Help Will Come Tomorrow Review (bijou)
An interesting concept, but god knows, this game is flawed in so many ways.
First of all, game designers didn't know where to stop, adding too much mechanics. The tutorial is overwhelming. But even if you figure everything out, some of them don't have much sense, narrative- or gameplay-wise.
First of all, the thing with relationship between the survivors. Most of the dialogues are just don't make sense at all and totally unpredictable. Also, I don't think it matters if you a communist or a monarchist when you are freezing in the middle of Siberian taiga. I used to live north from the Arctic Circle, I know. Even in Moscow, when there's wind and frost, and you are wearing decent warm clothes, you are not going to waste your time if you are cold. And these spoiled characters are not fond of working together because they don't know each other too well or do not like one another. That's preposterous! At the same time, it doesn't look like the camp morale is actually affects something.
Second, when you are making a makeshift thing, the other survivors hate you. I guess, they believe it is better to freeze to death than to make a temporary shelter when you don't have enough materials. And that's lead us to another game design flaw.
You can't use different kinds of the same material to build. Let's say, you need to build a simple cover. For that, you need 8+8 wood, 12 needles and 3 structure. Sticks, branches, split wood, needles and logs provide wood. But you can't mix them. Thus, if you have 7 wood total for each of the material, you won't be able to build the cover. It is even worse with cooking. You have four mushrooms to make a soup but these mushrooms of the same type are split to 2+2 stacks because they have different expiration date and you can't cook them. The funny thing, if you exit the menu for cooking and try that again, they can be available as a stack of 4 mushrooms and this time you can use them.
Another thing to mention is random, and for a strategy game it's a very big flaw. You can't make plans because everything is unpredictable. For example, you need a coal to make an upgraded water filter which is the key to survival. You can find a coal near the train, and it make sense. And usually it's there. But sometimes you can search every cell with the train (and it's 7 cells!), and there's nothing. You are screwed. You have wasted 6 out of 12 points (if you are lucky) almost for nothing. The same goes for the rest of resources. And it doesn't matter what difficulty level you are on. Even the passenger level will drive you up the wall.
Upgrades of the camp are also stupid. You can make a Fence and upgrade it to get Snares and Marked Path. Snares will provide small animals you can cook. Marked Path unlocks an option of gathering brushwood. The problem is, snares can be empty for days. Even if you upgrade them for Advanced Traps to increase the chance. I needed meat to make a bear trap, and I couldn't get it for a week or so. As for Marked Path, usually you need sticks to build something useful, but characters will be bringing moss, cones, bark and other useless sh*t. Do not forget, every action uses at least 1 point out of 12.
Another thing with the points. The balance is awful. You can have up to 3 points for each character. If your characters are thirsty, hungry, freezing, injured or tired, their action points will decrease, and that's a big problem. For example, to build something solo a character should use all his points, 3 out of 3. And some of them has a Lone Wolf Trait. Thus, you can build something for 3 points to get the bonus morale from the trait or spent two points total and lose a lot of morale if you are building with someone. On the top of that, some characters can have Incompetent trait, and they could fail any action, losing points for nothing.
Of course, you can use characters who are getting along pretty well with each other but that's rare. Though you can improve their relationship using Fraternization at the camp. The problem is, this action requires 2 points total. Do you think you are going to waste valuable points to make friends when you are in need of resources? Also, some characters can have traits like Distrustful, Braggart or Humbug, and it is almost impossible to be friends with them, especially if there are two characters like that in your camp.
The art of the game is decent but cinematics are just plain awful. That's not a big deal at all but it feels like devs didn't care at all about these things. That's an amateur level at the very best.
The last but not least. I don't know about the other languages but Russian localization is horrid. For example, your character is bleeding, and the game says to dress the wound. You do that, and nothing happens. You switch to English to learn that you actually need to make a bandage to fix that, and these are two different actions, though I don't believe there's a lot of difference.
To sum it up, this game feels strange but okay the first two runs. But every other try you will get irritated due to the random or the balance.