Because of the press preview hosted by Thunderful and Sand Sailor, I just lately had the chance to mess around with survival sandbox ASKA a couple of days earlier than it entered early entry. As in most early entry video games, there’s work to be completed to get it to full launch. However even the sport that’s dwell now’s a enjoyable, partaking, and slow-paced sport in a market the place every thing has you sprinting for the end. It’s a novel sport that’s not fairly like anything I’ve performed earlier than, and I’m excited to see the way it grows because it strikes in the direction of full launch.
First issues first: ASKA will not be Valheim. They’re very totally different video games, and the one factor they’ve in widespread is “Vikings.” Valheim is a full-on Viking survival-builder, and ASKA is a Viking colony simulation with light-weight survival-builder features. Valheim is rather more about fight, and ASKA is rather more about constructing. So whereas they each have components of constructing and fight, the focuses for every sport are very totally different.
ASKA is a slow-paced sport. Whereas there are mechanics like thirst and starvation, it’s straightforward to maintain up with these wants. It’s low-stress and targeted on regular development and colony administration with small intervals of fight. I give it some thought as a combination between Stardew Valley and Oxygen Not Included with a wholesome seasoning of Valheim. In case you are searching for Elden Ring with Vikings or a sport the place you’ll be able to rush to the tip and switch the world right into a blood-soaked wasteland underneath your bootheel, this isn’t the sport for you.
However if you need one thing that’s slower-paced, with an enormous concentrate on strategic constructing, villages, and villager administration, with some components of fight to maintain issues spicy, you may wish to give it a attempt.
The backstory for ASKA is just a little muddled. It’s the usual “individuals dangerous, dangerous issues occurred to them, and you then get up shipwrecked on a seashore.” I’m not new to both colony sims or survival builders, so I instantly began selecting up every thing that I may discover. ASKA does this excellent factor: You hit the Z key, and something you’ll be able to work together with on the earth glows orange and all of the environmental foliage shrinks, making it a lot simpler to see and choose up small objects. After a couple of seconds, the foliage grows again to its regular dimension.
It’s a small element and a smaller characteristic, however one which I discovered myself grateful for repeatedly, and that’s a theme I discovered all through my playtime with ASKA: It’s loaded with small however high-impact adjustments that make it straightforward to glaze over the tough spots that include each early entry sport.
As in Valheim, you’ll carry out particular duties — like chop bushes, smash rocks, forage for meals – to degree up particular abilities and get higher at them. This occurs for almost every thing you are able to do within the sport, from foraging to constructing to crafting to combating.
Because it’s a survival sport, you’ll need to handle your starvation and your thirst too. You begin the sport with a full water pores and skin, which supplies you 5 drinks of water. After that, it’s as much as you to search out extra water. Discovering water was a little bit of a problem for me at first – a lot of a problem, in truth, that it was the rationale that I died my solely dying.
See, there are particular rocks scattered all through the map referred to as “pure water collectors” that acquire rainwater and mean you can refill your water pores and skin. These include just one drink of water, and whenever you drink it, you need to await it to get foggy or rain for it to replenish. I discovered one shut by, however then couldn’t discover any extra. It turned out that this was only a quirk associated to the place I used to be searching for these rocks. I used to be targeted on the seashore the place I shipwrecked, and there was just one. Nevertheless, after I died, I made a decision to go scampering via the forest a bit additional and located they have been plentiful just about in every single place however the place I had began wanting.
So now that I’ve established how one can not die of thirst, I wish to speak in regards to the stock system, which is kind of totally different from others in comparable video games, and you’ll seemingly both find it irresistible or hate it. You might have three totally different sections to your stock: a small objects part, a medium objects part, and a big merchandise part. Gadgets in your small objects part are issues like small stones, fibers, and meals objects. They stack as much as 5 or ten relying on the merchandise. In your medium objects part, these are issues like sticks, bark, firewood, instruments, issues like that. These don’t stack in any respect, so it’s one merchandise per slot.
One other one of many small particulars that I appreciated is that what’s in your medium stock reveals up in your character. In case you are holding loads of bark, you’ll see items of bark in your again. In case you are holding sticks, you’ll be able to see the sticks. It’s a pleasant element that I loved however didn’t influence the sport in any respect.
Lastly, in your massive merchandise part, you’ve a single slot. You’ll be able to carry just one massive merchandise at a time. Much like the medium objects, these present up in your character whenever you’re holding them – but it surely’s as a result of you need to carry them. When you choose up a “lengthy stick,” you hoist it up in your shoulder and carry it to the vacation spot. When you are carrying it, you’ll be able to’t use your palms for different issues like utilizing instruments (although you’ll be able to nonetheless choose up small objects).
Let’s transfer on to managing a extra meta stock: your villagers. When you create your Eye of Odin and choose up 5 Jotun Blood, you’ll be able to summon your first villager. If you summon a villager, you get a selection between two choices, and you may see the primary two of 5 traits that they’ve. These may be issues like “additional good at breaking rocks” or “actually hates the chilly.” The opposite three traits are revealed when your villager is totally summoned. The summoning takes 10 minutes per villager, so it takes a little bit of time.
Villagers have all the identical wants as you do: They want foods and drinks obtainable, they want instruments to have the ability to harvest for you, they want weapons to struggle for you… you get the concept. However in addition they want shelter, and so they get salty in the event that they don’t have a spot to sleep (which, like, truthful).
Villager administration was… nice. Not nice. There’s not loads of explanatory textual content. For instance, as soon as I constructed a woodcutter pit, I may assign villagers to it. The woodcutter pit is a storage location, and assigning your villagers to the pit implies that they’ll head out and begin stocking it up for you. What I didn’t understand at first is that they’d run round and seize any wooden bits you had beforehand chopped down and inventory them. However as soon as they run out of these, they’ll simply cease and comply with you round repeating, “I would like an axe” again and again like just like the annoying youngster who follows you round the home going “Mother. Mother. Mother. Mother.” However the sport doesn’t inform you how to do that. I finally discovered you might commerce with the villagers and provides them the instrument they wanted, or you might throw it on the bottom and hope they discovered it. Later, whenever you construct a workshop pit, you may as well put the instruments in there and the villagers will discover them.
Village administration is basically the way you develop. Buildings take an increasing number of supplies are you progress, and harvesting all of them your self will take ceaselessly. It’s important to be managing your villagers that can assist you get all of the supplies you want, together with foraging for meals for everybody. That is additionally one of many areas that I feel wants work.
In most different colony simulation video games, you’ll be able to assign your colonists a number of jobs with a precedence for every factor they need to do. ASKA lets you assign solely a single job to a villager. If the villager can’t full the job anymore, he’ll simply sit down and stare. Then you need to go to the villager, unassign him from his assigned workstation, after which run to the brand new workstation you need him to work at and assign him there.
That is annoying on the subject of foraging and cooking. You’ll be able to assign a villager to forage, and she or he’ll do it till she’s foraged every thing within the space (you may as well set “flags” for various areas of the map, and she or he’ll additionally forage there). Then, you need to await stuff to respawn. In the meantime, meals may be eaten uncooked, but it surely’s manner higher whenever you eat it cooked (once more, this checks out). However the forager will simply cease and stare when she will’t forage anymore, presumably desirous about how a lot better cooked meals is whereas wanting on the chilly campfire pit with firewood and uncooked meals piled round it.
I need to have the ability to assign a number of jobs in precedence order. A major and secondary job would go an extended solution to making work administration much less tedious. It is likely to be that when you get later into the sport, having a number of jobs per villager isn’t wanted. However I performed for about 15 hours whole and had six villagers and nonetheless spent an honest chunk of time unassigning and reassigning jobs.
That stated, whenever you get it working with out having to do something for a couple of minutes, it’s remarkably satisfying. Whereas my villagers scurry round doing their jobs, I’ll do issues like mark the bottom for leveling, lay the blueprints for brand spanking new builds, and simply usually handle and concentrate on rising the village. It’s a very nice expertise.
The ultimate piece of village administration that I discover annoying is managing morale. Villagers will inform you what’s negatively impacting their morale however not how one can resolve it. The villagers’ morale will drop in case you don’t have defenses, and foolish me, I constructed fences considering they’d be defenses (they weren’t!). I needed to construct a watch tower and assign a villager to the watch tower to enhance my protection rating. My villagers complained about work hours, so I elevated their leisure time on the schedule, to no impact. The truth is, I by no means truly discovered how one can make them happier about their work hours.
Lastly, I wish to contact on fight as a result of whereas ASKA will not be a sport targeted on combating, it nonetheless presents fight methods. It’s fairly commonplace fare and isn’t considerably totally different than Valheim, simply extra forgiving. In my playtime, the undead attacked my village, and I by accident stumbled throughout some wolves whereas I used to be wandering that determined I regarded tasty. Most of my fight was spent defending my village from these large rabbit/goat pests that may eat your village’s meals in case you don’t (always) scare them off. They may even do that annoying factor the place they are going to dig via all your numerous shops and dump issues on the bottom for funsies. My loathing of those beasts is aware of no limits.
In the end, there have been extra annoyances right here than what I lined since this impressions piece is already fairly lengthy. However ASKA is one thing particular. It’s a surprisingly enjoyable and rewarding expertise even in early entry. There isn’t one other survival sport on the market fairly prefer it, and I’m right here for it. In case you are searching for yet one more place to smite your enemies and rush to complete (and invariably complain in regards to the lack of content material), you most likely received’t take pleasure in ASKA. However in case you like metropolis builders, technique video games, and colony sims, this is likely to be the colony-survival-builder for you.
