The Flame and the Flood

[dope_danny]

So i was browsing the PSN for something on the last day of the January sales and i picked up a few cheap under £10 games like the witness and crypt of the necrodancer, but in my recommended games was something new called "The Flame and the Flood". On first inspection it just said "roguelite survival with crafting" which made me roll my eyes till i did a quick twitter search about this title i had never heard of and saw nothing but praise for what was being called a "survival, southern gothic blend of psychonauts and the road" which got my attention pretty quick, so i put down the tenner and got the game -and a surprisingly nice dynamic theme that plays some True Detective style southern blues style music- and had a look.



What the game is is actually pretty simple. You play a young girl and her dog Aesop. You start at a run down old summer camp and from then on you sail down a procedurally generated river. you dodge debris, the upper floors of sunken towns and rusted out cars caught in the eddys and flows of this mighty river that is cutting through what appears to be a post apocalypse -or at least societal collapse- on a raft. There are no monsters bar wild animals, nothing supernatural or spooky. Its just a melancholy adventure where you scavenge to eat, drink, stay warm and rested to survive while upgrading your gear, raft and inventory size/tools to keep on top of things as you head down river to find the source of the last radio signal on the air.
It has an endless mode to challenge yourself to survive, a story mode with npcs -i met two feral children and a grave digging mad man myself- and a story mode with permadeath.

I went in expecting another dont starve but its very different. over 3 hours i sailed downstream, storms would rock my little raft and cause damage i hurried to get wood to repair, i had a bad streak where i ran into 3 wolves, fire ants and a large boar at a gas station by a river bend looking for flint and bandage material and finally i had two upgrades to my raft, increased my inventory twice and had 5 jars of drinking water, a suit of warm furs and enough food to last another week.

When i opened a rusted out car trunk and got bitten by a snake and got poisoned.

I ran back to my raft, found all the materials to make a dandelion tea to cure it. But it needed brewing and i was out of firewood. i searched the station and found nothing to make a tinder with, sailed down river to a church and found only a madman talking about 'burying the past and leaving it behind upstream' and again i sailed as the poison meter rose and the tension followed. I found the half sunken remains of a small suburb and a proper voice and all song right out of the spotify "southern gothic" playlist sang a melancholy tune as i searched for a campfire to kindle or the material for my own. Midnight hit and wolves started to prowl as i began to limp and finally died.

I made it 13 days and 7 miles downstream. Dead from a random snakebite.

I could go back to an early save knowing how much i lost but felt far better restarting like the permadeath mode deciding "this time i will always keep a dandelion tea!" with more ideas to balance myself instead of hoard everything. Which is a feeling i havent had from a survival game since the Beta of Minecraft when food was introduced. It just has something i notice most survival games don't: fairness.
Games like Don't Starve or more abstract survival games like Darkest Dungeon pride themselves on a difficulty bordering on the cruel side. You barely scrape by and can never feel like you are set as every next day is a hard struggle with no let up. It becomes a war of attrition with you fighting the designers as much as the team and for the first time in maybe half a decade i found something that reminded me why survival games can be excellent and its this little indie game i had never heard of and very much enjoy.

I don't often gush about games but early access first person trash had me write this genre off but this is a cheap little title i cannot recommend checking out enough.

*i know theres been an early access pc version for almost a year but i just hit PSN this month and on consoles there is very little like this so it stands out all the more and is worth pointing our to people.

[Treeskee]

That actually looks really awesome. Will give it a look, thanks for the heads up.

[Jtbrig7390]

I've been considering it mite grab it on the sell as well. Thanks for the details.

[KrazyK923]

Is this officially out yet? I played a...maybe not so legal version...of the endless mode during its alpha/beta, and it seemed promising.

I was waiting for the campaign that they kept saying was coming to buy it.

[dope_danny]

Is this officially out yet? I played a...maybe not so legal version...of the endless mode during its alpha/beta, and it seemed promising.

I was waiting for the campaign that they kept saying was coming to buy it.

Don't know about PC but it just hit PS4 with developer commentary, a story mode, infinite survival mode, permadeath mode, PSN avatars and a really rad dynamic PS4 theme playing music from the soundtrack.

and its a pretty good soundtrack too.

[KrazyK923]

Yeah I remember absolutely adoring the soundtrack.

I'll check it out again and see if its improved much. I'm assuming it has, I played it nearly a year ago when I saw Dodger playing it on a stream.

[dope_danny]

i cant speak to it since i had never heard of it till yesterday, but its so refreshing to se a survival game that is scavenge and keep on the move instead of "build your inevitable farm and fight the zombies that break your shit" every early access dev makes nowadays.

[Zao]

Damn it. That looks actually very intriguing despite me not liking survival games at all...And the OST is the bomb.

[Slaughty8]

The PC version has had it's launch Feb 24, 2016, some links:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/318600/
http://steamspy.com/app/318600
https://www.gog.com/game/the_flame_in_the_flood

There is even an box version of this game in my country: http://static.geekweek.pl/cms/2016/07/dsc03589_04.jpg called "The Flame in the Flood Ostatnia Ocalała (The last Survivor)"
unboxing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yyk1aqzz5g
one of the best collector's edition box and content I've seen and was very cheap (20-30$)

It's a very relaxing and nicely done survival game with it's own specific atmosphere. My and my bro love it. The idea of traveling instead of building a base is a refreshing approach to the survival genre.
Also - the music and graphic is amazing. True casual & beautiful survival game

I think it's one of these really well made indies which deserve more attention and sales.

[Jtbrig7390]

There is even an box version of this game in my country.

Thanks to this thread, I said screw it and bought it. If I like it enough I mite try to import the box version u said if Ps4 has it as well.

Also grabbed Peggle 2 and Hitman Go.

[dope_danny]

I've played a few more runs of this and its easily in my top survival games with the likes of Don't Starve and a solidly modded Minecraft. The style and music is my jam to begin with but after the initial pleasant surprise i have found some much more surprising rivers can be generated than my first which was mostly ruined churches and wilderness.

Since my original posts i've done runs that were full of ruined towns, a scrapyard, cemetarys, ran into huge grizzly bears and found plenty of new ways to get injured and treat injury.

The more i play the 'always on the move' element is what makes it shine. It has the addictive quality of most islet visits lasting 3 minutes and being 1 minute apart. So naturally you get some good streak going and say to yourself "okay, its 1am and i should quit now. ...but just one more island and i really mean it this time!" and that constant exploring, on the move style makes it feel like an adventure. Whereas so often in adventure survival games i just survive and dont adventure. I plop down a base and theres no incentive to explore most of the world and often it is detrimental to you to do so after a certain level of self sufficiency is reached. Here you never stop for more than maybe a night of rest in the back of a rested out schoolbus or a dusty old church. Maybe you trap a rabbit or two and refill your water and then its back on the raft and downriver again.

Theres a lot of indie titles nowadays that are charming enough to make you like them, but maybe play them once and just be done with it. This one has enough legs that i really wouldnt mind a sequel, perhaps a tropical island free roamer, or just a coastal expansion to this or maybe a out of gas horse drawn van endless highway version. Adventure Survival games that are actually an adventure are rare and usually rely on a trope like last years "Ride a train through the end of the world" which sounds rad but then its just another zombie roguelite and the price is right theme plays as you close the window and forget it. This shows the 'on the move' survival game has legs and i really hope we see the developer or someone else competant enough take the idea further.