Flame in the Flood vs My Time at Portia
Flame in the Flood
Flame in the Flood is a rather unique survival game that's developed by the ex-developers of Bioshock. Instead of featuring an open world, the game places you on a rickety raft, which you can then upgrade as you gather the necessary materials, that's being dragged down a long windy river. The waters aren't always smooth and easily navigatable as you might expect and from time to time, particularly in between "zones", you'll encounter a stretch of whitewater rapids that will truly challenge your rafting skills.In this game, you will also encounter locations where you can dock your raft at and explore. From churches to farms, each location offers varying amount of resources for you to gather, and if you're lucky, a place for you to take shelter for the night. These locations aren't all safe though! Aside from the more harmless wildlife like rabbits, you may encounter dangerous animals that can cause severe harm to your character - you may even die either from being gored by a wild boar or from injuries sustained from the fight.
As a survival game, there are several indicators that you'll need to keep your eyes on. Fail to do so and you may die of exhaustion, thirst, hunger or hypothermia. The game also features a pretty in-depth crafting system where you can produce useful items like bandages for your wounds and clothes to keep your character warm.
Flame in the Flood is a truly hardcore survival game. It's merciless in its gameplay, pitting you against challenges after challenges until your character can take no more. If you get frustrated easily, this is definitely not for you, but if you love a challenge, you might just want to give this game a try.
My Time at Portia
My Time at Portia is a charming fantasy-themed adventure RPG that is set on a gorgeous, revitalized world after a post-apocalyptic event wiped out the previous technologically-advanced civilization. In this game, you play as an up-and-coming Builder, a respected role in society, whose sole purpose is to help solve the town's problems by engineering a solution.With a gameplay which may fondly remind you of games like Harvest Moon, My Time at Portia may be grindy in an RPG sort of way (think repeated dungeon runs or resource-harvesting), but the game has a nice relaxing pace, where its quests (both main and side quests) are slowly revealed as you progress. Being a Builder, you can also complete a commission request daily to collect some cash. The game also features an elaborate gifting/relationship-building system, fun ruin-diving areas, tons of interesting characters to meet, and challenging dungeons. You can even romance and eventually marry an NPC (not all though) you like!
The best part of the game is definitely its in-depth crafting system. There are tons of machines you can build to help you generate a wide variety of materials to build other stuff. You can also unlock new machine technologies via the Research Center.
My Time at Portia feels a lot like an adorable MMORPG minus the MMO part. It has the grind, the dungeon runs... but of course, this game places a lot more emphasis on its resource-collecting, as well as crafting and building aspects. Sounds like a game you'd like to play? Well, despite still being in early access, the first chapter of the game is already ready and bugs-free, so if you do buy the game, know that you can at least get a good 40 hours or so out of it.