ARIDA: Backland's Awakening Reviews

[h2]ARIDA: Backland's Awakening[/h2] Has a total of [b]5[/b] trading cards.

I see some potential here. I think the development started with very good motivation, but stopped at a point where the game was just very unfinished. What I like: -The music -The general idea and setting. Most of the time all your thoughts circle around how to get water, which is a real issue for too many people in the real world, so it has some educational value at this point. These are the issues I had: Lots of bugs... -At one point an Interface blocked the screen and couldn't be closed, but the controller buttons still worked in the background (so I consumed some things I didn't want to). The only way was to close the game window, and when I came back, I noticed: -Auto-saving didn't work (3 hours lost, so I didn't see the ending yet) and there is no option to save manually. -Achievement button doesn't work ingame. -On viewing some chest items, an annoying buzzing sound started and ended only on closing the interface. In general: -"Full audio" means here: the poem in the beginning is the one voice you will hear in the game, the dialogues are all silent. I expected them to be spoken too, so I could learn some Portugues. -No subtitles availabe (or I'm too blind to find the option), although it says there were some. But where? -There was some info about the history and culture of the country, but it wasn't much. Like 2-3 short sentences of info on viewing an artifact. I was expecting a bit more. -I expected the game to show me how hard survival was in those times, and how tough and hard working those people were. But the gameplay just leaves me under the impression that the people in this village are just... dumb. Sorry... -I do one cut of spade at the water hole, and a big pond of clear water appears (but gives me surprisingly little water) - not as a reward for hard work, but rather like a miracle. The villagers seem to completely rely on miracles and some god hearing their prayers, instead of thinking and working. -I'm sent out to gather food but can't pick up the tools from grandpa's workshop. Can't even use some metal or stone laying around to make a basic knife to open chests or harvest cactus. -There's hundreds of cactus fruit but I can't collect them, bags of corn at the market but it's only decoration. -There's good leather, pans and wooden planks laying all around but I cannot use any of them. -Nobody is collecting the animal droppings. Cicera just says "eww" and they... miraculously disappear. Seems they don't know what fertilizer is. -I can't give grandpa any food or water, isn't he starving too? -The game makes me rob the poor old lady and steal her remaining food supplies ( hello???) And one last thing, but as spoiler because it affects gameplay. Here's your "trick" to get water (without bug using or cheating in any way): [spoiler]Stones and Cacti respawn (another miracle...). Collect Stones, sharpen the machete, collect cacti, then craft the cactus water. Collect eggs from the nests for food (they also respawn) and eat them raw. Collect the tree fruits and also eat them raw. Additionally, just drink all the pond water instead of cooking. This allows you to stop worrying about water too much - I didn't die once in 3 hours. [/spoiler] It feels like an exploit to me, doesn't feel balanced at all...