izigame.me

Well, I've put a little over 8 hours into the game by now, and until 1 hour ago, I really wanted to give the game a positive review.
That changed because suddenly I'm stuck in an endless death loop and there is no escape.
Without posting spoilers, I got to a part where you need to hack a computer to activate a pump, so you can safely leave some subway tunnels.
While heading out, there is a cutscene. As soon as i get the controls back, i have about 10 seconds left before i'm running out of health and die.
I've tried many times to escape, eventually finding enough items to craft medics, but there's no crafting station or camp that I can reach before my time runs out.
Before that happened, I wanted to say that the game has a really pleasant end-time atmosphere, nice graphics, an inviting world design and very decent voice-acting.
Following the story was interesting enough to keep me playing, even if the survival mechanics and wayfinding were annoying right from the start.
The character needs water and food literally every few minutes.
This feels excessive, but if you somehow manage to keep this needy man alive, you'll also have to deal with his declining health.
On top of that, there is radiation in the air. As a result, you will need to take iodine pills regularly and you will also need to scan every type of food and water that you can find, while half of it is radiated and unusable.
Sounds hardcore, right? It is.
Then there are the puzzles. Some are explained, some give you a scheme with no further or helpful explanation. Therefore, you basically try to force your way through it until you solve it, or rely on a guide from someone who also struggled to solve this puzzle.
If that's not entertaining enough, while you're in the puzzle menu, your health / food / water needs keep decreasing. So, sometimes you'll finish a puzzle, but because you took too long, you'll die.
Of course for masochistic people this must be wonderful, but for a casual like me that's hell and certainly not adding fun to the gameplay experience.
It sounds very negative overall, but with a few changes this could be a really nice game.
All the developers would have to do, is add some proper difficulty settings, where we can change the characters needs from "super needy baby" to "regular human being".

Overall, the world design and level of world detail are very impressive, and close to an AAA release. I enjoyed the voice acting, and the storyline and atmosphere of the game made me want to play through it all.
Sadly, Dead Man's Diary's major problem is its excessive difficulty.
The built-in "dynamic help mode" is almost useless when it starts helping too late, or when you're struggling to find resources for a character that seems to burn 1.000 calories and 1 liter of water per minute. The puzzles need some better guidance or explanation.
If the developers add a difficulty setting, I would totally recommend buying it, but not in its current state.