Floodland, the review of a strategist with water in his throat

Strategic video games for survival have always characterized a certain segment of the gaming market. The lure of this post-apocalyptic genre of video games remains captivating, whether for the immense possibilities afforded to the player being called upon to build a new civilization from the ashes of the previous one, or for the possibility of creating thought-provoking and imaginative gaming environments. thousands of fans are ready to try the latest breakthrough in this field. This time, Vile Monarch takes us to devastated realms with a title that will do anything to stay afloat in a sea of ​​competition.

Dive into the swamp with us this time flood inspection.

Causes and effects

Floodland immediately presents itself as a strongly connected game. narrative component. The world as we know it is long gone, grappling with unprecedented floods that have destroyed the last strongholds of society. Years after the Event, our task is to ensure that a small group of survivors succeed in this “new” land. Our “consultant” took us to a place he deems very important. In fact, he thinks there is an extremely efficient, state-of-the-art power plant in the area, and if it gets back up and running it could help us give humanity a fresh start. Once our community is given at least a livable home, the goal will be to seek out this phantom source of energy.

Along the way (or better yet, waterways), we’ll encounter other groups of survivors (who can prove to be both great allies and fierce opponents), as well as a host of information that will help us understand what really happened. It happened at the time of the great catastrophe that essentially destroyed society.

It’s not a particularly intricate or original plot, but for a title like this it’s functional, much more interesting in the story. Relationships between individuals and clans more than a quest to integrate knowledge.

Don’t just survive, thrive

Floodland gameplay puts us in front of various options from the very first moments of the game. First, we need to make a choice clan for driving in these wastelands. Each clan (four in the beginning, but you will meet others during your games) has its own characteristics and, above all, its own worldview. While there are traditionalists who still adhere to “old habits”, there are those who want a new beginning for humanity, far from the decisions that brought the end of the world. Choosing our group, we are thrown into a randomly generated map, which causes each game to look different than the last (obviously, don’t expect big changes, just repositioning points of interest and possible new encounters along the way). The game then follows the standard of the most famous management systems, with the collection of objects and the day-night cycle that determines work and leisure.

Returning to meetings with other groups, the oddity is that you can invite clans you meet to join your community if you wish, but still remain two different community facts. This means you will have control of one or more external groupswill join the one chosen at the beginning and bring a host of bonuses and punishments, as well as different needs and often very conflicting worldviews.

Therefore, we must be careful who we accept into our deal, because in the long run a larger workforce can turn against us and create “unrest” with increased crime and opposition to those making the decisions. (so we).

The situation becomes even more complicated when our community is large enough that we need it. laws for a common and prosperous union. This diplomatic branch is waiting to choose from a multitude of edicts, some of which offer irreversible crossroads (such as establishing a police force or an armed militia). Ultimately, it is the peaceful coexistence of community members, far more than the search for resources and survival, that makes the difference between prosperity and defeat.

technical problems

If Floodland presents itself as an interesting title to play, and it is in many ways reminiscent of another important representative of the genre that has been released in recent years, then Frostpunk (from the trailer to some of the game mechanics, to certain aspects of the artistic style, to the elements) is Piotr Musiał, the composer of the greatest achievements of the Polish team. See the atmospheres of 11-bit Studios are different, including the more concrete use of technical point of view The first critical points come.

Given that the developers have decided to devote every minute before release to optimizing the game and putting in some finishing touches, we’d like to emphasize that what we’ve tried isn’t exactly the final version of the title. However, we have to hold on to something, and what we were able to test first hand left a bitter taste in the mouth (but again, these are all elements that could be fixed with future updates).

First of all, the game was very expensive in terms of hardware resources. Our test setup certainly isn’t the best, but it’s still more than enough to handle such a title at 1080p and 60 frames per second. However, cases of slowdown and poor performance they increased as we progressed through the story, thus expanding our community (and on-screen items). Considering that the highest quality Floodland certainly isn’t a game that amazes for details and visual effects, it’s a fall that doesn’t seem justified, especially with a relevant graphical complexity. We’re in the “partner” area, which is way too good for this kind of strategy. However, performance issues persist even at the lowest graphics quality, so the defect is more likely to be found upstream in the development team’s poor optimization of the game.

The more we expanded our community, the longer the autosaves became (which can cause the entire screen to freeze for over half a minute), our experience was a wave of disappointment and joy as we progressed through the story. These are critical issues that we highlight and undermine our healthy enjoyment of the title, which are likely to be resolved at release time, but for now the painful doubt remains: the likelihood that the game will actually come out in these conditions has improved a bit, but still quite impacted technical problems frustrating to say the least.

voice protagonist

If only the game under the computational aspect convinced us little, branch artistic point of viewFloodland knows very well how to defend itself. It may sound strange to say, but the most visually interesting aspects of the title are probably the menus, screens, interfaces with very specific hand-drawn elements, vaguely already seen, but still characterized enough to be strongly associated with the work of Vile Monarch. .

However, music interpretation, and even the sound industry in general, stands out the most. There movie soundtrack delicate and at the same time exaggerated, even with some original songs specially created, expertly produced and performed for this occasion. Your ears will keep you connected more than anything else to this narrative universe, creating an atmosphere around you that is unique to us, strongly connected to the game, and enhances its hidden (perhaps a little too much) qualities.