Stranded Deep - Preview

The Robinson Crusoe/Tom Hanks Simulator

Prequel –

Here I am, sitting on a plane to my important overseas business meeting, enjoying a nice cocktail that I made myself through the crafting introduction tutorial when all of a sudden a large chunk of the plane suddenly explodes and I find myself taking a salty bath on the ocean. Swimming out of the burning wreckage, I climb into an inflatable raft just as one of the engines explodes, knocking me unconscious.

Day 1 –

I awake to find it is morning and I am adrift in the ocean. All I have on me is my lighter, pocket knife and a bottle of water. I see an island in the distance, so I grab the paddle and make my way towards it. I push my raft ashore and explore my new surroundings. There are some bits of barrel and other debris around, not much I can use, but there are plenty of rocks and sticks. I smash one of the rocks against a tree until it breaks, splintering into some useful sharpened rock shards. Using one of these I hack some Yucca plants to use their leaves as useful binding. Together, with some sticks and shards, I fashion a crude axe and chop down some of the palm trees on my new home. Not only can I then chop the tree up into sticks, but it drops coconuts which are a good source of both food and water. My survival watch, which I wear on all my overseas business trips, tells me I’m getting hungry and the coconut isn’t satisfying. I search the island thoroughly and collect all the rocks I can find and build a campfire with a cooking spit. I rip up a potato plant and am rewarded with three juicy potatoes. I stick them over the fire and enjoy some baked potatoes for dinner.

Day 2 –

I find a shipwreck near my island that looks like it has been there a long time. I dive down and search it, only finding a soggy roll of duct tape. When I surface, however, I realise I’m not alone. A particularly hungry looking tiger shark is circling around me. I swim as fast as I can, narrowly avoiding a set of hungry jaws. Seeing islands in the distance, I get in my raft and paddle for some time before reaching the new island. It was much further than I thought and it’s already getting late in the day. There is lots of wreckage on this island. I find a pair of binoculars, an oxygen tank, a part for a boat engine and another pocket knife. I load up on rocks until I can’t carry any more and start the long paddle home. The full moon begins to rise over the horizon, it’s reflection beautiful in the calm ocean.

Day 3 –

Starting to feel starved, I fashion a spear and hunt some crabs that I share my home with. I cook them over the fire, but they’re not very filling. I go swimming and find some sardines that aren’t much better, but swimming out a bit further I find some beautiful blue tropical fish, an Angelfish I think they’re called. I cook the Angelfish over the fire and happily chow down its much larger portion. A few moments later, I feel very unwell, and promptly start vomiting everything I had eaten. Perhaps Angelfish aren’t so good for eating. Ill with fever, I try to build a shelter so I have somewhere to rest. Using my crude hammer and all the sticks I’ve got, I build a foundation, some walls and a bed. I use the last remaining coconuts to try and replace the fluids I lost in my last vomit before going to bed for the night.

Day 4 –

I feel even worse today then yesterday. Horrible blisters are all over my skin and my survival watch says I’m not looking so good. I need more wood to finish my house, but my supplies are low. I paddle to another island I can see in the distance and collect as much wood as I can carry. An overturned ship has a fuel can inside, which isn’t much good to me. Unfortunately, while I’m here a heavy fog rolls in and I can no longer see the way home. Stuck here, I set up another camp and a quick shelter. I’m disappointed that all my tools are back home except for my axe, which I brought to cut down some trees. I have to make everything from scratch again.

Day 5 –

I can barely move I’m so ill. Survival watch tells me I’m in dire straits and that I need medicine. The fog has cleared, so I begin the long trek home. It seems to take forever, but half way there, a storm rolls in and the rain falls hard. My island disappears from view and I’m lost in the middle of the ocean. I can see two sharks swimming around, knocking my raft in an attempt to knock me out of it. I keep paddling in the direction I think my island is and it finally appears through the rain. I use the supplies I collected to put a roof on my hut and I boil a bucket of water to make it drinkable. I lay down at night to try and sleep off the illness, but it doesn’t look good.

Day 6 –

I wake up feeling awful. I take a few steps before my heart gives out and I collapse. I die alone on a desert island somewhere in the Pacific, all because of some bad fish.

Death by Angelfish.

Stranded Deep is available for Early Access on Steam for $14.99 USD. It’s a well developed survival game that challenges and punishes you. There is a lot of trial and error to it, as you might have realised from my fishing exploits. There are antibiotics in the game to cure poison, but I hadn’t found any by that point. At the moment, there is no ‘winning’ the game, just surviving is challenging enough. Also, killing a shark is the crowning achievement for any survivor. So far I’m 0 for 2.

Review: Reach for the Sun

The last few years have seen a surge in ‘simulation’ games lately, ranging from dating to driving. Reach for the Sun is no different, but instead focuses on the delicate process of growing a plant. Remember Farmville? It’s basically Farmville without the micro-transactions and mass timed crow growing.

Each plant varies in size, hardiness and cost of growing new parts.

To be fair, it’s not like Farmville at all; in any way whatsoever. Reach for the Sun starts you off with the humble Sunflower, a little sprout in the ground. When part of the plant glows, you can click on it to collect resources. Roots collect water and a small amount of nutrients while leaves do the elaborate process of photosynthesis and convert CO2 into starch by using a little bit of water in the process. You’ll use these three resources to grow your plant, adding more roots or growing your plant taller with stalks and leaves. Eventually, you’ll grow the resource-heavy flowers and you’ll need to get them pollinated. Once pollinated, you can transform the flower into precious seeds which act as an in-game currency, and you’ll do all this before the cold embrace of winter freezes your plant into an icicle.

Sometimes you’ll have insects which you need to scare off or kill by repeatedly clicking them, blight-stricken leaves need to be pulled off by clicking and dragging and leaves frozen by a sudden cold-snap need to be rubbed warm by clicking and rubbing with the mouse. That’s pretty much all you’ll do; clicking, lots of clicking. Growing your plant is a coordinated clicking affair, and you only have about ten minutes to get your plant fruiting before winter.

Other than the initial synopsis, there’s not much more to this Plant Simulator. There are four plants to grow, each with increasing difficulty. There is a small shop where you can spend your excess seeds on the four ‘upgrades’ which are simple things like more regular watering or fertilizer for additional nutrients. I completed the entire game, achievements and all in a mere 72 minutes and for the $10 price tag, despite the good quality I felt significantly disappointed by the quantity.

The design is pretty and it plays ok. I had repeated issues with my clicks not registering on several occasions, especially when the game got busy late-stage. This was a real pain since the earlier you click on a glowing root of leaf the more resources you get from it.

Overall, it’s a new idea and it plays well enough, but the price tag is too high for such a small amount of content. Otherwise I would recommend Reach for the Sun as a fun casual filler, and who knows, maybe you’ll learn something.