Info about Immortal Life: Official game description: MEET YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS ============================== MILESTONE ========= About the Game ============== Immortal Life is a captivating life simulation game where you strive to restore the Guiyun Sect after its near-total destruction – all while you try to achieve immortality through spiritual cultivation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Decided to help your new brothers and sisters make this settlement grow and flourish into a prosperous village, you will work relentlessly with them to restore the Misty Valley by farming, cooking, and crafting decorations for your new home. As you strengthen your bonds with them, you will learn more about their lives, stories, and motivations. As you work and improve your skills, you will ascend in your cultivation journey; and your adventures will take you far from your Misty Valley. One day you will rebuild the strength of the Guiyun Sect and restore the glory of the Misty Valley. And maybe even achieve immortal life yourself… Features -------- Farm with Spells ---------------- Roam through the countryside, using your magic to cultivate fields, and taking care of crops with enchanted tools. Manage your own farmland amidst changing seasons and weather. Cultivate your way to immortality --------------------------------- Master various skills such as fishing, cooking, crafting elixirs, or making furniture. Remember, every skill is important to help you restore the Misty Valley and cultivate your soul and powers. Train your abilities and attend classes before submitting yourself to the tests that allow you to reach a new step in your cultivation journey. Explore the Mystic Realms ------------------------- Travel to distant lands, uncover treasures and use your magic to defeat mythical creatures. There are more than 10 different Mystic Realms and you’ll have to master different abilities and strategies to find the crafting items that you need from each territory. Fellowship within the Sect -------------------------- Get to know your brothers and sisters and help them with their daily struggles to strengthen your bond. Each character has their own personality and interests in cultivation. By helping them, you’ll learn more about their lifes and motivations – and receive new items, missions, and skills. You can also invite them to share your dwellings. Build Your Home --------------- Acquire spirit stones, unlock new territories, and initiate construction projects to establish a tranquil sanctuary in the valley of your homestead. With your crafting skills and the help of your brothers and sisters, you will get new decorations and magic tools for your farm and house. Release date: 17 Jan, 2024 Categories: Life Simulation, Farming Simulation, Sect Rebuilding, Cultivation System, Crafting, Exploration, Twin-stick Shooter, NPC Relationships & Romance - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Engaging Core Gameplay (weight 0.95): Players consistently find the game highly enjoyable, addictive, and relaxing, offering hundreds of hours of content. The initial hours are particularly fun and fresh, drawing players in with its solid gameplay loop and variety of activities. - Unique Cultivation Farming (weight 0.48): The game offers a refreshing and unique take on the farming simulation genre by blending it with cultivation and wuxia elements. This combination introduces novel mechanics like magic-assisted farming and a distinct progression system, setting it apart from traditional farm sims. - Compelling Story & Characters (weight 0.34): The game features a rich, engaging storyline with surprising depth and a refreshing narrative. Characters are well-written, have unique personalities, and are visually appealing, fostering meaningful interactions and emotional connections that keep players invested. - Distinct Chinese Setting (weight 0.29): The game's ancient Chinese, Wuxia, and Xianxia fantasy setting is highly praised for its unique cultural immersion. This distinct theme is woven into the art style, music, story, and even cooking, offering a refreshing change from typical Western-themed farming games. - Engaging Mini-Games (weight 0.23): The game's mini-games, particularly cooking, are highly praised for being refined, fun, and addictive. The cooking system is elaborate and intuitive, offering a unique and enjoyable experience that stands out from other genre titles, while fishing is simple and not frustrating. - Appealing Art & Music (weight 0.18): The game's art style is consistently praised as beautiful, comfortable, and visually appealing, often noted for its Chinese-inspired hand-drawn aesthetic. The music and sound design are equally lauded for being relaxing, soothing, and atmospheric, enhancing the overall tranquil experience. - Satisfying Sect Building (weight 0.15): The core goal of rebuilding a ruined cultivation sect is a unique and highly satisfying aspect of the game. Players enjoy the sense of progress as the sect grows and appreciate the collaborative effort with fellow sect members, which adds a deeper purpose beyond typical farming sims. - Smooth Progression & QoL (weight 0.14): The game offers a satisfying sense of progression where all activities contribute to the journey, making it feel meaningful and rewarding. Quality of life features, especially the use of immortal arts/magic for farming tasks, significantly reduce tedium and make resource gathering efficient and enjoyable. Common complaints: - Excessive Grind & Pacing Issues (weight 0.77): Players frequently report that the game's pace is too slow in the early stages and becomes excessively grindy and repetitive in the mid-to-late game, particularly for cultivation and materials. This leads to a feeling of the game being a chore or a job, compounded by slow character movement and fast in-game time. - Bugs, Poor Polish & Localization (weight 0.42): The game suffers from numerous technical issues, including frequent bugs (some progress-blocking), crashes, and critical save file problems. Reviewers also note poor graphics, a general lack of polish, and inadequate translation quality, which detracts from the overall experience. - Clunky Combat & Controls (weight 0.4): Combat is widely criticized for being boring, repetitive, and janky, lacking essential mechanics like dodging or parrying. This is exacerbated by clunky and unintuitive controls, particularly for gamepads, with issues like reversed button mappings. - Shallow NPCs & Missing Romance (weight 0.32): NPCs are criticized for lacking depth, personality, and varied dialogue, making interactions feel shallow and unrewarding. A significant number of players are disappointed by the absence of a promised romance or marriage system, despite the presence of favorability mechanics. - Unrewarding Cultivation System (weight 0.27): The cultivation system is perceived as unrewarding, requiring excessive and slow experience grinding, especially in the late game. Players feel a disconnect between cultivation progression and other gameplay elements like farming, as it primarily serves to increase combat stats. - Repetitive & Unclear Quests (weight 0.14): Quests are frequently reported as repetitive fetch quests, overwhelming in number, and offering disproportionately low rewards. Poor quest guidance often leads to players getting stuck or confused about main story progression. Gameplay feedback: - Farming Sim Core Gameplay (weight 0.26): The game is primarily a farming simulation, akin to Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon, incorporating elements like combat, relationships, upgrades, and seasonal cycles. It features standard genre mechanics such as planting, harvesting, fishing, and crafting. - Engaging Cooking System (weight 0.24): The game features a prominent and well-developed cooking system, including a fun mini-game similar to Overcooked. Cooking provides useful buffs and is integrated into social mechanics like banquets, offering a rich variety of recipes. - Sect Rebuilding & Progression (weight 0.18): The central narrative revolves around rebuilding a destroyed Taoist sect, incorporating elements of Chinese mythology and cultivation. Players progress by restoring the sect, recruiting members, and advancing through cultivation stages like Foundation Establishment. - Simple Twin-Stick Combat (weight 0.14): Combat is designed as a simple, top-down twin-stick shooter, utilizing flying swords and various spell-like abilities. While straightforward, some reviewers noted its simplicity and repetitive nature, with future updates planned. - Resource Gathering & Crafting (weight 0.07): Players engage in various activities like mining, hunting monsters, and farming to gather essential materials. These resources are crucial for crafting, purchasing designs, completing quests, and overall progression. - Main Story & Side Quests (weight 0.07): The game features a main story line and various side quests that drive progression and involve interacting with NPCs. While engaging, the main story can sometimes feel lengthy or tedious due to specific requirements. - Clear UI & Task Management (weight 0.06): The game provides helpful UI elements like a clear map showing character locations and a task map for story progress. It also features a convenient backpack and warehouse system for item management, streamlining daily activities. - Dungeon Exploration (weight 0.05): The game includes multiple dungeons and other explorable areas where players can fight monsters. These dungeons generally feature simple layouts, providing additional content beyond farming. - Character & Tool Upgrades (weight 0.04): Players can upgrade various aspects, including tools, characters, and skills, and learn new spells as they progress. These upgrades are essential for tackling higher-level content and improving efficiency. - Home Customization (weight 0.04): The game allows players to expand and decorate their homes with a furniture system. This feature, along with the ability to install sprinklers, provides options for personalizing and optimizing their living and farming spaces. - Convenient Save & Travel (weight 0.04): The game features an auto-save system at the end of each day, with manual save points available, often integrated with a common warehouse. Fast travel between these points enhances convenience and player freedom. - Simple Fishing Mini-Game (weight 0.04): Fishing is presented as a simple and easy mini-game, primarily relying on audio cues or visual prompts. This straightforward mechanic makes fishing accessible and a relaxing activity. Performance notes: - Steam Deck Compatibility (weight 0.06): The game generally runs well on Steam Deck, with recent updates enabling saving and improving overall performance. Specific details include short loading times with Cryo Utilities and the need for Proton-GE Orc for event scenes and saving, though fan noise and battery life (around 2 hours) are noted. - Display Resolution Support (weight 0.03): There's mixed feedback regarding resolution support. While some players reported the game supporting higher resolutions like 3440x1440 and even 4K, others noted it only supported 1080p, suggesting inconsistent or evolving support. - Unfinishable Cooking Quest (weight 0.01): A specific bug prevents players from placing items on the mixing station during a particular cooking quest, making it impossible to complete. This is a critical progression blocker for affected players. - Input Display Switching (weight 0.01): The game now properly switches key explanations between keyboard/mouse and controller inputs. This improves user experience by providing relevant on-screen prompts based on the active input device. - Steam Cloud Sync (weight 0.01): The game successfully utilizes Steam Cloud Sync, allowing players to seamlessly transfer save data between different devices. This is a convenient feature for players who play on multiple systems. Recommendations: - Early Access, Promising Potential (weight 0.43): The game is in Early Access, with developers continuously updating it. While some content is limited, many reviewers see significant potential for it to become a masterpiece with continued development. A demo is available for interested players. - Generally Recommended, Value Buy (weight 0.42): Many players recommend the game, especially when on sale, citing its enjoyable gameplay and good value for its price. Some recommend it with caveats, suggesting it's worth trying despite flaws or if specific genres are enjoyed. - Great for Farming Sim Fans (weight 0.16): The game is highly recommended for players who enjoy farming and life simulation games, often compared favorably to titles like Stardew Valley and Rune Factory. It offers a fresh twist on the genre. - Negative Experience, Refunded (weight 0.11): A significant number of players expressed strong dissatisfaction, leading to refund requests. They advise against purchasing the game until critical issues are addressed, indicating a poor current experience. - Unique Xianxia/Wuxia Blend (weight 0.1): The game is particularly recommended for fans of Chinese cultivation stories (xianxia/wuxia) and c-novels/dramas. It successfully blends these cultural themes with farming simulation. - Request Marriage/Romance System (weight 0.09): Players frequently request the addition of a comprehensive marriage or Dao companion system, including character-specific romance storylines. This feature is highly anticipated and would significantly enhance player engagement. - More Towns, Automation, Cooking (weight 0.07): Players expressed a desire for additional content and quality-of-life features, including more towns to recruit disciples, automation/workers, and an endless cooking mode with a pause option. - Limited Content, Needs More (weight 0.07): While some players enjoyed the existing content, many felt the game's current volume was insufficient, leading to a desire for more story, areas, and overall longevity. Some felt it was an unfinished product. - Improve Controller Controls (weight 0.04): Players reported issues with controller operation and generally recommended skipping controllers in favor of keyboard and mouse. There's a strong desire for improved control optimization. - Support Developers, Buy Sequels (weight 0.04): Many players expressed strong support for the developers and indicated a willingness to purchase future DLC or sequels, showing confidence in the studio's potential. - Critical Save Game Bugs (weight 0.03): The game suffers from persistent and critical save game issues, particularly affecting Linux and Steam Deck users. These bugs prevent players from progressing and are a major reason for negative reviews. - Better Inventory Management (weight 0.02): Players suggested improvements to inventory and storage, such as more storage points, materials counting as available from storage, and category-based sorting options to enhance the gameplay experience. - Combat System Needs Rework (weight 0.01): Feedback suggests the current open-world monster fighting could be improved, with one suggestion being a shift to a turn-based encounter system if the existing combat cannot be refined. - Potential for Motion Sickness (weight 0.01): Players sensitive to certain camera movements or fast-paced action, similar to games by Hidetaka Miyazaki, should exercise caution as the game might induce dizziness. Other player notes: - Desired Future Content (weight 0.17): Players express strong desire for continued development, including new content like marriage systems, animal husbandry, late-game areas, and general quality-of-life improvements. There's also an appreciation for ongoing updates and a hope for more. - Stardew Valley-like Gameplay (weight 0.07): The game is frequently compared to Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, indicating its core gameplay loop involves farming, life simulation, and RPG elements, but with a unique xianxia/Wuxia theme. - High Potential, Grind Frustration (weight 0.05): The game is recognized for its significant potential, but some players experience frustration, particularly with perceived intentional grind that can lead to feelings of wasted time. - More Cultivation Focus (weight 0.04): Players desire more in-depth cultivation content and mechanics, feeling that the farming aspects sometimes overshadow the core cultivation theme. Suggestions include shared cultivation experiences and narrative-driven elements. - Improve Kitchen Storage (weight 0.02): Players suggest quality-of-life improvements for the kitchen, specifically requesting a dedicated storage space for ingredients or linking cooking materials directly to the main warehouse. - Stamina & Save/Load QoL (weight 0.02): Reviewers suggest alternative ways to recover stamina beyond eating or sleeping, and also request the ability to save and load game progress more freely. - Improve Movement Speed (weight 0.02): Players desire improvements to character movement, suggesting modifiers for increased speed or a sword-flying fast travel system to alleviate slow traversal. - Bugs & Grind Workarounds (weight 0.02): Players encountered specific issues like a cooking bug and resorted to using cheat engines due to frustration with material grinding, highlighting areas needing balance or bug fixes. - Mine & Teleportation QoL (weight 0.02): Specific suggestions include adding large stone blocks and mixed rare mineral piles in mines, and a teleportation function using Star Rail Stones for convenience. - Farming Spell QoL (weight 0.02): Reviewers suggest adding cultivation-themed spells for farming, such as a cloud-summoning rain spell for watering or a skill to plant seeds in a framed area, to improve efficiency and immersion. - Optimization Needed (weight 0.02): While the game has pleasant visuals, reviewers note that it still requires significant optimization to improve performance and overall smoothness. - Developer Commitment Concerns (weight 0.02): Some players express apprehension about the developers' long-term commitment, fearing the game might not receive significant updates post-release or could be a 'fast cash grab.' - Efficiency Tips Shared (weight 0.02): Reviewers share practical tips for efficient gameplay, such as stocking up on rare crop variants and upgrading planting/hoeing skills, indicating areas where players seek optimization. - Unique Character Design (weight 0.02): The game is praised for its well-designed and unique characters, indicating a positive reception to the NPC and protagonist aesthetics and personalities. - Good Content Volume (weight 0.02): Reviewers find the game offers a decent amount of content for its price, suggesting good value for money. - Relaxing Time Passer (weight 0.02): The game is described as a relaxing experience, suitable for passing time, indicating a positive sentiment regarding its casual and enjoyable nature. Emotions: - enjoyment (weight 0.1): Emotion: enjoyment - satisfaction (weight 0.22): Emotion: satisfaction - confusion (weight 0.01): Emotion: confusion - hope (weight 0.02): Emotion: hope - disappointment (weight 0.15): Emotion: disappointment - frustration (weight 0.18): Emotion: frustration - boredom (weight 0.02): Emotion: boredom - annoyance (weight 0.02): Emotion: annoyance - appreciation (weight 0.03): Emotion: appreciation - anger (weight 0.05): Emotion: anger - joy (weight 0.03): Emotion: joy - relaxation (weight 0.02): Emotion: relaxation - excitement (weight 0.04): Emotion: excitement - mild frustration (weight 0.01): Emotion: mild frustration}