Sandwalkers Review Summary

Engaging combat and story with beautiful visuals, but early difficulty issues, quest bugs, and memory leaks mar the experience.

Engaging gameplay and combat: Players consistently praise the gameplay as enjoyable, solid, and fun. The turn-based combat system is highlighted as interesting, deep, and engaging, with emphasis on positioning, initiative, and synergy.

Compelling story and lore: The storytelling, narrative, and lore are frequently praised as captivating, amazing, and interesting. The world building is also highlighted as evocative and excellent.

Beautiful and impressive visuals: Players find the visuals aesthetically pleasing, impressive, and gorgeous. The graphics are described as fantastic, clear, and convenient.

Fun and rewarding exploration: Exploration is highlighted as fun, exciting, and addictive. The combination of exploration with combat and questing is particularly enjoyable, and map discovery influences gameplay positively.

Interesting core mechanics and ideas: The game's premise, mechanics, and ideas are considered interesting and unique. Players appreciate the variety of classes, abilities, and team compositions.

Difficulty poorly balanced early: The game's difficulty is very unbalanced, with an extremely hard start that becomes trivial after leveling. This poor early balance frustrates new players.

Quest bugs block progress: Multiple quests are broken due to bugs such as enemies not spawning, points of interest vanishing, and quests persisting across runs. One specific quest cannot progress after killing a worm, with no further guidance provided.

Mid-late game becomes boring: The game becomes slightly monotonous after mid-game, too easy and boring in the later stages. This leads to a lack of engagement as players progress.

Memory leaks cause lag and crashes: Severe memory leaks become worse with longer playtime, causing sluggish performance, lag, and crashes. Periodic restarts are required to mitigate the issue.

Game unplayable from bugs: The game is described as unplayable due to numerous bugs that significantly hamper the experience. This feedback is frequent and indicates severe quality issues.

Roguelike and meta-progression system: Roguelike elements including procedural runs are combined with meta-progression that persists between runs, unlocking upgrades and narrative discoveries. This loop is central to replayability.

Turn-based tactical combat: The game features turn-based combat with positioning, role-based mechanics (tank/healer/damage dealer), and status effects. Players strategize using shield breaks and frontline/backline systems.

Resource and inventory management: Players must manage resources like food, weight, and supplies. Inventory management affects survival and caravan efficiency, with systems for scavenging and hunger.

Caravan management and upgrades: Caravan mechanics include supply management, weight limits, and upgrades that enhance provisions and damage. This system integrates with roguelike progression and resource strategy.

Roguelite with caravan and resource focus: The blend of roguelite progression, caravan management, and resource strategy (food, time, upgrades) defines the core gameplay loop, rewarding careful planning.

Long loading times worsen over time: Loading screens become increasingly longer as the game progresses, indicating a cumulative performance degradation issue.

Memory leaks cause crashes: Multiple players report memory leaks that lead to freezing, stuttering, and eventual crashes, especially after extended play or when opening maps.

Stuttering and low FPS: Players report constant stuttering, sometimes dropping to 3-4 FPS on map screens, even with simple graphics and on low settings.

Crashes loading map sections: Players experience frequent crashes, especially when loading new map sections or during loading screens, with some reporting up to five crashes in two hours.

Poor optimization on high-end hardware: Performance is poor even on high-end PCs, including those with RTX 3080 GPUs, with stuttering and low FPS despite meeting recommended specs.

Worth buying on sale: A large number of players recommend purchasing this game when it is discounted, suggesting it provides good value at a reduced price but may not be worth the full price.

Not recommended currently: Many reviewers advise against buying the game in its current state due to bugs, balance issues, and design problems, though some may change their recommendation if these issues are fixed.

General positive recommendation: Several players simply recommend the game without specific qualifiers, indicating overall satisfaction with the experience.

Recommended for roguelike fans: The game is particularly recommended for fans of roguelikes, turn-based RPGs, and specific similar titles like Curious Expedition, Legend of Keepers, and Darkest Dungeon.

Too difficult for casual players: The game is noted for its high difficulty and frequent deaths, appealing only to masochistic or hardcore players who enjoy overwhelming challenges.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $15.00.

Game completion: 15.0h.

Story completion: 12.0h.

Session length: 1.5h.

The game's early hours are a tedious slog due to opaque mechanics, unbalanced combat, and limited meta-progression, but it becomes more engaging after unlocking meta-progression upgrades, typically after a couple of hours or a few runs.

Reported time to anchor: 2h.

Friction: Early game unbalanced and tedious; Inventory management is tedious; RNG can negatively impact runs; Slow travel with frequent ambushes.

Narrative Adventurer: Focuses on exploration and dialogue, prioritizes story progression over efficiency. Motivation: To experience a rich narrative and witness the world evolve through player actions. Stance: buy.

Tactical Veteran: Cautious planning, meticulous resource management, and methodical combat execution. Motivation: To conquer tough tactical challenges and optimize party composition through runs. Stance: buy.

Cautious Optimist: Plays multiple early runs to test mechanics, tolerates roughness, and avoids excessive frustration by waiting for patches. Motivation: To support promising development and enjoy the game as it evolves. Stance: deep sale.