November 30, 2023 - Day 334 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 353

Game: CryoFall

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 30, 2021
Installation Date: Nov 30, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 61m

CryoFall is a sci-fi themed 2D top-down survival game.

Realising that I'd not made a dent in my unused Steam keys this year, I picked an interesting sounding game at random, and installed CryoFall.

Lots of times this year I've had difficulty defining a game, CryoFall made it easy for me. If you've played Minecraft, Rust, Valheim, V Rising (grrr), ARK Survival Evolved, or Fallout 76 the game mechanics are fundamentally the same.

The main difference is that unlike those games, which are either first- or third-person, CryoFall is the first time I recall seeing this gameplay in a 2D environment.

I don't remember seeing the technology tree model laid out quite as clearly or extensively as CryoFall does it, which extended my playtime, but it actually helped crystallise my thinking regarding survival games.

Almost all of the games I listed above have less than three hours playtime, except for Minecraft, and Rust (neither of which I play now).

The gameplay model scratches an itch in my brain for a little while, then it doesn't. The game also has online PvE and PvP modes, but I played it solo to explore the game mechanics.

I generally lean more towards PvE multiplayer games; particularly when the game is a huge timesink like a survival game.

If the game is PvP-oriented, it's worse; returning to V Rising a day later to find everything I'd built completely destroyed? It ended any desire to play again.

What I realised is that if survival & base-building is part of the game, building towards a narrative end goal (eg. Fallout 4), or a win-state, I enjoy that element of the game; when it's the focal point of the game, without any further purpose, for me, it fundamentally becomes work, and loses purpose.

As a survival game, CryoFall's 2D environment offers something a little different to other survival games, but it's not a something I see any long-term playability in; as such, it's (just barely):

3: OK

#CryoFall #2D #Survival #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay