The Forest
Platform: PC/Steam
Developer: Endnight Games Ltd.
Premise: As the sole survivor of a plane crash, track down your son while worshiping our shark overlord and surviving the natives and the island itself.
Release Date: 31/05/2014 (Early Access)
I'll come upfront and say that most of my time in the game has been in the multiplayer mode with some friends of mine, which has its own set of glitches separate from the singleplayer mode. That said, most of these glitches aren't game-breaking, and at least make for an interesting conversation piece around the campfire as you wait for your lizard and generic meat to cook.
The crafting system could use some work in terms of clarity; The Forest is definitely a game in which there is no shame in looking up recipes on the wiki. For the most part, recipes are fairly self-explanatory and there's also a progress meter showing you how close you are to making something, but when you start playing you will spend a lot of your time in crafting wondering what else you need to make something that should be fairly simple.
The base building mechanic is well implemented; using the survival guide, you select blueprints of buildings or traps you want to build and place them on the ground, and a list of supplies you need to gather to build it will appear on the bottom left of the screen. In addition to pre-made structures, there are also a range of custom building features such as individual walls or log bridges. You'll want to build near a section of the map with actual forest in it, as you will end up logging on par with the United States annual production within a few short hours of construction. If you want a log cabin, that's a minimum of 82 logs (more if you want to build it with a raised foundation). A defensive wall around your house will end with you basically committing crimes against nature on a near-daily basis. You'll also need to be careful with how you go about logging, given that natives will notice extensive logging and come to investigate.
The survival mechanics are alright, but at time of writing there is a glitch where if you join someones multiplayer server, disconnect, and join again after they've spent some more time in-game on that world, you'll spawn in dying of starvation and thirst. Starvation is a bit of a nuisance, but it's fairly easy to find food in-game in the form of cooked meat or energy bars from suitcases. Water, on the other hand...water is a different story.
The game does not currently register water, booze or soda being ingested in multiplayer for a few minutes after spawning in. That is to say, it depletes whatever you're drinking without replenishing your thirst. This has led to some...unpleasant incidents with friends in which I, oblivious to this fact, may have drank everything in my friend's base and continued to die of thirst.
This isn't a major issue, as unlike other survival games death is fairly easy to come back from. In singleplayer, you will wake up in a cave after being dragged off by natives and you with get to keep all your stuff (or at least, that's what happens if you die of injuries. Not sure what happens if you die of thirst/starvation). In multiplayer, you will spawn back at the plane with a new player model and can reclaim items off your corpse.
One other thing before I conclude. If you play with friends, make sure they're people you trust. Otherwise you'll find yourself getting really angry at them for being really bad at conveying to you how the game works, and end up putting tripwire explosives behind their doors out of spite from that time that they left you for dead after you woke up dying of starvation and thirst...I may or may not be speaking from personal experience.
In summary, it's a good game and a fun one, but it's far from finished. I'd recommend waiting until it's a bit more polished, but if you think it sounds like something with potential, there are worse ways to spend $14.99.
As always, anyone who wants to share their personal favourite glitch from the Early Access so far, has a recommendation for a rant topic or review, or just wants to say hi, can email me at pressxtoreview@gmail.com
-Harry
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