Slice of Life

For how cheap this game is. And the simplicity of it.
Its not, not worth giving it a go. Go for it. Quick story, achievements are simple to get.

So would I recommend this game? Maybe? Depends on the person. If there was a maybe I would check a maybe over a yes.

I honestly really don't know why this game has the hate it does, people are really being harsh on it based on this concept that the "controls suck", so I wanna talk about that. . .I gave the game a chance despite the mixed rating and I'm really glad I didn't listen to the reviews. . .

- the controls themselves:

the "controls" are not bad, I'd say they are actually quite good once you get used to them, they make the deer's movements feel more weighty and complex as opposed to the usual "press forward and you win" sort of ordeal, I never had a problem with them once I got used to it, I think it just comes down to people forgetting this is a deer, not a call of duty action hero human, the controls function just fine although a bit of a tutorial wouldn't have gone amiss to help people get used to the movement, what people are trying to refer to is the game play. . .

(by the way Mr dev, real quick, the one thing I really did not like was the lack of a pause button, the escape button just quits back to the menu upon touching it, that is not good, and if you get time I would implement that)

- The game play:

the game itself isn't about surviving, it has survival elements but I found those to be actually not as impacting as it would be in a survival game, though I would say I feel the water meter does drain a little bit too quickly, and if I was to implement this I would make it so when you run out of food/water it starts taking away your health, not instantly killing you, it would give a more sense of urgency and a little more time to obtain resources, wanted to address that since a lot of reviews mentioned this and it is a little unclear from the store page what this game is, I will say the description could do with a little bit of info about that, since it does lack in that department.

the platforming itself is some of the most fun I've had for a long time, when I fucked up, 9 out of 10 times I felt it was my fault, I was going too quickly or I wasn't aiming the jump properly, the only issue I had with this was that the area where you do a full jump vs where you jump straight down was a little bit poor, my deer kept "jumping down" instead of across in certain areas where jumping down was the worst possible move, a little advice would be to programme it so the deer doesn't try to jump down if there is no reason to, as in nothing but a death trigger at the bottom, the only area I really had a problem with this was in act 4, the part after the green and black wolf where I seemed to keep falling off that rock because of this area where they jump straight down instead of across.

The combat I really don't like, it felt clunky, I feel like this game could have benefited more from being a stealth sort of ordeal, being a very young deer combat shouldn't exactly be your forte, but it is possible in this game to run away from nearly every fight and there were bushes that you could hide in (more about that later) but if you do choose to engage in combat in this game, unless its a single animal attacking you it really felt like RNG whether or not you win, especially in the caves the spiders really do gang up on you, and they can be quite tanky (the big spiders and the black spiders come to mind here) and you can kill a group of them before they kill you but it really felt like luck.

Another thing I do not like about this game is how it does not really tell you much about what to do, I did not figure out there even was a sprint option till act 4, the game does not tell you that you can hide in bushes, it's a thing you haft to figure out for yourself by random chance you notice things stop chasing you when you enter bushes, I never got lost in this game apart from 1 time, 1 time I usually blame myself so it's no biggie there since the map is quite linear and guides you pretty well.

each level had a different challenge to it too, which kept the game play fresh, the only section I did not like at all was the sky act, where I died the absolute majority of times, where there was that one spot with the clunky jump mechanics and that invincible wolf, I didn't mention that, there is an invincible wolf that chases you at the begining of the level, the game doesn't really mention it's invincible, it's quite hard to tell actually, and I spent an hour trying to kill it or to get past it, before I figured out you could sprint, looking back though it didn't tell you how to sprint and I thought the untitled controls it shows at the beginning of the act were showing you you could attack left right and behind now, there were also 2 parts of the game where your objective was to find a lost animal and bring it back to it's parents, which was a fun change and also worked into the objective on one of them, also a nice reminder of your own objective to find your own parents.

- The design:
I'm a sucker for more cute designs so this might be a bit biased. . .
I really like the art style of this game, I never looked at anything and thought to myself "that looks ugly" with the exception of the level limits, but we will get to that in a second, I wanna talk about the positives first.
the art style is akin to more of a blocky, simplistic and cute style of expression as opposed to the usual HD texture, and it actually really works, on top of that the animations for the deer moving, the jumping, idle, eating and drinking animations are all really exceptional, it made them feel like a real deer as opposed to a block you move to the goal.

the map design itself really could be better, most of the map design is really good and works well with the art style the developer appeared to be going for here, the only thing I really do not like is the level limit walls, they just feel too out of place, vertical, unnatural, and didn't work well with the rest of the design, it is, however my only real complaint in terms of the map design, there is a lot of versatility to it throughout the game as well, every level had a different theme and it kept it quite fresh.

- The sound:

the definite weak point of the game was the sound design, I'm aware it can be challenging especially when you don't have access to a lot of resources, but I haft to address it and say it felt like it wasn't really that great, there is 1 damage sound per animal and it gets repetitive very quickly, there wasn't really footstep sounds, the music is decent but there could have been a few more tracks, not really much in terms of environmental music.

- The story:

if you played this game for a rich lore story you will be disappointed, this game doesn't have much of one, it is more akin to a single objective story is not important kind of ordeal, the only objective is to find your parents after you get separated following a volcano eruption, for a game of this type I am not expecting a LOTR tier high density story, but I felt like it was lacking, however I will mention it did not ruin the game for me, story is not required for every game as long as there are other elements to back up the lack of a story, however at least the main character has an actual motivation other then "wanting to do the right thing" he wants to get back to his parents, that is motivation enough for any character to advance.

- Conclusion
for the low price of £3.99 I will say this game is more than worth it, it's a fun game, the negative reviews are mostly from people who really don't like the controls which yes can be subjective but I really don't think they are bad at all, I enjoyed them personally, it's a fun indy game and I would recommend scraping out your pocket change and giving it a go.

Although the animations are nice, this is less of a platform game and more of a "will you stop doing that, I didn't tell you to do that" game. you fight wolves, but the combat is just clicking. the platforming is basically you seeing how close to the edge you can get before the deer commits suicide by jumping off.

like why is it that for large section of the game, your only choice is to sit there and click to kill enemies. you fight a wolf pack? can't outrun them, they'll stunlock you and kill you. your only choice is to try and click faster than the ai

Great little platformer/adventure game. Just the right amount of jank for a good time. AI was bullshit, but that's par for the course.

I love the premise and the graphics, and really took an interest to the story (I want to know where we go next??) but the game's controls make it SO hard to enjoy this game. It wouldn't be so bad if they remained consistent, but it is extremely difficult to get past anything that involves jumping, as the timing seems to change. I can be in the exact same spot, and I will not be able to make a jump I could make before. Aiming also seems... Off, as attacking/jumping changes the direction (and not in a consistant way)

It's a shame because this is the sort of game I could really get into, if it would let me play it.

I don't think this game deserves all the basing it gets; its true that the controls are a bit unusual, BUT after you get used to it its pretty easy. After I first cleared the game I started again just to get all the achievements, and I got through the lava region in a few mins without dying even once. It seemed laughable how lame I was with the controls at first, lol.
Later on I got stuck on the magic wolf stage for a while, until one of my friends highlighted to me that you can use sprint from that point on (somehow I didnt get it until then). Finally with my sprinting powers I bashed through all stages and finished the game pretty fast.
I think it was enjoyable and cute with all the adorable help-other-cute-animals stuff, and the graphics are great! It's kinda sad there are no walkthoughs about this game, i think it would help a lot for players that got stuck on an actually easy stage, because they didn't get one of the hints / controls. I collected some tips about the game, which is alltogether great!


Tips for y'all peeps (i didnt get some of these at first):

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GAME TIPS, MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS
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- There is a way to help every lost / trapped animal you find
- You can count how much hp your enemy has left by their sounds; wolf dies in about 2 / 4 / 6 / 10 kicks (for boss), spiders about the same (not so sure about this anymore, after you nail the controls you win almost every fight so you dont really count the wolf-whines)
- Enemies (except hunters/hunting dogs) are restricted to a cetain area, if you leave that place they won't follow you
- You can get in anywhere, you usually just have to kick down a fence / tree (S + left click => kick backwards); note that you cant kick down spiky stuff that hurts you (but there is one spiky wall you can kick down ;) )
- Hold right click to sprint (you can only use this after you meet the first [green glowing] magic wolf)
- Your jumps are easier / longer if you use sprint
- dont fight the magic [green / pink glowing] wolves / electric balls, just try to run around them
- its pretty easy to run aroud magic wolves if you wait for them to sit / lay down, they stand up pretty slow (if they even bother to)
- yep, that super-big electric ball kills you, you dont have to check
- in the spider cave you can kick down (at least one of the) wooden walls
- to get through snowstorm, try to walk forward from your starting point and youll get there pretty fast

GG done, had fun, 10/10 would try to get through magic wolf through 2 consecutive hours without sprint again

I thought this game would be a simple cute game, but instead the controls are horrible, it's hard to move the deer around, in the woods with the wolves the camera angles are just blurs and it's more flustrating then relaxing, extremely hard to find water and food and rest areas, I like challenging games but this is way beyond. waste of money for me, uninstalling.

I wanna like to this game so hard since it's cute and I like the idea... but I can't. I don't know am I just so bad at this game but the controls are pretty hard and i've died like a million times. Wolf packs are the worst, I kinda just wanna smash my keyboard to my screen... I might have too short temper for this kind of games. I love the visual idea and it looks beautiful, but the controls and difficulty are just too much for me to handle.

[Tom_Jackson:
I have choosen to delete my original review and make a new one. It was continuing to show my Negative Review towards the game rather than updating and showing that I now recommend this game. If that was how it was for everyone, I wasn't going to allow that to continue to show.]

[My Original Comment was Negative.
"I can't even get passed the first real challenge of getting passed the lava. The Controls are ridiculous. Jump doesn't work when it needs to and turning is horrible. I wasted my money buying this."]

My Updated Review:
Thank You for allowing me to retry the game for free in order to change my original review.

I just recorded about an hour's worth of material towards this game.
In my Opinion: The Controls would be better with an Actual Controller Rather than Keyboard and Mouse, Despite that, I would say that the game has improved incredibly from my Original Review from December 2017.

I'm actually thinking that this game would be a good series for my channel now that I can handle the controls better, All games take Trial and Error to complete a Chapter in it.

I now recommend the game for everyone that enjoy beautiful graphics and scenes through out a game, as well as to those that enjoy a slight challenge with each Chapter.

For an Indie Game that is on the Cheaper Side, This game was beautifully done. I am excited to see any and all updates that you all do with this game.

I am editing my recordings as of this moment to post to my YouTube to show off gameplay for it.

Here is Part One of the Series.
Please excuse the Commentary for this video. Any Future videos, I will be checking and revising the Game's Music prior to going through with the game play.
You can somewhat hear me, but the music and sound effects basically takes over my commentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEF93habHEY&feature=youtu.be

garbage control mechanics, but great art

It's good i like it a lot but boy does it test every bit of patience you have

I bought this game thinking it was a survival game. You know, since the only description of the game is a single question and I had to guess what the game is. Based on the fact that the first patchnotes mentioned hunger, I assumed it was a survival game.

Surprise! It's not a survival game! It's a platformer. A diffiicult one at that. Movements are slow, there's no way to run and "safe" rocks became dead ends very quickly as they sunk into the lava.

5 deaths trying to get to the first "checkpoint" and another 3 trying to get past that checkpoint. I'm done. No thanks. I don't like games with zero sense of progress. Just bash your head against the wall and hope you win! Not my idea of fun, but maybe someone else likes this style of game?

Slice of Life is a game where you play as a Doe who is in a polygamous relationship with two bucks, They all get separated and must find each other all while navigating a lava bathed landscape. You will fight off threats from other wildlife as well as environmental while keeping an eye on your hunger and thirst.

My personal thoughts: The game is VERY unfinished but to be expected as it is a EA title. I got the game because the deer looked cute! the animations caught my eye in the steam store page. I'll be honest the game is not that fun just yet and plays more like a walking sim but I feel like the game could become very good in the future and that's why I have decided to support this EA title by buying it now.

What you can expect from this game:
Calming music/dramatic music(context sensitive)
Lifelike animations.
Dying . . .a lot
some basic platforming and problem solving.
walking aimlessly

i hated this game. i was stuck at the lava for over half an hour., i guess im just not good?

then the update came out.

-updated movement

im now out the lava area <3

thanks for the update made it much better

my playthrough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZdwHxWgFB8

Pretty visuals.
Interesting premise: You are a baby deer with two dads who were slain by a volcano.
Reminds me of Copoka, Firewatch.
Controls need to be tightened up and the bugs ironed out.
Pretty good for Early Access though.

https://youtu.be/pJ0hyEBVndI