adhere to player preferences and then simply... wander. There is something refreshingly experimental about the whole experience. Rather than constantly asking one to accomplish something, Meadowfell seems content to provide a world and let one decide what makes that world worth exploring. It captures that wonderful early-access feeling (despite not being an early access game) of discovering what a game could become, while also being perfectly enjoyable as a peaceful exploration experience in its own right. That said, the experience will not be for everyone and leave many players with a sense of sta…

Overall decent! There are some bugs, like terrain generating oddly, but it can be pretty comedic at times. I also enjoy how simple and straightforward it is, a simple exploration game. You have the power to shapeshift, the flying controls are a little odd but not awful (in my opinion) and there's also building that can be done. Overall pretty good game!