Open Sewer vs The Survivalists
Open Sewer
Open Sewer is an RPG/simulation game where you’ll not only get to manage your own apartment block, but to also scour the grime-covered streets for precious bottles to recycle and earn some cash from. There are plenty of characters to meet and perhaps get quests from, as well as plenty more crafting options using materials that you can either collect from dumpster diving, trash picking or drain fishing, or buy from the local stores. Although the map is currently pretty small for an open world game, there are many places for you to explore within the city... and if you're lucky, you may even find a whole stash of resources that you can repurpose for your own benefit!The whole concept behind the game and also its implementation is impressive, to say the least! Open Sewer has all the makings of a successful indie hit, but there are still many bugs to fix and rooms to improve (the game's currently in early access). Hopefully, if the developers do truly take the players' suggestions and feedback into account, Open Sewer might just go mainstream!
The Survivalists
The Survivalists is a survival-themed adventure game focusing on exploring a vast archipelago filled with hidden secrets and treasures as well as mysterious temples and dangerous terrains. The goal here is not only to make a life for yourself by recruiting and training the local monkeys to help with your many mundane chores, but to find a way to crack the mystery shrouding the archipelago and possibly find a way to finally escape!The Survivalists has a sandbox-style, survival-themed gameplay, which means that you’re expected to gather plenty of resources from the environment, use them to build a base of operations… or even multiple outposts and bases… and make sure you’ve got plenty of protection ready for when the local hostile tribesmen attack you, which they do from time to time.
The map here is simply amazing and if you just love exploring, you’ll find the island-hopping experience here pretty satisfying… that is once you’ve got your raft built. Of course, being set in the tropics, there isn’t a whole lot of different biomes to discover, though there are volcanic and swampy areas that are more dangerous than the normal terrain. Even the sea contains dangers and you’ll do well to avoid the ravenous sharks that are looking for an easy meal.
The best and most interesting part about The Survivalists that really help it stands out from all the other generic sandbox survival games is the fact that you can “recruit” monkeys on the island to help you with any mundane tasks. This encompasses all tasks that can be easily replicated by the monkeys. After all, monkey see, monkey do!
That being said, training your monkeys is, unfortunately, also the most frustrating part of the game. Unlike games with macros, you can’t really save the tasks you’ve taught your monkey as general macros that you can then use whenever you need the same tasks done sometime in the future. Instead, every time you need your monkeys to do something, you’ll have to teach it all over again… which frankly speaking is very annoying.
All in all, The Survivalists is as addictively fun as it looks. Being a survival-themed sandbox adventure, there is plenty of stuff you can craft, items to gather, loyal monkeys to train, and bases to set up as you slowly and steadily explore every inch of the massive archipelago. However, the game isn’t without its flaws and I personally think that the game could have made the monkey-training part a bit more convenient and less annoying for the player.