Recent reviews by Joeoct

It's just a fun game. You get dropped right into a tutorial that shows you how things sort of work. It's a good mix of State of Decay and DayZ.
Right now it's single player only, but with a lot of asks for co-op (which would be a great addition).

Zombies on here are a threat for sure. Playing on Standard, you get maybe 4 hits then you are dead. With Armor, you get 5, unless its a blood moon. Stealth is the way to go.

You can sneak up on Zombies while you are out of their line of sight, and melee them to death. That works consistently. Just be careful with guns, they will swarm you quick if you don't have a suppressor.

Bandits are kind of wonky. They just shoot at you with repetitively with once a second shots, even when they have automatics. They do drop good loot though.

This game is pretty well polished for early access, and the weather system is actually amazing. The storms are actually storms on here, with varying degrees of intensity. I was pretty surprised on how well that works.

Right now, it is more than worth the $12 USD, and the dev himself is incredibly active. You can tell he is really enjoying making this game. I recommend the buy of this, even in early access.

tl;dr: It's a good buy and fun to play for a while once you practice the mechanics for a bit.

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Not tl;dr:

This game is really fun. I personally only play singleplayer for now. I'm not looking for multiplayer as I enjoy playing this game at my own pace.

It took a bit getting used to the controls (I use a Quest 2 for this), but after taking some time practicing equipping and un-equipping, the motions made more sense.

As for the gameplay, it is definitely something to enjoy after a day of work. I'd prefer it to have more leg movement involved since my legs get sore standing for a while, but the game is not intense unless you make it that way.

Melee is fun, bows are a bit hard to use, guns are pretty easy, but magic takes patience.

I generally run with a pistol on my primary hand, a melee weapon for my off-hand, a potion on my main hand belt slot, and a magic book for the back slot.

Guns have unlimited ammo, but with a cost. Pistols can fire pretty quickly, but do not have nearly the same power as crossbows, or bows. Rifles have a lot of power, but take an equal amount of time to put in enough powder to do damage. (Think like a charge-shot logic)
However pistols come in handy for specific dungeon events due to the ease of aiming them.

Keeping a melee weapon will greatly help with mobs as you can parry and deflect projectiles with the weapon. You can substitute in a shield instead of a melee weapon with a damage tradeoff (shield-bashing does do damage), but it is significantly easier to parry/deflect.

Dual wielding melee is sheer fun, but you do not do any optimized damage just flailing about, and you will probably die in certain dungeon encounters. (You'll hear a metal "shing" to know that your melee weapon is ready to do max damage again fyi)

Two handed melee does a lot of damage, and normally the weapon is big enough to use like a shield as well. But as with all things VR currently, two-handed is a bit wonky since you have to keep your hands in sync. If you have the movement locked down though, it really does pay off.

Magic staves I don't really use. It's cool that it's a hybrid two-handed melee and can shoot projectiles, but it doesn't fit my preferred gameplay. It seems like it would be really good for bosses though.

Bows are difficult to use, and I honestly think I might just need to calibrate my controllers or something. The damage and being able to stealth archer your way though the maps is almost comparable to oblivion and skyrim. Just make sure to break boxes to refill your arrow stock. (For some reason the arrows shoot at an odd angle when I release. I compensated for it for a bit and it was a good way to clear a dungeon, but I just don't like continuing to compensate for the odd angle.)

Crossbows are VERY limited ammo, but VERY high damage with a high reload speed. You can also sometimes find them in dungeon boxes, and they are a good slot replacement should you use up a potion. Make the shot count though, you only get 4! (or 5, i forget)

Magic books are good only in certain situations for me. They require both hands to use, where you hold the book in one hand and cast with the trigger of the other. Lighting is a quick first level charge, but a long secondary charge. Good for consistent damage, but not going to be a heavy hitter unless you have the right timing. Fire is a little longer for the first level charge, but maybe half for the secondary charge from the time of the Lightning spell. It is good for groups of mobs, but you need to kite them together. I haven't used the poison one yet in the Dungeon, but the charge times are relative to the Fire spell.

The movement mechanics are smooth from what I've played. I however use the stick to move instead of teleport, and to look around without the 90 degree turning. Some folks get motion sickness, but I'm lucky enough to not be phased by it.

Your gear, class, and chosen level up attributes drastically affect your movement speed however. Make sure to pay attention to your equipment load, class description, and how many points you put into strength/agility. Having too low of a speed will guarantee a loss on some of the bosses and mechanics. 'Heavy' is not a bad equipment load from my experience. There doesn't seem to be a normal btw (at least from what I've tried), it just goes Very Light -> Light -> Heavy -> Very Heavy -> Carrying too much!

The dungeon is 'random' in the sense that it has a lot of rooms configured in different ways each time you play, with different spawn areas for gold, tokens, rarely a treasure chest, and mobs. Blessing spots will always be in the same location of that map 'cell' that you are currently in however, and same with most traps and box placement.

Treasures gathered are like loot boxes and will randomly upgrade/unlock 1 piece of equipment per treasure box found. In most cases, this simply reduces the weight of the upgraded item (guns, spell books, potions, lantern, etc). In others it reduces the weight and upgrades damage (melee weapons and shields I believe). It reduces the weight by smidgens though, so you will really need to upgrade that two-hander if you want to be a true barbarian dual wielding greatswords/greataxes for the fun of it.

Pets are worth saving up gold for. They have a free equipment slot on most of them, while also being able to chase down mobs and do a chunk of damage to them. I use the wolf atm, until I buy the others, and that extra potion I have it carry has saved me a few times.

Last but not least, climbing. It is a fun aspect, and some dungeon cells make it really fun and worthwhile to do. (Secret areas, alternate exits) You'll get accustomed to which vines are scale-able, and obviously ladders, as you play. You'll learn which textures allow for scaling or not pretty quickly.

I am pretty excited to see where this goes, as the foundation for a lot of the mechanics I want to see are already laid. (I.E more puzzles to interact with, more difficult terrain to traverse, simple but complex mechanics like swinging from ropes). The 'secret' boss is also a nice touch, but I've only been able to beat it with a pistol and sniper musket with the rest of the slots only being potions. It's debate-able if it's a faster farming for gold and treasure boxes, but it is a nice change up if you get tired of dungeon crawling.

I'm definitely going to follow this dev though. What he has done with VR Dungeon Knight gives me hype that he has the talent of making some really awesome adventure games if he chose to start a team. Taking on a whole game by yourself is good for learning and an awesome display of talent (especially with a VR game!!!), but geeze, that stress fills up like shaking a carbonated drink. Don't make the same mistake like a lot of other devs did with Early Access games. Keep it as a work of love and enjoyment. If you make deadlines for yourself, communicate it out. Think about roadmaps of where you want the game to go, listen to your playerbase when there is a community ask for something, and don't rush to appease anyone.
(Sorry to anyone reading this last bit of the review as boot-licking, but I really believe this dev deserves a fair shake for what he's accomplished so far on his own.)

This game is fun. It has a lot to offer, and really brings in an awesome twist to what would otherwise be an Ark clone.

I'm really falling in love with this game, and it's developement.
--Save for one thing.
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When you hear that any jungle is dying in real life, you will be reminded of this game and be happy.
Why?
Panthers.
This game will make you hate them. IN EVERY WAY.

They kill you.
They kill you and your friends.
They kill you, your friends, and your favorite npcs.
They kill the guards that save you.
They kill the things you try to tame.
They kill the things you finally manage to tame.
They kill all the tamed things.

They kill you again.
They kill you for trying to run.
They kill you for trying to fight.
They kill you for trying to build.
They kill you for trying to make light.

They spawn kill you.
They kill your home.
They spawn kill your home.

They kill you when you get your things back.
They kill you when you get the things back, and kill you when you get those things back.
They kill you for getting things back. Period.

They kill you for leveling up.
They kill you for looking at your inventory.
They kill you for someone else's lag.
They kill you for other things that spawn.
They kill you for joining a group.
They kill you 'cause you.

At least in real life, you get some closure... Nevermind.
They are killing my pc.
They spawn and kill my GPU, 'cause that's what they do.

It's fun, but it's missing a lot of content that is shown. (Skill trees are not filled out as an example)
Devs are sharing what they are doing, and seemingly doing a lot of tests before sending out into the wild.
I'd recommend buying if you want a pretty good distraction for a time, with a potential to become more distracting later.
I've had honest good fun on it so far, for both multiplayer and singleplayer.
If you have pet peeves about seeing unfinished content, then don't get this just yet.


Nerd words:
This game does run on very few resources, but flows like melted butter. Every once in a while there is a crash on multiplayer (primarily client-side area transit de-syncs)[EDIT -- This is no longer happening for me thankfully END EDIT], but hosting a server and playing at the same time doesn't even make my cpu get past 47 Celsius.
Terrarria's resource handling spikes me up to 60 Celsius, if you'd like some sort of comparison.

Best Game of all time. Especially if you notice the cameos from Fallout 1&2.

More people should get on this, that way we can own all of the noobs quickly.

Nice to play on a tablet