Recent reviews by DrPudding

Consider me thoroughly addicted.

This game has blended a lot of great ideas together into a novel concept:
The management of a central hearth with citizens' wellbeing in a hostile environment, very much like Frostpunk.
Understanding supply chains and building the right combination of buildings and producing the right goods for your win condition like Factorio.
A Storm cycle with a much more hostile season as part of the cycle, which feels a lot like Don't Starve.

Some of the especially good points of the game:
Highly replayable - different biomes offer different conditions and resources, each new settlement is randomly generated too. Each set of buildings you unlock each time is random, forcing you to adapt your playstyle.
Progression system - nice selection of upgrades from the Smoldering City with a lengthy progression tree.
Scaling difficulty - new technology comes with caveats (like Blightrot/corruption), some biomes have their own unique challenges and as you progress through the higher difficulty levels extra obstacles are thrown in your way (with higher rewards).
Punishing but not crushing - there is more than one way to solve the problems this games throws at you, whether it's low resolve a lack of materials (trading is amazing) or high hostility. Also, you still get progression even if you lose the settlement that you're on.

An excellent buy in the summer sale, but definitely worth the full price too.

I highly recommend this game, it has very addictive gameplay, is great fun to play with friends or by yourself and has a good immersive experience (which is improving with each update). What this game does best is creating high intensity moments that make a thrilling cat and mouse scenario. The only real drawback to this game is that it was rushed out of its Beta stage and needs a bit more polishing (though the upcoming patch will fix many of its issues, so many of the problems being complained about in other reviews will be gone very soon).

Pros:

- Genuinely scary when you first start out as a survivor, and can still make you jump even after 700 hours of play.
- Good range of killers and abilities, random variation in map generation and a wide variety of perks/items/offerings/addons stops the game becoming repetitive or a single playstyle from setting in.
- Allows you to team up with friends in 'Survive with Friends' (SWF) against a random killer online or to hunt down your friends in the 'Kill Your Friends' (KYF) mode, both of which are good fun.
- Ranking up is satisfying and stops you from hitting a skill ceiling too early.
- I met the vast majority of my steam friends playing this, it's a good game for meeting people from the teamplay, and you can bring groups of friends together into one SWF or KYF lobby.
- A good mental challenge and exercise in strategy, especially in the chases when one player tries to outmanoeuvre/outwit another - this is where much of the game's enjoyment is to be found.

Cons:

- The game needs a bit more polish: bugs such as getting stuck in an infinite loading screen, items not being usable, getting matched with players of a different level to you, can spoil the experience. However, the next big patch (coming within the next week) will fix many of these issues - I have tested it myself.
- Steep learning curve for beginners: starting out with no perks and no experience means the first few games will be very tough (although that makes the first escapes/sacrifices all the sweeter).
- P2P lobbies instead of dedicated servers can sometimes leave you at the mercy of the killer's internet (tip: spamming the lobby chat before the match starts gives you a good indication of whether there will be lag in the game).
- Gameplay needs some more balance (however this is only really noticeable at high-rank play and the updates will improve the balance).