Forager

 

Release: 2019

Developer: Hopfrog

Publisher: Humble Games

Gameplay Stats: 47 hours, 103/103 achievements

Visuals: This game is pretty cute! It's got a 16 bit aesthetic roughly. Definitely lots more style than was available back in the day, but that's roughly what you're looking at. I do think the graphics are a strength of this game. The characters, monsters, items and most everything look like they should. I think they could've done a bit better with the magic rods, they don't really show what they do in any way, but that's just in I'm nit picking. The large majority of the items in this game are ingredients for crafting, so I suppose there isn't too much to actually communicate?

Audio: The music in this game is pretty nice! I enjoyed all of the tracks even though I did start to listen to other stuff over it after a point. The sound effects though are pretty bad. Even some of the tips videos I watched for the final achievements were talking about how muting at least the sound effects was a necessary step to completing the game. They just repeat so quickly and grind into your enjoyment of the game. I didn't really have a problem until I was at the end of the game when the machines were all spouting out items often with all of the slightly different pitched squeaks. YMMV here for sure.

Plot: ? No plot here. Just build/craft and watch the numbers go up.

Gameplay: I enjoyed the first bit well enough, but by the end I was extremely ready to be done. The game keeps the loop almost exactly the same throughout the entire game which I found frustrating. It doesn't particularly grow in complexity, you will just use different buildings to craft your items which I didn't find to be enough of a difference for me. I will say, I enjoyed the puzzles that were in the dungeons! That is definitely something that I can give a thumbs up for. I wish there were more puzzles, like way more puzzles. The game has a rudimentary physics/chemistry engine with the ways that elements/ingredients interact and I would've liked to see them use it more.

I think it's natural that I compare this game to Terraria because that's the only other crafting focused game that I've played, and I've gotta say this came was found to be wanting. I think this game is more expensive than Terraria and also less fun. There are more puzzles here for sure, but there is also more of a grind in my opinion. I don't think I would recommend this game. Not that it's bad, just that others do it better. I am excited to see what Hopfrog makes next though, this game definitely showed a lot of promise.