Vantage: Primitive Survival Game

This game is unplayable. Refunded and no, it is definitely not recommended.

Running the game for the first time and trying a local single player game, the local server keeps freezing (or crashing). Watching the server control panel in task manager it constantly goes unresponsive (Not responding). The client agrees. Simply trying to craft a sharpened stone and the server seems to go out to lunch for so long that the client reports that the connection to the server is lost. The server seems to be accessing or writing to the disk constantly and might be the reason for the apparent freeze or crash.

Whatever is being done server side is a very very bad idea and needs considerable rework before this becomes remotely playable. You might have better mileage running on and SSD, I don't know. Even so the game needs to learn about caching.

The concept is sound, but the implementation of many things just isn't there. Even the simplest thing isn't being done such as immediately greying out or deselecting a button after clicking it is not being done. There is no feedback on the UI at all that it has received a click. Just picking up a loose stick or coconut on the ground seems to take minutes while the server 'processes' the action and you just sit watching it with no progress bar or any reasonable UI response.

No, just no way at all can this be recommended at this point in development.

Can't recommend this game as it appears that I am too far away from the game server and I get dropped out 100% of the time with a 'connection to server lost'. No communication errors for web browser applications running when I start, only the game has a problem, AND this is in offline mode.

The game could be good if I could play it, but for now I can't.

The game says it is a 1.0 release but it is an early access at best. I will say it is a good job by a 1 man development team at trying to create a unique game but is not a full release. The crafting system is unique in that parts are categorized into groups and you select the parts base on those groups so that is neat, but it ends there. Combat system is confusing and you can set up traps for animals but if you make it angry then it can ignore everything including walls. Skill system is broken in that the experience for making something is random, and it requires large amounts of points to unlock even the simple items. Honestly lost almost an hour on understanding the tutorials and the main screen is over complicated. Graphics are not good and with the other bugs I wish I had seen a review like this one.

I bought this game because I love open world survivals. It is a little rough in the beginning and takes a bit to get use to the controls and game play but once I got use to it it became a really fun game. It has pretty old school graphics and reminds of of games I played years ago. I suck at reviews

I love this game!!! I would suggest using the tutorial before playing the game. Things are a little slow at first, but after u get use to it and understand the game is about prehistoric man evolving through time, you begin seeing the value of the game, and I hope, enjoy it as much as I do!

Recommending this game just to counter the (mostly unjustified) bad reviews. I find it unfair to give a bad review after not even trying to spend one hour to test the game (which are like 90% of the bad reviews here). Most complaints seem to come from people used to getting silver spooned and not getting it here. If you do not want to keep an open mind for a little different experience than you are normally used to from most mainstream games, better to just keep your distance.

Multiplayer didn't work. Followed the directions in the Steam discussions/forums, which forces you to run your own dedicated server to play, but no matter what we did we could not could not connect or play together. Couldn't connect via the local option either, and also couldn't connect to the displayed official test server. Bought to play together with my spouse and couldn't.

I don't feel like making a full on review so let me speed through everything i've disliked

The map feels so empty, the stamina runs out in 30 seconds, there's way too many rats roaming around, the crafting system is everything but intuitive, the map feels so empty, there's no pig, sheep or cows or any basic animals, but there's all kinds of not-friendly animals like mammoths and foxes?! The game is so inhospitable for building and developping a settlement, theres no flat surface, the world takes so long to render so most of the time you stare at rolling hills of untextured grass or sand, the map feels so empty.

I normally appreciate a good grindy game, but it's just not worth it on this game because i don't enjoy the surroundings.

Pros : The sky looks good

I tried with this game, I really did. I was methodically working through the interactive tutorial one step at a time & I must have been at it for about forty minutes & was still only halfway through the basic tutorial title list. I was trying to learn to drag a banana from out of my hide bag & drop it in the world & found I couldn't do it despite trying repeatedly. I then noticed this particular tutorial alone was sixteen pages long & I wasn't very far into it. The tutorial list I had been working through was also very long & I wasn't anything like near to finished. So I cut my losses & tried to just build a character & play the game. The game wouldn't let me, I just got a message I didn't understand. Apparently, I can only have my tutorial character. It seemed I was in first person & couldn't see 'me'. Then I got sort of tired & a bit headachey. I did get savaged to death by a wolf during one tutorial which I suppose was quite interesting but I felt this game was better suited to those with more life still ahead of them rather than behind them. Hoping now to get my money back.

Where to start? I wasn't sure at all about trying this game. It looked like the kind of game I would enjoy but the mixed reviews, some of them rather strongly worded, and the fact that it is in the early stages of early access put me off for quite a while. So I bought it on sale thinking if I didn't like it or it didn't work properly I wasn't out much.

I like to read the bad reviews of a game to get a feel for some of the problems I may encounter and see if the complaints are actual problems with the game or just personal preference and opinion so I will start with some of those issues.

First, if you are the type of gamer that likes to jump into a game and be the biggest baddest warrior, builder, survivor, or whatever in an hour or two this game is definitely not for you. If you like games where you can walk around carrying several tons of supplies, equipment, and food in your personal inventory, forget it. In this game even if you have one of the containers available at the start of the game you will only be able to carry a few items at a time. If you don't have the container(s), you will carry one item in your left hand and one in your right hand. That's it. You also don't learn new skills or advance your characteristics (strength, wisdom, dexterity, etx.) very quickly. It takes time just like real cavemen would have.

The Ui is not very user friendly. Some things I think (hope) the developer will change. Like starting a solo game. Right now it is rather more complicated than I think it has to be. Right now you have to choose multiplayer or solo game, choose a server (yes you need a server for a solo game), create an account, log onto the server, then you can start the game. At least a solo game shouldn't have to be that complicated. I've played other games that required a virtual server for solo games that weren't that complicated.

There are some other issues that I'm sure will be addressed by the developer. Such as crashes during the tutorial due to losing server connection. If the server is on the player's computer how can we lose connection? So far it only happened in the tutorial, not regular game play.

The crafting interface is rather awkward but I'm not sure that can be changed considering they way crafting works. You don't just chop down a tree, get logs, then make planks, to build things like most games. The player needs to know what they need since wood can be cut into several items (small, medium, large sticks, and logs) and each larger item can be broken down to the smaller ones right down to making tinder from small sticks. Various things you craft will need one or mare of each type of wood. You can see the crafting tree is very in depth with a lot of detail. It also takes time to learn the skills to make more complicated items. It also helps to have some real life knowledge about the world. The first thing you should probably do is make a sharpened stone, or two. But you can't use just any type of stone. Limestone or sandstone won't work. Think flint or obsidian for sharpened stones. Edit: I just succeeded in making sharpened stones from sandstone. Either I didn't have the skills or a proper billet to do it when I first tried.

Another thing people complain about is the enforced permadeath. Yep, if you die you have to start all over. It is a survival game after all, if you die, you lose. When permadeath is available as an option I always use it in survival games just for the realism. When it isn't available I usually play under a self imposed permadeath.

If my information is accurate this game is an effort by a single person developing the game. Checking the update history indicates that updates have been pretty consistent at about one a month, sometimes more often, sometimes slightly less. I believe the developer is dedicated to this game and will see it through.

My Personal Experience so far:

I spent probably and hour or so in the tutorial. As mentioned the game did crash a few times during the tutorial which can be annoying and if you have a low frustration tolerance may discourage you from going farther. Part of my problem is that I am just a slow reader and there is a lot of reading in the tutorial. If you take the time to do the tutorial I does a fairly good job of explaining the mechanics of the game even though there is room for improvement.

The first time I started a game I let it drop me into a random location. Big mistake, it dropped me on an island in the frozen tundra with absolutely no food to gather. Snow covered land, mammoths, rabbits, trees, and shrubs. Being new to the game I had no clue what to do so I used it as a learning experience. Did a little exploring, tried various things, checked to see what I could and couldn't craft. Then decided to start over.

So at the time of this writing I have nine hours play time according to Steam. In my new start it has taken me several game days (a few real time hours) just to get a primitive fire going. Be prepared to fail on crafting attempts. Just like real life the first few times you try to make something it will probably not work. But we learn from our failures and it is the same in the game. Each time you try and fail you gain experience and can be better prepared for each attempt and gain more skill until you succeed. I didn't keep track but would estimate it took me about 5 or 6 attempts to get the fire going in between gathering and making the tools I needed to do it.

In summary, if you are looking for quick advancement and immediate gratification give this game a pass. But if you have the patience and determination to survive a more realistic situation I would highly recommend it. I haven't gone far in the game yet but I am looking forward to what is to come.

What a waste of time and gaming effort. Starting tools do not last through the first craft so you are stuck with no tools and no item and no way to make a new tool. try to build a fire with your starting items and your item (most likely the stick) will wear out before you get a fire so you have to make a new one which uses up your sharpened stone knife, Funny how a small wooden rod just destroys a piece of stone. s there you are you finally get a fire built but you had to use up your sharpened stone and alas there is no way on this planet to get another, or even find a piece of broken rock with a sharp edge. There is an elusive, mysterious and magical item in the game called a billet that is needed to make any sharpened stone or bone tool, problem is you cannot find one. it is probably crafted in a forge of some type so forget about crafting one folks. Would figure the designer would have at least made it possible to keep playing but after over an hour of looking for one I gave up. Tried several different combinations of charachter equipment and abilities and all ended up at the same result, no tools to do anything with and character left with no tools to scavange for food and water, what fun!!!!

To be fair, I only played the game for about 7 minutes. That said, 7 minutes is as long as I could convince myself to play. Normally, I like survival games. I especially like primitive or medieval survival games. I might even have liked Vantage... if the controls and interface were streamlined in any way, shape, or form.

When you start the game, you are taken to a giant, 90s style windows clusterf*** of textboxes, dropdowns, checkboxes, buttons, etc. It really does look like something from the late 90s, just really awkwardly colored. Want to play single player? First you click the single player button, which starts a dedicated server. Then you have to create an account with yourself, with minimum password requirements and the like. Keep in mind, the steps for all of this (and everything else) take place on the same giant clusterf*** screen I mentioned above. Anyway, then you can play.

That's when you get to create/choose your character. I won't get into this system, since I did not spend much time with it. I will say that the mechanics of it are not well described, though the developer did seem to make an attempt here.

Once in the game itself... WASD moves you as you'd expect. But your mouse? Your mouse just moves a cursor over the screen. If you want to turn your head, you need to press the middle mouse button to switch modes. Now the real fun begins. Let's say you want to pick something up, like a stick. You have to stop what you're doing, press middle mouse again to get the cursor back, move the cursor over the stick, click on it, find the menu option for "pick up", click on that, and then... "your hands are full". Are you serious?!

That's where I quit and requested a refund. Like I said, I did not spend a lot of time with this game, so take this review with a grain of salt. Still, so much yuck so early in the game is a good sign of things to come. The intro and early game is your only chance to rope players in. If you use that opportunity to repel them instead, IMO you probably don't know how to craft an enjoyable experience.

For an Early Access game it doesn't look half bad. If you purchase this game you will need to have a lot of patience as you will die very frequently as you read through the tutorial. You have no inventory, no starting gear besides an apple & a chunk of wood in each hand with no clear tutorial as how to even eat or use them. In my honest opinion the entire tutorial needs to be completely rewritten in layman's terms (dummy) so even I could understand it. You click on a tree wow a thousand items show up yet you can't pick up a single thing??

Yes the game is a grind, as many RPG's are. However the complexity of the grinding and using the various skills and improving them afterward is an ongoing reward for the work. Where I think this game differs from most RPG's even at this early stage is in the depth of the skill/craft progression, an attribute the developer shows every sign of continuing. It takes many hours of working on wood, stone, bone, hide, brushworking skills to rightfully feel I've earnt the crafts that are available already and I'm very much looking forward to seeing where he takes the game further. Hunting and fishing skills improve with use, "Yahoo, I can one shot a wolf with a sling now", and it feels satisfying to know that I can now make a fire in one try nearly every time, its not so easy at first. Add to that a very large world to explore.

In short this is very good, relaxed and varied "grind" with appropriate rewards thats already good for an enjoyable few days play. The developer listens, is very dedicated and I am very sure this game will only get better.

Vantage Review

This may have taken the dev 10 years to get to this stage but I do not intend spending 10 years trying to progress in this game. It is such a grind, 35 hours in and I can still only carry 1 item in each hand, Someone says they like grinding, this is definitely the game for them.

I have a few recomendations to improve the game, I understand it is very new and in alpha and would like to assist the game to prosper. The controlls can be a bit confusing to start with (right mouse button to jump e.c.t.) which can be a bit confusing to start with. I understand this reveiw doesn't talk for everyone, but as an old fashioned gamer, I recommend sticking to the basics for simplicity (e.g. space for jumping).

I also recommend making the inventory system easier to control, I completed the tutorial and still found it troubling to equipt any weapon.

Again I understand that this may not be a shared oppinion but I beleive this game has a lot to offer and I completely reccomend it. Good work devs and keep it up.

So far, I've just gone through the tutorial and wandered around a bit, crafting a few tools. I really enjoy the detail involved in crafting. This isn't a game of quick progression where in a couple hours you're making towering walls and fancy houses. There's other nice games out there for that. What I appreciate about Vantage, is the realistic detail that is just deep enough to make it complex without ruining the fun aspect. Of course, there IS progression but I think it's properly earned.

Other aspects of the game are touched on by other reviews, but particular one I very much like is that the dev tells us this is a large world. I hate small play fields. Even if I never see a large part of a world, I like knowing it's there and can go there if I want. Now that I'm talking about it, I think I'll become a nomad and see how big this world really is.... see ya.

Don't judge the book by it's cover. It's Xsyon Prelude meets UnReal World in 3D. Yes, the graphics are not from this decade, but who cares, this is deeper than Mariana Trench. I don't even care about PERMADEATH. All I want to have is enough players to have community to play with.

So, this once appeared on my Steam Discovery queue and it was added to my Wishlist straight away based on my love of Early Access survival games. When launch day came I snapped it up and jumped in with great expectations- I was immediately disappointed. (Ensure you read further to see why I was wrong about that!)

Firstly, compared to more modern survival games such as Ark/Stranded Deep to name but two, this is far from beautiful and reminded me graphically like many games I played long ago (something I expected based on the Steam video footage). Visually, it’s almost quaint in a way and not a deal breaker as long as the content & playability was good...

I played offline single player for an hour and slowly worked out how the menu systems worked as they were not very intuitive. I had little to show for it except a few sharp stones and a few gathered bits of wood. Hang on I thought- just how long is this going to take me to build the other things I saw in the video? I saved my progress and went off to play something else with more immediate rewards.

But then I read more on how the developer has pretty much single-handedly crafted this game (and even the engine it runs on) for over a decade, originally starting on his Commodore Amiga which is a gaming platform I also shared. That’s some dedicated commitment so was I missing the point when being disappointed? Were my expectations entirely misplaced? The game sat there in my library like an itch I needed to scratch for a few days so I got stuck back in. And then the penny dropped. I had to put aside my comparisons to other survival games that are becoming ten to the dozen- This is not really a game at all- it's a labour of love on the whole principals of a dumb caveman that slowly and surely gains skills by repeating and refining skills at many basic tasks and learning new ones- almost a simulator if you will.

I have played (offline) for just 7 hours now and sure, I have crafted basic things over and over, but my skills are increasing and each time I level-up my skills I unlock a new crafting recipe & it feels like a genuine achievement. This game is getting its hooks into me. I got it all wrong with my initial expectations and I get it now. Evolution does not happen quickly.

The depth of resource harvesting is superb- even a humble tomato is complex, containing flesh, water and seeds that can be individually collected. Cut open a coconut, consume the flesh and water, then carry this to collect small resources like herbs and spices from plants. Kill a rabbit- sinew, brains, blood, meat, hide, and bone can all be extracted one by one. This game has REAL depth. Pretty much all the crafts and animals also have some tooltip text explaining the background/history of their importance. This game has some genuine thoughts and research going into it that makes it quite unique.
The game features character Perma-death, so you are not going to be hunting Sabretooths right away, in fact you are going to need to steer clear if you want to live! The game also includes a points system. You gain points based on your character progress, to use when you create a new custom character after death with better starting abilities and skills. That’s a good feature!

So, do I recommend it? Absolutely yes if you want to while away the hours in what’s actually a relaxing environment and slowly progress to greater things but come forewarned - you will not be a "high level craft-master” in a weekend. Given it’s playable online or single player, you can achieve this by looking for tribemates to team up with online or just play on your own and save progress each time you finish. If you are looking for something with immediate return and instant action then go elsewhere, but you may be missing the point in what this game is offering you and just maybe - a real gem!

I'm not going to list Pros/Cons for this game as I think the above review explains that the whole concept of the game could be seen as either of these, depending on what you look for. Do just consider this- if the Dev put that amount of time into making it, does it not deserve your attention- knowing in advance that great things take time to achieve?