Developer: Bitbox Ltd.
Publisher: Bitbox Ltd.
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
Life is Feudal: Your Own – Review
When we think about simulation games, we immediately think about the Sims-franchise. There are some other games that want to give you the same experience and ‘Life is Feudal: Your Own’ is one of them, although you’ll be thrown into another setting. Are you ready to start from scratch?
Story
The narrative that this game holds is quite dark. You and your fellow villagers were living a happy life thanks to the leadership of a powerful emperor, until things went south. The old gods have risen again and nature went rampant once more. Neighbours started to attack and even kill each other. Anger and wrath only lead to more aggression and that was exactly what happened. Food became scarce and a lot of people died of hunger.
The survivors had lost a lot of family and friends, driving them crazy. As a last resort, they try to get to a new land just as a few madmen have done before them. This is where your story starts, as your life begins anew.
As you have to make your own story, it is clear that there isn’t that much narrative. It has to be said though, the developers thought a lot about the history of your characters.
Graphics
This is quite the strong asset of the game but has its flaws here and there, especially when you view the game in third person. First of all, the character selection isn’t endless but there are enough possibilities for you to choose from. Even more, the quality of the character creation elements are really nice. Afterwards, you’ll enter the world in first person view and you’ll be amazed .. at the start. After a while, you’ll notice that a lot of your surrounding are a combination of static and some fluent imagery. This is used in a lot of games but in this game it takes away the freshness quite fast.
Character wise, it is clear that the developers wanted to create realistic illustrations and they did a great job until you go in third person. You’ll notice that your equipment pierces your arm or you can see grass sticking through your body. This is also the case with certain items and doesn’t really fit the ‘this-is-so-realistic’ setting.
The rendering of the background takes a long time as well. It might be that you see a steep, bare hill but when you get closer by, grass, flowers and trees pop up like mushrooms. To make a long story short, the graphics are great but could have been better in this extremely realistic image the game wants to profile.
Sound
There are some tracks that will help create that medieval setting, which is really nice. As you tend to have long gaming sessions, it will become clear that there are only a few tunes and they repeat quite often. This isn’t that pleasant after a while, although the vibe makes the game more complete. You’ll be torn apart by turning on your own music or keep on listening to the same tracks. It has to be said though, it’s cool that there is a difference between the normal stance and combat mode as it immediately changes the atmosphere of the game.
Sound effect wise, there are a lot of sounds that really are the icing on the cake. There are effects that are really profound, like changing equipment or tools while others are more subtle. For instance, you can hear wind going through the grass or some birds flying around, which is always a nice feature.
Gameplay
Life is Feudal: Your Own is a realistic simulation game in which you have total freedom. You can choose almost everything, which is really nice but leaves you with a lot of choices. Make yourself comfortable, as we’re only going to explain the tip of the iceberg and things will get complicatedly extensive.
First of all, you have two modes that you can get into. One of them is the Interface mode, where you can open menus and customize your character (more about that later). The other one is the ‘Freelook’ mode and, as the word states, you can interact with your environment. The biggest difference between the two is that mouse movements will change the camera view with the latter, while the first one will have a static screen but the possibility to select elements.
You can move around and interact with everything, which is done by right clicking. This action will make a menu pop up, containing all of the different submenus with actions that can be done with this area or object. For instance, when right clicking on a grassy area, you can look for ore, plow the ground, look for something edible and so on. There is also a default action that can be set, so it makes recurring acts more easy.
The amount of actions you can perform will increase when you level certain stats. This can be done by exploiting the possibilities you have (l)earned, so you gain experience. Some actions will increase certain stats, both characteristics as tasks. For example, when collecting plant fibers, you will gain experience in Nature’s Lore (Task), but also in Willpower and Intellect (Characteristics). These stats can be viewed in the Skills book and Stats section. There is something particular special with this way of working. Both the stats as skills level have a certain cap. This means that the sum of all the stats or skills has to be below a certain threshold. This means that at a certain point, you will need to make decisions. Will you keep training Strength, but let Intellect go down? Or will you go full throttle for Agility? Do you want to get good at farming and let all that violence The choice is yours to make, and the game has a few tricks to help you get your perfect character as every skill or stat can be set in increase, decrease or locked.
Now that you know how all of these things work, you’ll probably need some weaponry and/or tools. These can be made in the menus and this is where the Interactive mode comes in play. You can check your inventory or make items or you can access the skill/stats book. As you might have thought, before you can actually make something, you’ll need some ‘ingredients’, which can be found around you. Certain elements (like flint) need to be gathered in more rocky areas, while branches are pulled of trees.
These items need to be equipped if you want to use them. This can be done in your inventory. Even more, you can also wear clothes or armor, which can all be found in your magical backpack. This bag seems quite spacious, but don’t let this mislead you. You have a capacity and the more you stuff in there, the slower you will walk and run. Realistic, isn’t it?
Something else really realistic is the battle system. Before you can actually start swinging around, you’ll need to equip a weapon and get in the correct stance. You can swing your weaponry by moving your mouse to a certain direction. The realistic part is where you really need to watch how you hit your enemies. For instance, an axe is only effective when you hit someone with the blade rather than with the pole. Quite ingenious but very frustrating to get it right, especially in first person.
When you’re going to battle, there are some things you need to know. You have soft and hard points and we will take a look at HP first. Losing soft points will cause you to be knocked out, while the hard points stand for your life or death. Next to that, you can also get fractures and so on from fighting, which has its effect as well. Soft stamina is a very important effect as well, as this will deplete when you sprint, which can’t be forgotten as well. The hard version on the other hand will make your character go into exhaust when the hard stam is on zero. A last important attribute is your hunger level. When this is depleted, your soft health will go down which will result in your death.
If you’re looking for a game to play on your own, you might not want to get this title. You can play alone on a map but this isn’t the purpose of the game. It is meant to play with (future) friends. This means you can enter servers of other players and help or go ballistic. The choice is yours. Next to the sandbox element, you can also start a campaign in which you’re facing the clock. How fast will you be able to get to build the largest building in the game?
This is a lot to take in and thank goodness that they’ve created tutorials to guide you through the several steps. They even thought of making some videos to give you a visual element. Next to that, you can go to the official wiki to get some more help if needed.
All of this sounds quite good, but there are some minor bugs that are in there for a while. You can track animal impressions so you can find some nice meat, but when you actually do the action, you cannot see anything (even with the grass off). This seems to be the case for over a week, which is quite long. Even more, the settings you change in a previous session are reset when you re-enter the level, leading to quite some annoyance.
Conclusion
If you like a lot of choices in a simulation sandbox game and you’re in for some multiplayer fun, this game will be for you. You’ll be delved into a fresh world or get thrown into a wild battlefield. This is all determined which server you join. Like to make something on your own? You can always make a private server and go farming for instance. The sky is the limit!
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