Tribe: Primitive Builder Review (Polycount)
Roogun on the forums helped me figure this game out. The thing is it has a VERY specific way it needs to be set up and not much wiggle room around it. It's not explained well in the game but after combing through the forums for a couple days I figured out my issues (see my discussion post "I don't get it" for Roogun's helpful info). All that said and done, considering the price I rather like the game now.
I like having the tribe around to give the game some life, most survival type games are a pretty lonely affair and I find that boring.
That said, this really isn't what I would call a survival game, more of a 1st person city builder. The buildings are pre-made rather than allowing you to design your own setup, but building them I found super fun. Sort of like building Lego.
It's also very pretty and all the assets seem to be hand made rather than buying them from that one company everyone low budget game seems to be buying them from these days. Makes for a real solid and relaxing vibe. Kind of like Medieval Dynasty except on rails with more fun building and villagers that aren't dead behind the eyes (despite not having any).
Previous Review for information's sake:
Pretty, but crap. The production chains make no sense. The point of even creating a village when I can do everything faster alone than through the tedious and exhausting micromanagement completely escapes me. Don't know why this is getting good reviews, it's broken at a fundamental level (of course you don't figure that out until after the refund window).
I don't know how to break this down without typing 3 pages of why it's mathematically impossible to automate any of your production chains, but it's not. You will either have to constantly change production in the menus (with no clear UI element telling you how much you have of everything) or you will have to craft a fair amount of the production chaing by hand (one at a time) and deliver it to each building personally. In the time it takes you to do either, you can harvest more resources your self than the production chain can even produce making the entire concept of building a village pointless.
I guess most of the positive reviews have very little game play. It's fun for the first hour or two but after that the whole thing collapses.