I paused my game to force myself to preview it. Indeed, I played Stranded: Alien Dawn for two days before its release. It's been two weeks now (it was released on October 12), and it's about time! In my defense, it must be said that a game had not excited me so much for a long time...
The objective is simple: to survive a group of four people stranded on the surface of an alien planet with the crazy hope of, perhaps one day, succeeding in taking off a spaceship to return to civilization. A tutorial perfectly covers the basics to know but, for once, I will not detail it, because I went well beyond. I also admit that the advice given has now merged with my own discoveries and it would therefore be difficult for me to limit myself to the only information in the tutorial.
Depending on the chosen difficulty (I opted for the easy mode), our survivors start with more or less emergency rations (food), weapons, first aid kits, and scrap metal. It is these elements saved from the crash that are used for the first few days to eat, heal and defend themselves. Scraps are the bricks of the first constructions, which focus at this level on raw survival, ie a roof to protect against bad weather, a bed to sleep in and a fire to cook.
Very quickly, it is essential to think about the storage of resources because if the objects are left outside, they are damaged, until they become unusable. They should at least be stored under a roof to stop degradation. Or in any case limit it because most food needs to be refrigerated or even frozen to be kept without limit. While waiting to develop the technology to create refrigerators and freezers, we have relatively quick access to dryers that are placed outdoors, and which allow the meat to be tanned afterwards. This is also where hides are transformed into leather, used for making clothes and some furniture.
The majority of resources are found in nature, but this forces survivors to travel long distances. Not to mention the potential dangers associated with local wildlife. So, at least for the plants, it is better to study them and then grow them in fields. Survivors will still have to go out to hunt animals (and yet they attack often enough to come all the way to camp), scavenge resources from the regularly falling spaceship debris, and mine (stone and metal). Metal becomes particularly essential in the middle of the game to manufacture many electronic objects. As well as energy sources, solar panels and wind turbines. We must not delay either to transform the silicone, to create power cells, CPU cores and electronic parts. Because the initial stock, recovered from the wrecks, runs out very quickly as the various maintenances progress.
Survivors never get bored. But most of the time it is not possible to take direct control of it. Once the tasks are put on hold in the different machines, or the new elements placed in the world, the survivors will decide on their own to get to work by following an activity grid, where their priorities are defined. As well as a schedule, which determines the times of work, relaxation and sleep. If these grids are poorly managed, it is possible that a task will never be executed, causing delays that can quickly become problematic. For example, if no one repairs the energy sources, the entire electrical network quickly falls. So no more defences, heating/air conditioning or light. Or, more annoying, an impossibility to create spare parts via the welding bench.
We must also always ensure the happiness of the survivors. It starts with making sure the food is varied, because these ladies and gentlemen love variety. They groan if they are disturbed during their sleep, which leads to having to build separate rooms for them. The bad winter weather means having to create a house large enough so that they can work in the warmth, without being bothered by the bad weather. In summer, they will not be against air conditioners. More stock leads to having to install a real sheltered warehouse. But also always more electricity for all appliances. A few items to entertain them, a punching bag, musical instruments, an armchair (which I installed by the fireside).
The fight is present, but not ubiquitous. Sometimes waves of critters attack. Overall, I don't know if it's because I'm playing on easy mode, or if I'm just well prepared, but I didn't feel much difficulty handling these waves. I have two automatic weapons that greet enemies, with laser pistols for each. They occasionally sustain a few minor injuries, nothing I can't heal with the huge supply of bandages, salves, and antibiotics I've been able to extract from local plants.
One element that I only mentioned in the background concerns research, to be carried out on a special workbench. This is where all new equipment is unlocked along five axes: resources, power, defense, construction and progress. But also research more related to the objective of taking off again from the planet. Which is linked to feasible explorations thanks to a dirigible balloon. During these short trips out of the camp, the survivor becomes uncontrollable, during the whole time of his exploration. At the end of the day, resources, but also crucial discoveries to regain civilization.
With a pace that some may find slow, Stranded: Alien Dawn has a side that I find relaxing. I like to see my little people agitated in all directions, sharing their desires and aspirations, discussing among themselves and, little by little, founding their civilization. There are always things to do because nothing is ever acquired due to the loss of durability and random events related to weather, animal attacks and different discoveries. At this moment, for example, I stopped for a few weeks all my research in order to redo clothes for the team. One of them was complaining about going barefoot! Fortunately, it's summer, but still! Now my next goal is to urgently craft weapons again as the current ones will soon be unusable. In the meantime, I had a lot of problems with my electricity network because I didn't have enough parts to repair my solar panels which broke down in series. I added a third battery to help stabilize everything, which seems to work, at least for the moment because I will have to resize the whole thing to review my defense strategy.
Great replayability is offered thanks to the large amount of survivors that can be chosen to experience the adventure. There are currently 17. It seems that others are also unlockable, although I still don't know how. If you like the genre, go for it. Since Satisfactory, I had not been so enthusiastic about a game to this extent...
