GamesSurvival & CraftingIn this brutal Lovecraftian survival game, my entire village was wiped out in the time it took you to read this sentenceWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesSurvival & CraftingIn this brutal Lovecraftian survival game, my entire village was wiped out in the time it took you to read this sentenceWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Walking Tree Games)
Things are going great for my ragged little Stone Age tribe. The population is growing, we’ve got lots of food from hunting, and I’m slowly but surely expanding our camp into new regions to find more resources.
Best of all I’m taking care of my villagers' spiritual needs, and watching them dance around their shaman’s hut to lessen their fears and replenish their souls in this dark and uncertain world is a genuinely uplifting moment to witness.
Then one night the big campfire at the center of the village abruptly goes out. Looks like I built too much, too quickly, depleting my wood reserves, and now there’s nothing left to burn. No big deal, I can just wait a few seconds for someone to cut down another tree. Right?
The goal is pretty clearly stated in the title of survival settlement builderThe Tribe Must Survive, but so far my tribecan’tsurvive, at least for very long. My current record is just 17 days before I goof something up, my campfire goes out, and everyone is dragged off into the woods but whatever the hell those things are lurking in the darkness.
It’s brutal but I kinda like it. I’ve never seen a Lovecraftian take on the Stone Age, and I’ve never played a settlement-builder where the end can come so swiftly and surely. In Frostpunk, the generator at the center of your city can fail, but it’s not like everyone immediately turns into ice cubes. You can run out of firewood in games like Farthest Frontier or Manor Lords, but the cold won’t instakill the entire population before you can direct someone to chop down another tree.
(Image credit: Walking Tree Games)
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Luckily, starting over again after everyone dies isn’t that much of a chore. Plop down some lumber camps, a stone pit, a hunter’s hall, a few tents, and your new tribe can be back up and running pretty quickly. Besides, failure has its benefits. Each time your tribe perishes from the unseen slithering horrors, your progress is calculated: how many villagers you had, how many resources you gathered, how many days it took before you completely botched things and let them all die horribly.
(Image credit: Walking Tree Games)
That score is translated into XP, and when you reach a new level you begin with some benefits, such as starting with an abundance of rocks and a modifier to stone gathering time. Your previous colossal failure means your next go will be a bit easier.
At least in theory. There’s all sorts of other dangers in the world, like in another session when an eclipse occurred. That meant less daylight and a greater chance of shadow monsters eating someone, but that was just one problem. The eclipse also scared my villagers so badly they wanted to start voluntarily throwing each other into the dark woods to be sacrificed, or at least start chucking our food supply to the monsters in hopes it’d hold them off. Things went downhill pretty quickly after that.
It’s the rare game where repeated failure doesn’t make me want to play something easier.
It’s the rare game where repeated failure doesn’t make me want to play something easier.
Another time a strange vampiric tribe of plant monsters appeared and asked, quite politely, if they could drink our blood. I agreed to their terms because at least they asked first, but it may have been a mistake since it left more than half of my tribe extra sleepy and slowed them down so much that, yes, I once again ran out of wood, the fire went out, and everyone died. Note to self: don’t let vampires drink from you.
Maybe I’ll eventually get better at this? At least it’s the rare game where repeated failure doesn’t make me want to play something easier. The combination of being sure I can do better next time, along with my curiosity about what lies deeper into the world, keeps me coming back for another try.The Tribe Must Survive is 20% off on Steamuntil June 6, if you think you can keep your stone age crew alive for longer than I can.
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