My God do I have a lot of games at the moment and just as I’m getting settled into a certain gaming routine another one comes along to take more of my time. One of the latest I’ve been delving into is the delightful Flame in the Flood. Admittedly I haven’t played to much just yet, both with xcom2, stardew Valley, and the coming black desert but I have played a fair bit of its alpha incarnation and plan to spend some more time son traversing those rapids.
What it is is a rather brutally unforgiving survival rogue like. Yep, thats definitely a bingo on the info buzzwords chart but it tends to reinterpret this aspects to really suit the game play. Like the endless mode, story mode will still have you travelling down the riverside, scrounging what you can so as to make it to that illusive radio signal at the end. Unfortunately I never made it that far, even on the easier version as the game really makes both choice, and chance exemplify the experience.
left or right
While travelling along you will make many choices that will effect the rest of your travels. Following the left or right path on that river night mean coming across a dangerous rapid, or a few places to stop along the way. You will have to choose between places to stop on occasion as getting across the river is an impossible task, and that choice will determine the items you might get. Some islands will be empty, others filled with resources, and some will probably need to be avoided.
Chance will matter, and often enough will come back to bite you later on down the river. That crafting item you needed yet never seem to get for way to long. Food is scarce, or maybe you just missed finding a camp fire to cook some of your food, and the raw stuff gave you food poisoning and so you get sicker and sicker, eventually tumbling off the raft. Or maybe that one hopeful place you stopped at that finally had a workshop to craft things was full of wolves that eat you alive on the way back to the raft. And that one really annoying boar that tusks you, and gives you septicaemia… And so you die.
Food for the Wolves
It really is incredibly brutal to the point that I never really felt like I had a handle of it. You are just struggling from one pier to the next, hopeful but desperate and that never changes. You constantly need to watch your hunger and thirst levels. You need to sleep occasionally as well and getting, and staying wet for too long might make you ill. Some nights are much colder and need to be slept through, and their are many other conditions as well that need to be accounted for.
There are a wealth of items, ingredients and crafting components to help you do all this that are surprisingly grounded in an internal logic. Certain items will help alleviate conditions, cooking items helps prolong them, as well as maximise hunger. There is clothing to craft as well as many tools to use, as well as quite few upgrades you can add to the raft. There is a lot there, a lot that you use quire often and others that will serve as more long term goals. I usually had quite a few little tasks going on that needed to be completed, yet It all came down to finding that one item.
Inventory management can be an absolute pain at times. You have three storage areas, your backpack, aesop (doggy), and the raft, and it will be a constant balancing act between these of what to put where. There will be many times where you have to make the choice between materials as ell as you literally, can not take everything with you. These are hard choices at times too, but choices that need to be made.
Need more space
There are times, many times where it is a little overwhelming. Not really how much there is to learn and remember, just how hopeless it all seems but weirdly, I kind of like that. Even on the easy mode where you have save points it still ends up where you have to restart as that one wound had festered you didn’t raise was that bad, you raft broke apart… Or those wolves… So many wolves. It’s not a bad thing, that’s just what it is.
There is a lot more actual story and lore to look for in the world now and it’s nice finding these little snippets of information. The blankets hanging in the be Reece occasional share a story about the area and owner upon interaction and there are quite a few unique/ bat shit crazy characters to find that will tell you a little about themselves as well, and serve as a sort of buffer from the world around. You feel oddly safe and more hopeful seeing another “human” surviving out there within the floods. There is also a sort of questing system that uses the post boxes that now serves as a tutorial as you flow down the river. Giving you new tasks to complete that follow a certain progression path and help to fill your own gaps in information, as well as reward upon completion.
Magnolia
I think what keeps pulling you on, apart from that deep seated compulsion not to lose, is that the game oozes atmosphere. The art design is fantastic, with a real vibrant, dirty, yet abstract style that suits the game play. The river rafting feels utterly intense, and the entrancing country music in the back fills your head. Rocking back and forth between bright, cheery and filled with sorrow. It complete the experience and wraps you into the coming heartache that is playing Flame in the Flood.
It truly is an entrancing experience: hard, bleak, and brutal with but a glimpse of hope you slowly work towards but will usually be sacked out from under you. Each time though you learn a little more, become a little smarter, and your choices just that little bit more knowledgeable – and so you get to travel further Dow that river, which in it self is its own reward.
