First off big thank you to sand sailor studios and thunderful publishing for the code to aska its greatly appreciated and gave me the opportunity to check out there game let’s talk about it.

First off survival games are not my forte the last survival games I played were rust and Conan exile years ago and haven’t touched the genre since, so color me surprised when I received this code to check out aska and there new sailing update.

The game starts you off washing up on shore of your random generated island you wake up and see the remains of your ship and trust me remains they are in the ocean just feet away you this giant stone golem which im a million percent sure is responsible for you being stranded just looks at you does a loud roar and disappears into the distance like some figure trying to walk away from its crime no sir you get back here and fix my ship.

So my first run starts with me on the beach I walk around a bit looking at my surroundings I grab some fancy blue rocks off the carcass of my ships and wandered around so you will come across some blue wisp that will randomly appear telling you what to do next which im guessing is this games idea of a tutorial which trust me its not compared to other survival games the tutorial leaves much to be desired, after managing to figure out the basics I built myself some tools and started getting to work on my base camp by building a fire which for some reason the game decided to make hard by placing a phantom fire down then you bring the items needed to it give it to the phantom fire then actually build it but it doesn’t get marked done until you add fire wood go figure. So during my exploration I came across these floating monsters I took them out and they dropped some much needed materials for me to progress. What I do like about the game though is if you press the letter Z a pulse is emitted from you that pushes outward and paints everything that is usable and able to be harvested in a golden glow that last a couple seconds the good thing is you can use this pulse as often as you want which works wonders for finding smaller items on the floor when your in grassy areas. Now back to the game with no tutorials I spent a bit of time walking around now the game has a section in the menus that acts as there tutorial section but let’s be real a tutorial should guild the player through the basics of gathering and building until you have a decent home base set up.

So I wandered around found wood and sticks from small trees I was able to chop down and had a hard time finding stone since nothing small had generated near by just my luck so I layed out my first building needed which is the hut for sleeping my make shift home then I started work on the eye of oden which is the device that summons new villagers in exchange for 5 blood stones fair trade I suppose well my first run was a disaster with not knowing what to do I ended up dying of thirst this one made me mad as I had an ocean of water and yet I couldn’t drink out of why I dont know.
So I took a break from the game and went on YouTube looking for begginer videos and tips on how to play and thank lord youtube exist cause it helped me out greatly so that my next runs wouldnt be a disaster as for water turns out until you build a well or water catcher you must find small stones on the floor that have water deposits for you to drink why they would do this makes no sense but thats my 2 cents.

So in my next run I managed to get a small village going I also had a better starting location being surrounded by trees and stone and a decent amount of food so I got my tents up the fire pit going which I then upgraded with a shield to protect it from the rain as well as a bar b q stand to cook I also managed to build a gatherers pit a wood and stone pit as well I managed to summon some villagers to help me out and so far controlling them isnt hard but there interaction menu is very deep and is something you take your time to learn. When summoning villagers your able to see what there first 2 perks are which you definitely want some that will benefit your early game. I went for some that had gathering stats so I could move them around to different areas.

Aska has a lot to learn and a good amount of content to work with I still haven’t gotten to the new sailing content im sure that will take me a few dozen hours of play time. Don’t let my experience deter you this game is really worth playing and giving it a shot the graphics are beautiful for a survival game no bleak deserts and no guns either you get a bow and arrow as well as some clubs for early game you also have a large amount of buildings to build through and expand your village as well as walls and gates to keep your village enclosed and safe which trust me villagers will tell you about it and if you dont manage to fix stuff guess what they leave.

Aska is a viking based survival game that gives its own take on the genre of survival and village management I highly recommend it to players that know the genre well and to new players please watch some YouTube videos first going in blind sucked and I wasted so much time only to end up dieing of thirst of all things the game does have hostiles in the form of wolves and skeletons you also get invaded so there’s a good amount of survival to be done but thats all for now thank you for your time take care and game on.

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