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[Dunamisdeos]

It's on sale for 50% off. It's quite the DF-style sort of game, in that it has a large amount of obscure things to do to progress and also gives you exactly zero help in learning how to do it. Also, brutal death is coming in every shape and form on a constant basis. So far I have learned that you can die of Pumbaa, poison, crocodile, small snake, big snake, terror puma, gravity, and bird.

The point is to start as an ape and work your way up the evolutionary chain to human. Or at least pre-human. You have to evolve everything from switching items between your own hands to the ability to digest fish and meat. It's quite good, and purportedly based on evolutionary science. So far I am yet an ape in the starting area, but I have mastered the unbridled power of [a stick] and am therefore the uncontested monkey king of all that my clan (The Crow Magnums) surveys.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/536270/Ancestors_The_Humankind_Odyssey/



I recommend minimal HUD, full tutorial.

Spoiler: Bonus image of actual gameplay (click to show/hide)

[dragdeler]

I've seen footage, I kept wondering what game that was...

Want my opinion? "ba-ah-ack off off off this my tree."

[sluissa]

It's a very weird game, but the indescribable feeling of banging two rocks together to make a slightly different rock in front of your other monkey friends and watching their brains visibly change at the new information is something unique.

The feeling of having this new rock and then running around the world trying this new rock on everything to figure out what you can do with this new rock is exciting each time.

It also perfectly captures the feeling of being completely and utterly helpless in a world where lots of things can kill you... BUT with the right knowledge, some work, and the right mix of luck and skill, you can change that. Literally no balance* except that which you create yourself.

Granted I am still but a smol ape, and there is apparently much more to this game to see, I have no clue what further playing will bring me, but it is a very slow burning game thus far. I feel like I've made great progress with my differently shaped rocks and discovery that I can eat not only the obvious berries but also certain leaves. But despite that feeling of great progress, I also feel like I'm just barely scratching the surface.

I would heavily suggest though, if any of this sounds interesting, try to play it knowing as little as possible. The game is largely about not knowing stuff, and learning as you go, trying stuff, figuring things out. There's enough context help for commands to let you know WHEN you can try something that it's not overly frustrating. Spoiling yourself too much will likely ruin it.

_{*except the "first time" scenario starting you in a relatively peaceful area with guaranteed basic resources within easy reach.}

[Dunamisdeos]

I would heavily suggest though, if any of this sounds interesting, try to play it knowing as little as possible. The game is largely about not knowing stuff, and learning as you go, trying stuff, figuring things out. There's enough context help for commands to let you know WHEN you can try something that it's not overly frustrating. Spoiling yourself too much will likely ruin it.

_{*except the "first time" scenario starting you in a relatively peaceful area with guaranteed basic resources within easy reach.}

Absolutely my own experience. It's got the right feel.

Also holy geez I didn't know it unlocked later playthroughs like that. So what, selecting something other than "first time" could place you in a different starting zone??? Also, note that peaceful is indeed relative. There were angry mambas in between me and the closest fishing hole in my peaceful spot.

That sounds like NBD, but it opens up some notable replayability.

[Naturegirl1999]

What does NBD stand for?

[Dunamisdeos]

What does NBD stand for?

No Big Deal.

The game thus far has been hugely shaped by my remembering the locations of various needed resources. A new starting area entirely would shake things up nicely.

[Loud Whispers]

The trailer where ooga booga primape finally avenges his monkey ancestor was very powerful

[sluissa]

Also holy geez I didn't know it unlocked later playthroughs like that. So what, selecting something other than "first time" could place you in a different starting zone??? Also, note that peaceful is indeed relative. There were angry mambas in between me and the closest fishing hole in my peaceful spot.

That sounds like NBD, but it opens up some notable replayability.

I don't know how it works exactly. But there were multiple starting options from the main menu that made it sound like there were possibly alternate starting locations that were more difficult than the "first time" option.

I'm still only barely venturing out from that starting oasis myself and often getting chased back, bruised and broken (or worse.) I'm not sure how well I'd fare somewhere more difficult.

[Grim Portent]

Once you finish the game you do unlock the option to start at other oasis locations, and the option to start with no clan members.

So you can start in the most inhospitable locations and work backwards towards the jungle rather than the other way around for example. Surviving in places with little drinkable water, scarce food and few trees to hide from predators in when you're just a basic monkey is quite different.

[scriver]

Posting to remember this later.

[George_Chickens]

How 'scripted' is the game? It seems interesting, but how much of it is actually style over substance?

[Grim Portent]

How 'scripted' is the game? It seems interesting, but how much of it is actually style over substance?

There's a few prescripted events in the first run, basically all part of the tutorial segment of gameplay, but in the actual gameplay the only scripted thing is the 'stalker cat'. Basically there is a cat who exists to attack you periodically and a new one spawns when killed. Unlike normal cats it can spawn in most areas of the game, so even in otherwise very barren terrain there's still something dangerous that might pop up.

That said the game isn't super deep or anything, you can do basically everything at the start, you just progress to be better at it over time. Moving upright and swimming, eating, fighting, scavenging, detecting things, surviving with low amounts of food and water, crafting and so on all get better by increments until you're a bipedal early hominid apex predator.

It's a fun game, and the evolution system can make each run a bit different from the others. My first run I never evolved the ability to eat mammal meat, I just got so devloped in other areas that I leapfrogged into completion before I could digest mammals. Next run I started at the end of the map and worked back into the main area, and due to food scarcity I developed the ability to eat eggs and meat early on.

[Cthulhu]

I hit my first evolution leap going by the first-game objectives, now kind of stalling like what do I do next, the next objective is in the savannah but I dont' think I'm ready for that, we're still just monke

Game is extremely monke, yes.  The tutorials basically just tell you what the buttons do, as far as I can tell there's a ton of crafting and  building, but it doesn't tell you what you can craft or how to craft it, so you really do feel like a monke standing there with a rock and a coconut and trying to bootstrap causal logic all by yourself.

There are some bugs, I haven't seen how well NPC monke defend themselves with the proper neurons but you probably want to get those neurons ASAP.  There's some kind of bug that can make you unable to climb when a predator is on your ass, and if affects NPCs too.  You'll be up safe watching as one of your monke just reaches up to a tree and then drops back down over and over, I thought it was just bad AI at first but it's happened to me too, you have to get some distance from the predator before it'll let you climb and NPCs won't do that.  As far as I know without the combat/dodging neurons they're completely helpless when attacked.

Another bug, after an evolution your clan will respawn in a new oasis, NPCs inside the camp have basic pathing and stuff for hanging out and eating and sleeping, depending on where you spawn you might end up with some monke treading water in a lake, which will break their pathing.  Use clan's call if you see them, because they won't be able to eat or drink until you get them out of the water.

Starting to get annoyed with the "stalker cat."  It shows up without fail every time I meet a hominid to try to recruit.  I have to have a sharp stick on me at all times because there's a cat waiting to ambush me at every hominid and if I just leave then they're dead.  Managed to recruit two on my latest run and they both got killed by cats on the way back.

[Dunamisdeos]

Stalker cat is a bit much, I hope they tune him down. I do go everywhere armed at all times as a result. A lot of reviews/post I see people don't realize that you can just pick up any old rock and whap stalkercat in the face with it when he comes after you. He runs off.

Arming your monkes with sharp sticks turns you from a huddle of terrified apes into a squad of incredible badasses. I also highly recommend the neuron that allows you to direct them to make their own sharp sticks. Team Crow Magnum wandered over to an area that I found out later was aptly named crocodile isle. Two dead crocodiles, one pig, and a stalker cat later, we strutted out with a meteor fragment. There was one injury. Mind you I've had the defense fail and a chimp get injured, but it's still quite effective.

Also, holy SHIT the game world is enormous. I just made it within view of the Savannah myself. I've been greeted with 6 new kinds of wildlife thus far in that general vicinity. I also found that there are cave areas scattered about various biomes with unique wildlife and plant life there as well. I've passed by two other clear paths that might or might not lead to other biomes/areas. I'm too far to go back and check em out now. There are tunnels, plateaus, sinkholes, swamps all kinds of places to settle and explore.

Also pro tip don't fuck with otters, I saw an otter get ambushed by a stalkercat and it's retort was to whip around and maul the fuck out of it until the cat ran off.

How 'scripted' is the game? It seems interesting, but how much of it is actually style over substance?

I've been sandboxing my way around the entire game. It provided "objectives" but they are suggestions on how to proceed. By the time it asked me to pass a generation I'd already done it twice.

I'm also head of the evolutionary curve, supposedly. So it's a valid gameplay style.

[Grim Portent]

The game world is actually quite small, it's just that early on you move slowly and, if you're like me, have a tendency to meander. The Jungle is the single biggest biome, the woodland between it and the Savannah is quite small, then the Savannah is a decent size, the last two biomes are also on the small side but getting to them and then through them while unevolved is quite the feat due to the inhospitable nature.

Once you start walking upright you can traverse the whole map in no time at all. Once you get used to the methods involved in long distance journeys and know the way around you can walk the whole thing in about 3-4 in game days at a relaxed pace even as the basic monkey.

That said the world does manage to feel huge, especially at the beginning when you're a knuckle-walker. Once you become a biped the world seems so much different because your camera perspective shifts upwards.

Spoiler: A few tips for those who'd rather know things rather than stumble into them. (click to show/hide)

So there's only a handful of craftable items, each stone can be turned into a tool by bashing it with another stone/tool.

Obsidian Scrapers and Basalt Choppers are basically better stones, with the scraper being extra good at butchering corpses and the chopper better at sharpening sticks and being used as a backup weapon. Generally this means the chopper is just better, but obsidian is easier to find than basalt.

Granite Grinders can be used to refine some materials into more potent forms. Leaves, horsetail reeds, turmeric and aloe sap being the ones that come to mind. It's not super useful late game, but early game it's a nice way to get more out of resources you can only gain limited benefits from.

Lots of stuff can be stripped, branches can be stripped down into sticks, coconuts can have the husks removed before being split open which turns them into food instead of drink, aloe leaves can be stripped to produce aloe sap which protects against heat and bleeding, reeds can be stripped to produce fibers that can be used to protect against bleeding. The fern fronds you use to craft beds can be stripped to provide a stick which can be dipped into termite mounds and beehives, termites are a tasy snack, honey is a food item and a bleeding cure if you choose to rub it into your wounds instead.

Piles of sticks can be made into simple barriers, once you can walk upright (not necessarily constantly) and two-hand carry items you can craft thorn bushes into an improved barrier.