e-River Cabin Journal Reviews

What can I say about this game? Definitely worth a buy. I've spend some time learning the ropes in guite a few early runs, but started more seriously at the beginning of summer. That is, durring May as a prospector taking Normal difficulty and Fast-forward option. Propably that's the easiest playthrough you can get. At the time of writing this review I'm well off and ready to survive the winter in all it's glory and peril. Thus I'll be starting anew right now in a harsher conditions (it's Fall/Autumn right now) and maybe as a fisherman. On the plus side, the game is constantly in developement and new content and fixes are appearing. Is it playable? Yes. If by any chance you get a crash or find a bug give a shout on the forum in a constructive way and Dev will gladly fix. The more detail you disclose the quicker it will happen. This Review will be updated with any future playtroughs so stay tuned.

If you're a normal person who plays during the day and can stop and check in often, definitly buy this. If you're like me and can only play at night, or can only spend an hour or two on it, you're going to get frustrated real quick. I knew it was real time, but I assumed that meant waiting X amount of minutes before X task was up. I didn't realize that meant it would be dark in game from my reallife 5 PM to 4 AM. Since I work until 5 every day, that means I essentially can't play this game at all. To be able to advance at all you need to do things that you can only do during the day. I've been drooling over this game for quite some time. I only played a short amount of time so far, since I could do very little in game (it was too dark), but it seems well put together, and it does make you anxious about planning what to do next (Hurry! I want to do X next! or :O A wolf!!? That's just what I need while I'm starving and searching for berries!) I wanted a survival game that puts you in realistic shoes and forces you to go farther than just surface worries and a point and click. I wanted something that would be educational and mentally stimulating. It is. I *don't* like the real time aspect of it. Chances are I won't be able to play this at ALL with my schedule. And a minor annoyance is that when you're 'writing' in the journal, you can't speed up the typing by clicking. I read really fast and it's kindof annoying that it goes so slow. But so far, these are my only complaints.

I really would have liked to give this game/survival sim thumbs up; however, after trying to chop a tree 6 times, and every time being attacked by a bear, whose meat - after I killed it - I mysteriously couldn't take with me, and oh yeah, the wood I'd chopped for a bloody half hour had also mysteriously gone, I called it quits. That's 5 days real time wasted. Also, I have issues with having to choose between a pack wiht a warm coat (I started playing in September - so I start out in September in the game - that means it's cold) or a pack with food. The one leads to starvation, the other to hypothermia, meaning you're too cold to do anything at all anymore. Finding food you can't - you have no skills! Fishing? forget it. It's just real time wasted and another bout of hypothermia. II love the concept; I just got totally frustrated with the unrealistic happenings and the odds so totally stacked against me.

I tried playing this game for forty minutes before throwing in the towel. It has a great concept, but the controls are all over the place. I wasn't sure where I was supposed to confirm, click, or what. There is a semi control button at teh bottom of the cabin screen, but then half the controls are placed around the cabin. Like choping wood...it's at the top of the screen instead of at the bottom with mining/panning. With a better menu layout, this game would be amazing.

TL/DR: If you want a realistic, or even plausible game, this is definitely not it. You'll be attacked by wild bears and wolves almost every time you're going to chop some firewood, that is of course if you manage to avoid hitting yourself in the knee with your axe which happens like 50% of the time. Seriously, this game is balanced so poorly it's ridiculous. You're either a complete moron who cannot use a knife/axe without cutting himself, or face murderous animals which hide around every corner. Summary: I really wanted to love this game. It has many great features and is quite possibly the deepest survival game there is, but the balance is simply ridiculous. Out of around 10 attempts to chop firewood, in five of them my character managed to wound himself seriously, and in four he was attacked by bears or wolves, only ONE attempt to simply chop wood was successful. My character looks like a complete idiot, with an epicly bad luck - being attacked by wild animals every day, when in reality bears only kill around THREE people a year, in the US and Canada combined. Unless the devs can address this, and they haven't in the past two years, this game is simply unplayable. I really wanted to recommend this game, but I truly can't. It's unique, probably the only survival game in which you wait for the outcome of your actions in real time, but this makes it even worse with balance issues - you wait for 40 minutes only to read again and again that cutting firewood nearly killed you. What works: 1. Amazing depth. Even something like lighting a fire allows you so many options: firestarters or matches, add resin, you have to keep the chimney clean, you have to maintain a balance so your fire isn't too large for your small fireplace, etc. With knives you have to sharpen them, clean them, and everything affects their usefulness. 2. A very nice and well thought map of Alaska, offering quite a variety when it comes to possibilities available in each spot of the map. 3. A lot of different items available for your character, each with its use, sometimes many. 4. Quite detailed and realistic fishing and hunting, with many different fish and animals available for you to catch/hunt. 5. A lot of structures you can build to expand your cabin. 6. Prospecting, foraging, gold mining, woodcutting - there really is A LOT to do here. 7. You can trade and interact with other people, increasing the immersion. 8. Weather varies day to day and season to season and affects you in many ways. You really need to plan your moves, equipment and clothes. What doesn't work: 1. It's ridiculously unbalanced, with your character often being a complete idiot who cannot use an axe without almost chopping his leg off or the wilderness plotting to murder you, sending animals every day, sometimes you will be attacked by a wolf and a bear in the same day. Chopping firewood shouldn't be so dangerous, and it's probably one of the deadliest activities in the game. 2. There is no realistic setting that would make an animal attack MUCH less likely, and them being truly aggressive only when you attack them or otherwise really disturb them. It is simply stupid to have them attack you in your front yard all the time. If you are attacked all the time when chopping firewood next to your cabin, why aren't you attacked all the time while foraging? 3. Resting doesn't restore enough energy - sleeping for 8 hrs only restores 15 out of 100 points of energy, as much as a simple piece of bacon. 4. Overall the energy/starvation mechanic is very poor. In UnRealWorld, eating right things improves nutrition which prevents starvation, and sleeping/resting makes you less tired, which in turn allows you to do more. In this game sleep only restores 15 energy points, out of 100. It forces you to eat, but there surely are better ways to implement - such as being well fed restores your energy faster, and starving makes it diminish faster. Not a system in which eating bacon will always give you 15 points, so you can just stuff yourself with bacon and work hard all day, not caring about anything, and sleep for 8 hours to almost not be able to walk because you're tired. Please, fix this game. It has a truly amazing potential, just waiting to be unleashed.

This game is a "good" game in so much that its concept is well put together and it is fun to a degree to play. However, I have some issues with it from a player's point of view. Not being computer savy and a bit of an older person it was difficult to navigate the game mechanics and figure out how to actually play effectively. The most frustrating part of this game are the constant darkness,the injuries and wild animal attacks that occur. In "real" life those would of course happen but definately not at the rate which this game enjoins. Secondly, the "time" factor for game play is set to a real life pace and this in and of itself is rather disturbing because I only have a very limited time to play having to work a "real" life job, sleep and take care of my own personal business. Therefore after playing it for about 14 days....using up all my "fast forwards", experiencing many injuries, wild animal attacks and basically running out of food and cash I am taking a extended break from this game. Not sure if I shall play it again in the future. I got my $10.00 worth of play and am happy with that. If the game mechanics stay the same and do not address the issues I have delineated above most likely I will not come back nor recommend this game to my many gaming friends. Thank you game developers for what you have done so far with this game. It was a stellar effort and I am sure writing the code was a challenge. Good luck to you in the future.

Survival point & click adventure with some potential but wrong execution. This game is recommended only for those who want to play a game in "real time" mode meaning one gaming day = one real day. Some tasks requires really 30 minutes, some even more. Devs stated this game has a year of play time and is meant to be played a little bit each day. And here comes the main reason this game cannot be generally recommended for survival games lovers. The casual mode included makes those 30 min tasks instant, anyway, you cannot proceed to another day in game until a new day in real life begin. If the casual mode could be played separately of the real days, the game would be highly recommended even containing some bugs and some weird control elements. Pos: - there is a lot of things to do - drinking, cooking, cutting tree into firewood and kindles, loading your guns manually, reading books etc. - it is kind of sophisticated. For example using a radio drains battery, you may charge the battery a little bit by hand charger, building wind turbine, solar panel or simply buy a new battery. - from content point of view it is kind of nicely made game, not sloppy. Neg: - casual mode is not a casual mode even though it penalizes you for being casual :/ - some control mechanics are awful, for example during reloading, after inserting each single projectile into magazine the window "reloads" - hides and shows again. - from coding point of view the game feels kind of sloppy.

This game gets alot of unfair critism because it's hard and slightly rough around the edges. But the premise of the game is good. Its a survival game, and survival is hard. Yes, there are various issues with the game that are not working ideally, but the development team has been very active and is working diligently on patches now. They have gone so far as to help individual users with virtually any question or problem, just ask. This is not a sign of abandonware or a money grab. It's a n unexperienced development team that's trying as hard as they can to make a quality product. This is worthy of anyone who enjoy's survival game genre support. Yes, its not an easy game. There is alot to learn, and there are a few rough and buggy bits... but it's getting better, and will have a huge replayability factor once it's completed.

I love the idea behind this game. Homesteading in Alaska in real time. If you require instant gratification from your games, this probably isn't for you. Though there is a mode that allows you to fast forward through 12 tasks each day. But that takes away from the tension that builds as you wait to see the results of your tasks. This is a challenging game that can take a lot of attempts to figure out. You need to consider and plan well to succeed. Take the time to develop your skills before rushing out to take on the Alaskan wilderness. Great game at a great price.

Sorry, I tried to like this game, but the interface is a mess. The fact that you have to wait in realtime for every action makes it really frustrating. Applied fo a refund.