NEO Scavenger
NEO Scavenger is a turn-based, post-apocalyptic, survival roguelike with perma-death. I also now sometimes fondly call it a Procedural Death Michigan. It’s mean, immersive, annoyingly addictive and seems to strongly dislike players wearing right boots (left boots are fine).
Basically, you scavenge around (and die after the building crumbles on you), fight other people scavenging around (and die valiantly with monkey wrench in hand) or try to talk to them (and die a turn later by drinking a celebratory made-it-through-the-turn sip of poisoned water), try to kill creatures that would like to eat you almost as much as you’d like to eat them (and die hungry), craft items to help you survive (and die warm because your fire alerted every deadly thing around), keep track of your hunger, thirst, diseases and injuries (and die very informed) or try to get to the seemingly last big hub of civilization (and die trying to get there; or trying to get in; or after you get in; or on your way back out).
– Real player with 389.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Survival Turn-Based Games.
Picked this up on a lark, as I am heavily into survival games lately. I was hesitant due to the low res, pixel graphics, but man am I glad I took a chance on this!
What stands out immediately is choice and consequence. You can’t have it all. You have to build a character with weaknesses, and weaknesses can just be not having some of the skills you might like to have, or it can be actual weaknesses to give you points to get more benefits.
You might take Fragile for example, making you take more damage than normal if you get hit, and you might do this because you really want the points it gives you to take Trapping so you can make fire right away at the start of the game.
– Real player with 168.4 hrs in game
60 Seconds!
“60 Seconds!” is one of many survival-types games, that are currently available on Steam. The biggest problem of this genre is the fact, that these days, each survival game seems like a copy of a previous one. “60 Seconds!” does not have this problem - although not without issues, it manages to stay unique, engaging and addicting.
Gameplay is split into two parts. First one is time limited (60 seconds) and is based on finding the right items, that will help you to survive next few months that your four (or less, depending on your choices) characters will spend in the bunker. Second part is basically text-based, you’ll make decisions regarding your items and situations, you will also manage your food and water. It’s not only about keeping track of your supplies, so your family has something to eat (that itself isn’t easy, but it’s definitely doable). Even if they are well fed, they still may fall sick, run away, not come back from expedition or loose their minds.
– Real player with 12.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Survival Dark Humor Games.
You are Ted: loving husband, father of two. You lead a lovely, peaceful life with your family until the nuclear apocalypse strikes. Now, you have 60 Seconds to decide what’s important enough to bring into the shelter with you… and survive as long as possible.
60 Seconds is not quite what I expected it to be, though in all honesty I’m not sure entirely what I was expecting of the game, but it has its charm still.
It is, in its core, a survival text adventure with some mild dark comedy thrown in. Yes, there’s a part that’s kind of action-y (the initial 60 seconds of it), but it’s played for such small amount of time it’s hardly noticeable, even if the contents are quite relevant to the development of the story.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Sheltered
I have updated this review after I tried the release 1.0 version. My verdict is largely the same.
The game has definitely improved since my impressions from Early Access, and can, if the developers keep improving it here after release 1.0, in time have enough gameplay to make it fun (not quite there yet). At the moment it has some flaws that makes the game unbearable to play for me.
No in-game pause:
One big flaw is the fact that this the inability to pause in-game.
This is a game about survival where you have to manage a lot of things that constantly degrade and break down and the more people you have and the bigger your shelter gets, the more this will require your attention. Sure, it is no problem at the start, but it quickly becomes a problem. Many of the things require attention fast and especially when a lot of things are happening at once does this problem really show itself. Only way to pause is by going to the options menu where you can’t see nor interact with anthing. It is unnecessarily stressing and just makes you frustrated in stead of adding anything to the game.
– Real player with 103.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Survival Base Building Games.
Sheltered is a little bit This War of Mine, a little bit Fallout Shelter and a touch of… something altogether different. All in all I really enjoyed this game and felt like I really got my monies worth. I picked up Sheltered during a Humble Bundle survival sale but I would have gladly paid full price for it. The following is a detailed summary of what Sheltered does well and a couple small areas where it falls a bit short.
Graphics - I list this first because visuals are highly subjective. I loved the retro styled pixelated graphics of Sheltered and often found myself impressed by how well the minimalist graphics were able to convey the gritty emotions of a post apocalyptic world. For some this visual style may be a turn-off but I recommend giving the game a chance anyway.
– Real player with 54.8 hrs in game
Lost Scavenger
How long could you survive in a parallel universe where the Mist dictates its rules? Would you be able to find the way to your homeworld, or will you adapt to live under the Mist domain? Fight for resources, get together with other survivors and discover the secrets of this world. This is your story.
Lost scavenger is a hardcore game about surviving in an open world that is overrun by the Mist. You play as an ordinary guy from our world that has fallen into an anomaly and found himself in a world that has been haunted by the Mist for the last 30 years. How far could you make it in a dying world in which every step may be your last? Would you be able to find the way to your homeworld, or will you adapt to live under the Mist domain? Fight for resources, get together with other survivors and discover the secrets of this world. This is your story.
Features:
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Unique world. The postapocalyptic world shrouded in impenetrable Mist. Small anclaves of survivours are scattered around what has left of the world. Do you have what it takes to find your path through all this?
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Active pause. It triggers after your every action so you can thoroughly read your surroundings, make assessions and plan your further actions.
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One life only. Your characters live only once. If they die, they die. Game over. And yet, it is a cruel world you’re going into, and nobody says that you can’t expose your companions and sacrifice them in battle to save your own life!
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No grind. No character leveling, no skill trees, no EXP whatsoever. Instead, you have to learn to play better, use your strengths and compensate your weaknesses. Git gud!
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Randomly generated world. Different biomes, weather conditions, anclaves and quests make every playthrough unique.
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Immersive simulation. The narration is dynamic and depends on your world generation settings and actions that you perform in that world. Every playthrough is a new story. And it is not necessary to follow the storyline: you can just wander around the world to try yourself!
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Virtues and flaws. Choose what you’re good at and what you’re not every time you start the new game. Unlock new traits during your adventure. New traits will give you the access to new abilities and dialogue options!
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The vast crafting system that lets you experiment or craft unique items from recipes that may be found throughout the world.
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Battles with a wide range of tactical techniques.
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Realistic damage. Creatures have a complex damage system, including locational damage, bleeding, painkillers, infections and aggravation.
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Realistic metabolism: fatigue, hunger, dehydration, hypothermia, diseases, intoxication.
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Mutations: characters affected by the Mist might get their limbs or organs mutated, which will grand them unpredictable effects.
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Realistic inventory. A complex item management system with both weight and volume limits forces players to carry only what is most necessary to character’s survival.
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Hexagonal map. Travel through ruins, hills, forests and plains on a hexagonal map. Direct visibility, altitude and daylight affect the viewing distance.
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Settlements: meet other survivors in their enclaves. They may provide food, rest and medical care. If you have something to give in return.
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Scouting: use your gear to explore your surroundings.
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Stealth tactics: search hiding places, use camouflage and ambush your enemy.
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Hunting: hunt wildfowl for food and fur, or hunt down big ones for rare ingredients.
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Use your lockpicking skills to open stashes with precious loot.
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Foraging. Search for edible plants and water sources, and use special skills to determine what is safe to consume.
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World inhabitants AI. Everything on the map lives its own life. Creatures wander around, gather resources, hunt each other or gather into packs to higher their chances to survive, which means a great danger to the player.
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Dynamic weather: daytime cycle, temperature, precipitation - and all of that depends on a season. For now, you always start in the middle of the autumn, and if you’re strong enough, you will be able to live until winter.
亡命尸潮惊魂夜 Escape Zombies At Night
Very good
Get on sale
– Real player with 7.7 hrs in game
Awesome imo!
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
Ashwalkers
Updated for Steam Nominations 2021
As mostly first person shooters player, i sometimes enjoy switching to less intense indie games. Ashwalkers would be one of those.
For me this game became liked a moment i saw it on store. Mostly because of character design and story setting, which is surprisingly similar to one i’ve wrote a couple of years ago. So far this is the closest thing to what could be called “dream game”.
As the gameplay is not challenging, it requires player to calculate their movements since “survival” part is taking an action. Game itself is user friendly, player just need to get used to visual narrative and simple controls.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
For those looking for a game akin to the choose your own adventure books of old, Ashwalkers is phenomenal. Decisions require careful thought be put into them, and the game rewards reading into the choices and texts. Some of the choices endgame that determine the endings felt a bit arbitrary, but after having at least gone down the three main endings (that each have at least 12 permutations) twice I can say I had a fun time for the price of the game.
That game while short does its best to make the time spent feel much longer than it is between the unique art style of both the world and its inhabitants, and the survival mechanics of the game which help add a needed sense of weight to the smaller choices. I had fun carefully deliberating on if I wanted to risk losing one resources for another I was in desperate need of. On repeat runs however this meter watching quickly begin to feel monotonous.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Atomic Cards
Some of the reviews for this game are allegedly fake. I am here to provide an honest review from a layperson who enjoys card games, roguelites, and roguelikes. This game is decent; however, I will hesitantly give it a thumbs down because of the lack of options. Be aware of the following… Firstly, this game needs a seizure warning; some random events cause the screen to flash in all sorts of colors. There is a lot of needless clicking; you will be clicking boxes or crates several times, providing either food, medicine, or ammo. There are no volume controls or any options, honestly. This is likely due to the engine used to create the game, which the developer mentioned in the community forum. (https://steamcommunity.com/app/1701140/discussions/0/2954915322322930678/ )
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
The game in its genre (card RPG game), in my opinion, is very good. There are many different characters, constant events and complex moral choices that will definitely not let you get bored.
– Real player with 4.0 hrs in game
Erzurum
In short - a quick and dirty ripp-off of The Long Dark - about 5% of the fun, it only deserves 5% of the price also.
Its only WASD - no directional key control remaping except for looking around…I don’t like or use WASD controls..also there is no strafing.
Made in Unreal engine with so many bugs I thought it initially must be a Unity game.
Very large single map (maybe too big?) - will take long time to get around. Graphics always popping in right in front of you. Nice looking environment but weather is terrible at best - its like someone turned on the snow or off again - its instant with no warning and too simplistic. My own game is far better than this.
– Real player with 28.6 hrs in game
Played enough to complete the main story, not really interested in the other game modes (Kill 20 bears in 24 hrs, survive 7 days -25 degrees Celsius) where it just feels empty. Visually, it look great, especially the high-res textures, which almost make the environment seem real enough. Once you go third person, you realize the dev is using a character model from one of their other games. Main character doesn’t look horrible, but definitely does not fit with the game, looks like the guy from The Division with that iconic jacket he wears lol. The survival aspect felt okay for a game this big. By the end was able to stay warm using the best animal pelt I had found. I really did not have much trouble at all with food or water, for it was everywhere, though by the end I started to worry about not being over-encumbered. Seeing the other games the devs have made, this one seems like their best one in my opinion, I suppose it captures the Turkish feel(never been there), and the high-res textures really made all the objects pop-out(the assets placed all over the world, I mean). Overall, for a small-time game, this is good for killing the time and enjoying the environment when there’s boredom in the real world. Edit: hope the devs can make a game better than this in the future.
– Real player with 8.1 hrs in game
Final Days
I have been an pre alpha tester of this game and personally know the developer so please keep this in mind when reading my review.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the testing of this game. It is a simple game mechanic and style that is done very well.
It’s multiplayer is of a very high calibre and I have had some awesome moments while playing with larger groups doing silly things like charging into a room together then relaising how badly you are out number fleeing and closing the door behind you with other members of your team still in a room with a horde :)
– Real player with 26.3 hrs in game
Game is entertaining, stable, and well-done for a solo developer. Music is good.
Multiplayer hosting requires a bit of extra work to set up (uPnP or port forwarding), I can see this being a problem for some, but if I managed to do it, you probably can too. Community is rather microscopic, but the bots are actually quite decent. [EDIT: See developer response 25 Jun 2019; Thanks Mike!]
The game is not very expensive and there’s a free demo, so no reason not to try the game at least.
I’m partial to Last Stand game mode, given I like games like Nation Red and Versus Squad, but the other modes are also very good.
– Real player with 18.6 hrs in game
I Am Alive
Like a flawed masterpiece, I Am Alive delivers a fantastic post-apocalyptic experience.
Set in the fictional town of Haventon, a catastrophic series of earthquakes, followed by the advent of a thick ash cloud that took the name of “the Event”, have left the whole place in chaos and it is up to the nameless protagonist to go and search for his missing family, one year later.
Anticipating The Last of Us’s release by roughly a year, this game tried to create the former’s depressing and realistic atmosphere, while combining it with Prince of Persia’s parkour platforming, succeeding in some areas and failing in other.
– Real player with 33.3 hrs in game
A rough hidden gem.
(I beat this game originally on the PS3)
Okay so it took Ubisoft: Shanghai 6 years to make the damn game and the age of it is immediately apparent.
When I first laid my eyes on the game I could not believe the sight - the graphics were so horrendous that I died a little inside. I went on to adjust brightness and contrast to no avail; I could barely see any difference or improvement. The anti-aliasing in this game is about -2x or -4x, that’s right MINUS. The jaggies are all over the place. The water is a mess. The textures are also extremely dated. I can’t take screenshots on my PS3 (I could if the game was on Steam thank you very much) so I started taking photos with my phone and sharing it with my friend. He could not believe it either. Call me a spoiled PC gamer but the graphics really killed off a portion of immersion for me right off the bat. The graphics are below average, I am sure most console gamers will agree with me.
– Real player with 12.0 hrs in game