izigame.me

This game has some problems, but I still enjoyed it. Once you learn the game mechanics and have some patience with the bugs (save regularly!) its pretty satisfying and I loved the setting, especially the ''horrors'' concept. The theme reminded me a lot of the Witcher series, so if you like that you'll probably enjoy this. The village building elements are good, but could be better, same with the combat and RPG elements.
Some points to note;
- I bought this game for €4.50 on a sale and it was absolutely worth it at that price.
- It says I played 61 hours, but at least 10 hours was from being AFK and not shutting down the game. I think the real playtime of the game is about 45-50 hrs
- I bought the Ultimate addition which included the DLC.
- The base game has 10 missions/levels, while the DLC adds a further 5.
Tips for new players;
- When you are building your Gord at the start of the level, remember that you can change the shape. It doesn't have to be a circle. Even though a circular village looks cooler, having a regular boring square or rectangle is better, as you'll be able to fit more buildings, without having to spend resources to expand it.
- A big part of each level is exploring the map to fight monsters and find resources/rare items, while simultaneously building up your village. Keep most of your villagers working, while 3-4 warriors + a scout should be enough to take on most groups of monsters. ALWAYS have a scout with the warriors, as he keeps the darkness away, preserving their sanity.
- I find it best to clear the area around your village in an expanding circle. That way your non-combat villagers are less likely to be attacked while going out for resources. If you have the time/resources, place firefly bonfires where resources are being gathered (at a pond, iron deposit, etc.) to boost the sanity of your workers.
- The game can be paused at any time, so take a moment to check everyone's strengths and weaknesses. Every villager has the same basic skills (fighting, mining, etc.), and they will level up that skill faster or slower depending on their proficiency. Similarly, everyone has a positive and a negative trait which will impact their ability to do things.
- When you get new villagers they are already assigned a role, but you should change them to something else if they are not suited for that job. For example, i freed an axeman with a decent fighting skill, however he was a terrible warrior, as he had the 'weak' trait, which made him bad at melee combat.
- The game will often try to rush you, but if an objective doesn't have a timer, you can spend as long as you want building up your village and/or leveling up your warriors, before advancing the quest, which can make the level much easier in the long run.
- Food is 100% the most important resource, everything else is secondary. Warriors need gold, but if you have a 3-4 group + a scout fighting/exploring, they should easily find enough gold to pay for themselves.
- On a related point, there are some buildings that you basically never really need to use and/or its more hassle than it's worth. As mentioned above, your warriors find enough gold from exploring, so I only ever built the gold mine once, when an objective required it.
- Other buildings serve a particular purpose and can then be ignored. For example, the clay workshop is needed to upgrade buildings and nothing else. Once you've upgraded all the buildings you want/need, you don't need to continue harvesting clay, so just reassign your clay workers to something else.
- At the end of each level you get to select which villagers come with you to the next level. You usually can't take them all and you also get a selection of new villagers to pick from. Look at all their stats to see who is the best.
- VERY IMPORTANT: Your villagers can die of old age. I'm not sure how long the process takes, but they 100% will not survive from being taken on 3 consecutive levels. In one level I had an elite squad of 5 warriors and a scout with rare items, having built them up over the previous two levels. However, halfway through the third level, they all died of old age! So it took me forever to complete that mission as a result, as I had to slowly acquire more villagers in order to carry out the objectives. There is a little icon that shows their age. It goes child - adult - mature - elderly.
- Never select an elderly person at the start of a new level, as there is a very good chance that they will die halfway through. The only exception to this is if they have a certain trait (I think its called 'comfortable with old age') which basically makes them live longer or you've given them one of the rare items in the game that makes them immortal.
- ALSO IMPORTANT! While you can select what villagers you want at the loading screen of the next level, you cannot swap items between them. That means if you don't want to take a villager, but they are equipped with a rare item, too bad! The item will be lost forever if you don't bring the villager with you to the next level. The only way to get around this is to have an idea of who you want to take with you before the end of a level and then make sure they have all the rare/unique items that you want. Then and only then should you do the final objective of the level.
- Items can be instantly swapped between villagers by selecting a villager, going to their inventory and then pressing a symbol to the right when then shows everyone's inventory. You can then just click and drag things over. That way if a warrior finds something that is useful for one of the resource gathering villagers (a fishing rod or basket, etc.) you can instantly transfer it. If you have too many things and want to get rid of something, just click and drag it out of a persons inventory on to the ground.
- In the 5 levels of the DLC campaign, you will have the ability to tame beasts that bond with a villager. Always bond them to your warriors and as long as you are fighting side by side and exploring, they will have a high relationship and won't abandon you.
- These beasts can be taken with you to the next level, but you need to take the villager they bonded with as well. Be very careful, because if they are bonded to an elderly villager who dies of old age, the beast automatically leaves (which sucks if its a legendary Drake, which is what happened to me).
- You are only allowed a max of 5 tames (if you fully upgrade the taming building). If you need to tame something specific for a mission objective, but you already have 5 tamed beasts, you can dismiss one of them by going to the character stats of the villager they are bonded to and there will be an option somewhere to dismiss the beast.
- There are 4 ways to get villagers: 1. freeing them from cages guarded by enemies (usually warriors) 2. finding vagrants just wondering around who join if you have enough food. 3. Random events that give you a high level cutter or miner. 4. A child is born, who after 10 minutes or so becomes an adult, starting off at lvl 1 on all skills. Because of this, exploring the map is usually the fastest way to expand the population.
- If a villager gets badly wounded or loses all their sanity from being in the dark for too long, they will get a negative affliction and will need to visit a Hermits hut (for physical wounds) or a witch's hut (for mental ones). These buildings are somewhere on the map in every level. If you find them by exploring, try to make sure that the way is clear between the hermit/witches hut and your village. Otherwise, if you need to send someone there to be healed, they might end up being attacked by monsters along the way.
Specific tips for the final mission of the DLC
- I got a bug that crashes the game if you run out of food. The only solution is to just prioritize food!
- The starting objectives to build defensive structures is OPTIONAL. Defend the village however you want.