Be Excellent To Each Other

So I picked this up in the Steam Winter Sale for £7.50 and I have to say I'm pretty smitten with it. The Long Dark is an indie survival game by Hinterland Studios for the PC and X-Box One. It's set in the immediate aftermath of an apocalyptic event when massive geomagnetic disruption caused presumably by solar activity knocks out electricity systems across the planet, permanently. At the start of every adventure a block of text informs you that you are a bush pilot in Northern Canada, having just regained consciousness after your plane crashed following the event. Following this you open your eyes and see a frozen wilderness all around you. You have little in the way of survival gear; barely any water, food or decent winter clothing. Your priority is to find shelter, fast, as although you awake to a mildly chilly ambient temperature, freezing fogs, blizzards and the icy blanket of night can soon fall upon you.

Oh, there are also wolves and bears out there. You don't want to run into any of them. Especially bears.

So you begin your exploration, trudging through the snow, hoping against hope that upon mounting the next snowy rise you'll see a trapper's cabin, or a lakeside holiday hut, or at the very least a stalled car on a remote road to escape the wind-chill. It's rather nail-biting stuff, as you hear your character shiver and mutter and pray as you trudge, trudge, trudge through the wastes. But when you do find that haven appearing out of the blinding dance of snowflakes, it's a heart-soaring moment. Of course once inside with your body's core temperature dangerously low, it's then time to get a fire going. Better search the lockers and stores and frozen bodies to see if you can find matches and tinder. Perhaps break apart some items of furniture to feed the stove. Once warmed and having popped open a few cans of soda and munched some candy bars, it's time to get some rest as night falls and you hear the wind begin to howl outside. Tomorrow will bring new problems, like what to do when your scavenged supplies run out. After all, exertion and the cold result in you burning through calories in record time. After a few days of dawdling around your little haven you'll have eaten your last tin of dog-food and begun wishing you'd try pushing out earlier to find a hunting rifle or fishing tackle or something. This is the genius of the game, you have to take calculated risks and push on into the unknown. Eventually you get to read the signs of shifting weather, of the presence of wolves in the area, of the grim balancing act of energy expenditure over the gathering of resources. After all, hunting and the chopping of wood and the trudging of scavenging burns up calories - best choose your next action wisely, and go about it efficiently. The game is one of praying as you light a damp fire that it'll catch, of hoping the cave you sit out a blizzard in doesn't have a bear within, and wondering feverishly if you've been turned around somehow in your seemingly harmless little jaunt into a bewildering forest as the gentle snowfall begins to cover your tracks and a mist sets in.

You'll die eventually of course. And there's no going back to reload saves either. It's merely a question of how long you can survive.



The game has five regions currently, with more to be released. However the sandbox was never originally intended to be a game in itself, it was first designed purely to allow players to test the game mechanics in advance of the eventual release of a story-mode, which consists of journeying through post-apocalyptic Canada encountering other survivors enduring the crazed wild and the harsh natural elements. However early access players carried on playing the sandbox mode for so long on the original two maps that three more were soon released, and more game mechanics designed to expand the different elements of survival and death. And it's this sandbox mode that has me hooked. The story mode is to be released episodically and features the voice talents of Jennifer Hale and Mark Meers among others, and is to feature lots of tough judgement calls as you have to decide if you can afford to save another life or not, as survivors beg outside your door as the wolf packs close in, and you realise you don't have enough supplies to feed those outside and besides, your winter coat is torn and the cloth on their backs would sure come in handy repairing it. However, being ruthless might jeopardise you later on as another soul isn't there to help you as stumble and fall and break your leg. The first part should be out in Spring.



The Long Dark looks great. It's got a simple, cell-shaded sort of watercolour style reminiscent of a more sober-minded Team Fortress 2. The weather systems are beautiful, and blend it to each other in a seamless naturalistic manner. As you become slowly aware that a blizzard is coming in and you're kilometres from the sanctuary of your lakeside cabin, you really feel panicked as the snow slowly begins to fall thicker and faster, and flurries begin to whip up over rock outcroppings. Animals roam in a naturalistic manner as well. The casual loping of wolves slowly hunching down as they spot their prey, before springing up and running down startled deer is something to behold. The game has a day night cycle that has some beautiful lighting effects, and interiors have rather pleasant shafts of light springing through the windows. Whilst at night, things get terrifyingly dark. The graphics aren't next-gen amazing or anything, but they are very atmospheric and refreshingly simple. And that's more than good enough when the sound design really pulls its weight. You can hear the shifting of wind, the tapping of woodpeckers and the cawing of crows (usually circling a dead body) and the distant howling of wolves. Chopping wood, shifting through snow, lighting matches, unzipping rucksacks - all have a great organic sound. In fact I'd say that it's the most impressive and atmospheric sound design I've heard since the War Tapes option in Battlefield Bad Company 2.

As it is at the moment in Sandbox, it's not a perfect game and not for everyone. Some will get frustrated at the permanent nature of death, although that gives weight and tension to all the decisions you make in the game. It's also alleviated by the narrative you can record with your character thanks to an in-game free-text journal that runs day by day, and that you can screenshot for review later in your Steam Gallery. I'm on my third character. My first, Luce Harlow, died on the third day out on a frozen lake as she took out her rifle and aimed at a wolf that began to pad softly towards her. She panicked and fired and the shot went wide and before she could reload, it was on her, and with her weakened state carrying too many supplies in her backpack, and her sprained ankle, she failed to fight off the wolf and joined the long dark as it tore out her throat. My second character got lost in a blizzard, I later suspected only fifty yards or so from safety. My third, Johann Lorre, is doing fine. He's on his eleventh day resting out a blizzard quite comfortably in his trapper's cabin. The lockers are stuffed with cooked venison and wolf steaks. On the floor, deer hides and wolf pelts are curing to later be made into garments to replace the rapidly fraying winter sports gear. Guts festoon the tabletops and shelves, drying out to later make rabbit snares and bow strings and cords and stitches for clothing. And a big pile of branches lie in the corner to stoke up the fire, ready to melt more snow and keep the fellow hydrated. No whisky in game though, alas, alas.



I can imagine a point when one gets too good at the sandbox mode and the game becomes something of a chore - though you are only a few bad decisions from death at any time. (I spent yesterday skinning deer for too long, too far away with Johann, and barely got home ahead of night and the inevitable increase in wolves it brings.) You could argue there isn't much to it either. No endgame at the moment, no building of Minecraftian edifices. Virtually no combat and in the developer's lexicon the word zombie is clearly seen as the foulest of obscenities, never to plague the realistic, slow paced setting of the game. (Which is fine by me, I'm very much bored of zombies.) But for me the game is truly special thanks to the escape into another world it provides. You're on your own in The Long Dark. There's no one to talk to, but then that means there's no one hassling you to go bowling or giving you bullshit fed-ex quests. Every problem affecting you is ultimately one of your own creation, born of underestimating the cruelly indifferent powers of nature around you.

Last night I dreamt I was in a coffee shop in Northern Canada, and there was a wolf outside. I think this is the sort of game I've been looking for, for quite a long time.

4.5/5

The Long Dark Game Website

Story Mode Teaser Trailer

Yes, I've owned this for a while. Need to play it at some point.

It's currently occupying my wishlist but I'm waiting for it to exit Early Access which, so I've heard, shouldn't be too long in the future.

EDIT: Just reminded myself that the campaign mode isn't in it at the minute and this put me off buying it. I like stories, y'see.

In this sort of game you make your own stories.

Currently 8 quid. Not exactly £7.50 but 8 quid.

Stories

Buy it, play it with headphones in the dark, whimper like a child as you hear the growling of a wolf from behind the parked car near the holiday cabin you're camping out in, too afraid to make it across the thick snow of the coastal road to the garage where you've stored all your gear, for fear of it running you down before you make the other side. For example.

Ahoy-hoy all.

I'm still playing this and kind of loving it. This, Cities Skylines and American Truck Simulator seem to be my go-to games at the moment, with a little TF2 and Bad Company 2 mixed in for the old ultra-violence. Anyway, I'm still on the first map, and have survived for quite a fair time now despite some horribly close calls. (Racing back to your cabin with a wolf breathing down your neck never gets any less terrifying.) I'm hunting with a bow and arrow too, trying to save my last two rifle bullets for a real emergency. The only problem with arrow shot is that you have to track down the animal, as a hit is rarely enough to bring a deer down. And then you run the risk of a wolf also taking an interest in the wounded animal / corpse. I'm still keeping a diary in-game, which adds bags to the atmosphere, and I'm just about to make day twenty - the longest I've ever survived with a character.

So, there was an update the other day. Apparently the story mode is being put back. Gngh as it isn't ready yet. However the good news is that they're adding a lot more to it, as is shown in the video below:

https://youtu.be/RM0rpLoqzgA

There's also going to be many more sandbox updates, with lots of new gameplay mechanics and updated graphics and such. A new update is due in a couple of weeks, and I for one can't wait to see it. To those holding out on story mode I say; do not underestimate the sandbox mode. It really is fricking great and hugely atmospheric. This is the only game I've played to really make you project yourself into the game. You feel that it is you yourself exploring, raiding lakeside cabins for supplies, nursing flickering matches in darkened caves.

The game has also got me reading into the Carrington Event, which is incredibly fascinating and under-documented. The premise of the game, chillingly, is also something that could actually happen. Anyway, back to the game for me and stitching together my new rabbit skin mittens. I'm doing reasonable at the moment, but I full well know that I may be only one bad decision from a downward spiral. Yesterday I started out for the dam, and realised half way there that I hadn't brought my bedroll or lantern, which could have meant being unable to sleep and staggering around cold and exhausted in a pitch black industrial building containing who-knows-what, unable to find any supplies and perhaps doing myself a dangerous injury. So it was back to the cabin for me, berating myself for stupidity.

Any other Beexer's currently playing it? What are your thoughts? I am intrigued. And damn if this game doesn't have the best sound I've ever heard in any game ever.

So I started another game recently, this time in Pleasant Valley. I was lucky enough to spawn inside the farmhouse. It's a place with good sight-lines, by a frozen creek with a rabbit run nearby and deer. There is a bear that wanders through a nearby field on occasion, but I've managed to avoid him thus far. I'm ten days in, surviving on the dozen rifle rounds I've currently got and waiting for the deer gut to cure so I can make some rabbit snares. It was a tough start though, very little food and until I found the rifle I was nearly starving to death, surviving on cans of pop and beef jerky and mouldy candy bars found in abandoned cars.

Then I found the signal cabin by the radio tower. The sight of it had greeted me every morning when I stepped out onto the front porch, atop a hill in the distance. One day, desperation for food forced me out to try and find this cabin. And I was glad I did, another rifle, ammunition, peanut butter, tools, a fire-starter, comfy beds. I was in heaven! A couple of wolves on the prowl on the valley floor, but aside from that none too shabby. And wallowing in my cromulent success I got over-confident and almost killed myself...



I was out a wandering and found a rope dangling over the edge of a cliff. Looking down over the edge I saw a bear wandering. I knew I couldn't explore down there with the bear around, so I took a shot at it with my rifle. There was a hit and it howled and ran away. I waited. Started a fire to keep myself warm (it was around noon, but a nippy day) and looked out to see the bear hobbling through trees in the distance. Eventually it returned to the foot of the cliff and died from blood loss.

Elated and giddy with the thought of a bearskin bed-roll I decided to descend. But then I realised that I had a backpack full of wood and wouldn't be able to lug much in the way of harvested meat from the corpse. So I dropped the four big fir logs I had with me and went down. I got the hide alright, and the guts, but after chopping off two bear steaks a blizzard began to whip up around me. I figured I'd climb back up the rope and get back to the cabin, that I might just be able to make it. But I was tired from the meat-hacking and my bag weighed too much, I hadn't the stamina to climb high enough and I decided against risking the ascent and slid back to the valley floor. But now the wind was really picking up. Visibility was dropping fast - and so was the temperature! I cast around and found the bear cave. Perfect! I went inside and rolled out my bedroll. It was approaching night now. I curled up and went to sleep.

And almost died. The temperature had dropped hugely! Although out of the wind the ambient temperature was minus 22. I lit a fire and to my horror found I only had enough wood to last an hour and a half. I desperately prayed for the blizzard to lift, but no dice. With half an hour of fire left I took out my lantern and plunged outside into the howling storm. I remembered a big fir tree branch and attempted to hack it pieces. But the cold was so piercing I was numb within minutes, and had to flee back to the cave. And in my panic sprinting I tripped and sprained my ankle. Now I was in serious trouble. I warmed up a little next to the fire before it died and pondered trying the bedroll again, but if I climbed in I knew I would fall asleep and die. So I pushed back out again, limping to the left this time. Mercifully I found five or six sticks of wood and some reishi mushrooms sticking out of a tree stump. I limped back to the cave, teeth chattering, and fixed another fire. Soon I had a nice hot cup of reishi tea - a natural pain killer - and I was feeling somewhat warmer. I held back with a few sticks and climbed into the bedroll and slept an hour. Woke up chilled, lit the fire again and repeated the process. Soon it was dawn, though one could barely tell with the thick, howling snow whipping past the cave mouth. On the verge of hypothermia, I berated myself for not climbing down with that wood on my back. If I had, I would be able to sit out the blizzard - and these storms can last a day sometimes.



It was with the greatest feeling of relief I'd ever experienced in a game then, that the storm suddenly let up. I was still fairly freezing, but I picked up the bear pelt and guts, and hobbled my way back to the farmhouse which - now the snow had cleared - I could see from a nearby little crest, a scant half mile away. Fifteen minutes later I was safely back indoors, shovelling firewood into the stove and thinking to myself...

Man, this really is one of the best games I've ever played. I was shaking. And since the update it has become such a beautiful looking game. Waking on a morning, looking out, it's such an emotion. And the footprints in the snow look amazing now. Much more in the way of gorgeous ambient music too. And blizzards are amazing. Before they arrive you can see the snow moving in fast on the upper winds, high up. Birds take aloft and fly in front of the approaching snow front. Then the winds pick up, driving the snow in whisps ahead of you and then... and then it hits. You can't see shit, losing all sense of direction. You actually find it hard to move into the wind. The sound roars into your ears. Just a flurry of white out of dark, hitting your eyes constantly, dim outlines of your surroundings. Oh man, amazing.

(Oh, they've added Challenge Modes now. One opens with a bear attack straight out of The Revenant, followed by a severely weakened player trying to make it to the Trapper's Cabin and the rifle contained within as the bear implacably stalks you through the wilderness. The other challenge they've added is climbing to the top of a mountain to retrieve a flare pistol from a crashed plane, and then returning to the shoreline lighthouse to fire it to summon help - all within an arduous 7 day ordeal.)

I need to give this another shot. I love the stories you weave yourself from these sorts of games.

This sounds like the sort of game I would love to play, but would probably make my nerves bad and my anxiety flare up

I love reading your posts though dude. Reminds me of Les Stroud

indeed, I'm fascinated by the game after reading Pete's write ups. But will I enjoy it as much as reading Pete's write ups? That question that will cost me eight English pounds to answer. I just bought Life is Strange, so maybe next month.

Aw, thanks buddy!

In all honesty, it can be quite anxiety inducing. It's a perma-death world and there's been a couple of times I've not quite brought myself to continue a saved game. After the first few deaths you become a bit more accepting of the inevitability of it all, however. It's the wolves and the odd bear that make it primarily such a nerve-biter. Happily there is an easier setting though. I'm playing Voyageur, the middle setting which is fairly punishing but fair. It's this (and the harder Stalker setting) that has the wolves after you. Choose Pilgrim however and things are a fair bit easier. For one, the wolves behave realistically (the other settings has them aggressive owing to the geo-magnetic disturbance) in that they nearly always shy away from humans unless really provoked. Calorie expenditure is a lot less punishing too meaning you don't have to eat quite so much food. (In the other settings you have to eat lots, which makes sense in a physically exerting frozen wasteland.) And finally the temperatures are slightly more forgiving. So in this mode, though you can still die, it's more about exploration and less about gruelling survival.

Hope that helps!

Righto, just wrote a Steam review and Cookie suggested I post it here. I'll stop hyping this game now, honest guv'nor!



And now to bed and dream nightmares about bears.

Now I'm up to day 26, and I feel I've learned so many valuable lessons. I was living reasonably comfortably on rabbit at the farmhouse, but I was down to ten bullets and I was concerned that I had no back up plan if the rabbit supply failed. I also had five arrows to hand but no maple for a bow, and I am ashamed to say that I became dangerously obsessed with getting one. So, weighing the pros and cons, I decided to strike out up over Heartbreak Bridge and take the road to the Pleasant Valley outbuildings. It was there that I encountered a bear. I fired two shots and missed, a third possibly struck but at that point I was too busy diving back into the building from the enraged fellow to take the time to enquire as to his health. I waited two hours hoping he'd bleed out and I could finally get the second pelt I needed for the bedroll. I cautiously snuck outside and there was no hide nor hair of him. Nor any blood spots. A thorough search revealed nothing in the environs so I figured I must have clipped him. But so shaken was I, so fast and hard was the adrenaline pumping, that the howl of a distant wolf made me accidentally loose off a round from the rifle. I was now down to six bullets. And I was getting peckish.



Fortunately I managed to bag a deer just before night. Five bullets now, and I was taking the hide off the poor soul when a blizzard rolled in. I ran back inside, starved for the best part of seven hours and awoke to the now peaceful dark and early hours of the pre-dawn. By a campfire I grabbed the steaks and figured to myself, 'Y'know, dude - you're not too smart. You need to save these bullets for emergencies. And you're no nearer to getting your bow. This red barn has never brought you luck, bad things have always gone down at these outbuildings, it's time to move on.' So when it was morning I elected to head on up the road over Contemplation Bridge and strike out to the woods between there and the Rural Crossroads, to the West. I hit the rural store first, stocked up on pop and a coffee and found some first aid I'd missed earlier on. It was still midday and I spent a good few hours wandering the slopes of the wood until I suddenly came upon a cave. Outside were mushrooms, rabbits and a dead deer. Inside - oh, treasures! A new bedroll and a good novel. I figured I'd skin and cut out the steaks from the deer first... but then of a sudden I held back. Wait. I've heard this song before. I re-sheathed my hunting knife and immediately started chopping fir branches instead. I assembled a pile of six, a good thick bundle of sticks, and an extra cedar log and placed them inside the cave. I then started work on the deer, lighting a small additional campfire to thaw the body out a little.

And so, as I was whipping the hide off the beast, I suddenly saw the temperature drop, heard the wind begin to howl and I smiled grimly to myself. I returned inside the cave and waited. The air grew chill and the screaming pitch of the wind increased in volume outside, a grey churning mass of whipping snow outside. I started a fire and - with the big pile of fir wood to hand - cracked open the novel. The rest of the night was spent in hospitable glee, alternately digging into the book and sleeping a couple of hours at a time. An hour before dawn, the wind dropped and I walked to the mouth of the cave. The sky was a tawny smoky orange, the colour of dying leaves, and a gentle snow fell. I stood there, quietly freezing in the minus eight, rubbing my rabbit skin mittens together gently. I felt a great sense of serenity, of acceptance of the world. The sun began to rise over distant peaks, the cold air lost some of its edge and I decided to head out to see if I could finally find my white whale - the maple sapling.



And within half an hour of exploring around the clefts and dells and hillocks of the wood, there it was! I was so shaking with joy, I had trouble harvesting it. I went back to the cave, slung the two bedrolls on my back. I decided to leave a quanity of wood in the cave for future emergencies in case I ever wanted it as a way-station, and I struck back to the outbuildings. There I nipped in to grab the deer steaks in the metal tool box, and immediately headed out along the road back to the farm. I was slowly - very slowly - freezing, dog-tired and hungry but I had a big grin on my face. Still, all the while I kept my eyes on the fields and woods to the sides of the road, checking for wolves. Stepping over Heartbreak Bridge felt like a triumphant homecoming to my traditional stomping grounds. Beside the fence, just beyond the bridge by the abandoned car I found to my further edification that two rabbits lay in my snares. I cut their meat and slung it on to my now dangerously encumbered back. And so I trudged back to the farmhouse, my beloved home. As I approached the door a blizzard began to kick in but I didn't care, I knew I had firewood ready by the stove. I set my pelts down on the floor beside the kitchen table, and the maple sapling down on the coffee table beside the cured birch. I then got to work frying steaks. The smell was delicious, the taste of the juicy flesh even more so. Sated, I realised I was about ready to collapse from exhaustion and so, lantern in hand, I ascended the stairs to bed.



Day twenty-six out there in Pleasant Valley. And the best day I've ever experienced in game... perhaps in any game. I really feel like I am out there, drawing sharp breath on a cold winter's day, crunching snow underfoot.

I've just read your steam review... Will eating snow really not save you in an emergency? Isn't it just frozen water?

Snow is Eskimo cement.

It will lower your inner temperature, and depending on your condition that might not be a good thing. (boil it, and cool it, and you're fine)

You will be immurred in an igloo

Yeah, it's not really an option as you have to eat so much of it you actually expend more energy trying to consume it whilst maintaining body temperature than you get from the water. And as far as freshly driven snow in the wilderness goes, although it is technically safe to eat, long standing snow can harbour parasites (pink algae for example) and be dangerous. (And if you have pollutants drifting over, because snowflakes form around dust particles, the snow itself can be polluted to a degree sometimes. Though this is more of a problem bordering industrial regions on real life.)

That's why mountain climbers carry those little stoves to melt and boil snow.

That was my first Steam review too!

And a very good one it is too!

I played some of this last night. I'm getting very thirsty and have only managed to find a couple of cans of soda. What can I do to make use of the frozen lake or the snow? I don't have any way of boiling snow currently. I have a hatchet and I've managed to open fishing holes, but I'm not sure how I can get water.

Also how can I cook food using the stove? I light a fire but I can't put the food on the top for some reason...

Of all things in the game my only mild annoyance is that it doesn't make clearer that you can immediately melt snow on a stove or campfire. I lost my first character running out of pop!

To get water, find a stove or make a campfire. You'll need matches indoors, or a firestriker. For outdoors you can use a magnifying glass and carry the burning twig indoors if you like. So, get a load of loose sticks on the ground - six would be a good number to start with to make a litre or so of water. You'll need tinder which can be got from newspapers, books and cat-tails. But make sure you harvest those for tinder, as you get more that way than just by throwing them straight on the fire, Bill Cosby's Guide to Parenting style. I find that starting a fire with sticks, instead of fir and cedar logs, gives the highest chance of starting. (You can add logs if you like when the fire is underway.) So, start your fire. You'll notice you've got a percentage chance of starting the fire, this will go up the more fires you start as your skill improves. Soon as it catches add fuel until you've got at least half an hour of burn time. Click the snowflake tab to melt snow. First of all click the arrow to choose around a litre to melt. It'll bubble away merrily. Then you'll need to boil it to purify it, so choose how much to do of that. If you like you can exit the screen before you do that and find more fuel to add if you need it.

Also find that with a fire, there's a can of food tab at the top as well. Click this and you can cook things. Mouldy meat when cooked will become gamey, and gamey fresh - so long as food condition is above 65-70% it's usually very safe to eat.

I'll write a wee guide for you later if you like.

Cheers Pete, I'll give it a go later on. I know how to start fires and I've been successful at that, but I can't seem to pick up snow of any kind.

Poor RevStu.

Yeah, it's one of the few systems still abstracted. By doing the action it's imagining you going out and shovelling snow into a pan and bringing it to the fire. This would take some time so it's tedious to do it first person as its available everywhere. Hence why you can't pick up snow.

It used to be that gathering fuel was the same way, you'd choose how many hours to gather and then there'd be a progress bar. But they soon changed that as they realised that searching for fallen branches, expending energy on chopping up logs and so on and risking the changing weather conditions and wildlife in doing so was far more interesting.

I try to always have 2kg of water when exploring, and have an emergency supply at home of another 2kg. Looking forward to hearing how you get on at the game!



HA!

Half price (£7.49) on Stream right now.

Beat me to it, I was just about to post that! On sale for the next 45 hours at £7.49. Buy it, or become wolf-bait.

Had an excellent session today. Woke up after a blizzard and headed downstairs and out the kitchen to do my customary viewing of the sunrise from the porch. I've now lived just over a month in Pleasant Valley, and each day has been its own struggle to survive - so watching that sun come up is always a delight. Things were different this morning, however. I heard a snuffling. I looked out and there, closer to the farmstead than the parked car, approached a bear. It was slowly shambling towards me, around fifty feet away. I gently pulled out my gun and loaded my last clip of five rounds, and stepped down the porch steps. I made sure to glance behind me so that I was in a good position to bolt for the door. Bears don't give you much time to respond once they start charging, and they are frequently death. I had a hope though of mortally wounding it, of getting back inside before it charged me and then waiting a while before following the blood trail. The bear stood up on its hind legs and roared, and commenced to advance again. I raised the rifle in my hands, sighted just below and behind the ear - forty feet now - and fired.



And to my immense surprise, with a pitiful whimpering groan, the bear collapsed and died. (You can see in the above image where I took the shot from, just next to the dog kennel by the porch.) The second bear pelt would be mine! A lovely, warm, bearskin bedroll was within my grasp! And over 35 kilograms of bear meat! I skinned the pelt and began cutting steaks while the corpse was still warm, easier that way. Every batch of five I'd put them in the trunk of the nearby car to keep. I'd harvested around half of the meat before I realised I'd have to go out and get some firewood, so I headed down the nearby road, checking my rabbit snares on the way and gathering a brace of coneys. I got chopping and loaded up on cedar logs, and headed home. By this point a fresh blizzard began to spring up, so I ran back to the farm ahead of the advancing storm front and dropped my logs and sticks in front of the fire. Then I went outside again and grabbed the fresh raw meat from the trunk, headed back indoors to the stove and got frying bear steaks. The wind was howling outside, and I shuffled into the fierce face of the wind towards the boot, loaded the trunk up again with cooked meat and jogged back to the kitchen door to cook my rabbit.



The following day saw me light a fire next to the bear's corpse and carve off another 15 kilograms of meat, then gather more firewood. I knew the rest would go rancid by tomorrow afternoon, but was resigned to not being able to scavenge it all. Now I have to be careful with my diet, alternating bear with rabbit meat in case of parasites ingested from a carnivore's flesh. But all in all I have the makings of a splendid ongoing feast.

Now I've just got to get round to crafting that bow...

How long is a game day in real life?

Not long. I think it goes at twelve speed, so one hour equals twelve hours in game. In general I get half an hour to forty five minutes of activity done per game day. Then sleep.

I'm getting to the point where Pete has convinced me to buy more games than I ever want to think about.

Got this today since it was on sale - and Pete helped guide me through some of the basics. Quite enjoyed what I've played so far, haven't died yet - although that's likely from me deciding to go for easy-mode on the first time playing so I didn't have to worry about animals attacking me when learning about other bits of the game. Can definitely see myself putting a fair amount of hours into it in the future

The Long Dark is just over a fiver until the 4th of July. If you want to escape in your head to someplace far, far away from UK right now and live in a remote cabin checking your rabbit snares and watching the sun come up over the frozen bay, now's the time. Another new update has just been released adding skills, badges, feats and snow shelters too.

I have survived 90 days, another ten and I get a shiny achievement, showing that I am quite the Canadian wilderness baddass.

I almost died the day before, though. I began to get itchy feet in Pleasant Valley. I was living in my farmhouse, quite comfortable but all the time aware that my tools were slowly breaking down, and without a new whetstone, would soon be quite blunt and useless. Also, the two rabbit runs within easy striking distance of the farmhouse had been effectively ethnically cleansed of rabbit my constant depredations, and so I came to the conclusion that I would have to move on.

No easy task, making your way between zones. I had to decide whether to make one trip with a dangerously heavy rucksack or several lighter runs. In the end I opted for one,, as blizzards were too much of a threat in Pleasant Valley to risk exposure for too long. I began by experimenting with how much I could carry, figuring 40kg to be the furthest I dare push it. Any heavier and I would be reduced to a weary crawl, unable to jog in emergencies. As it was I was already drastically slowe'd by the weight. It came time to make an inventory of what I would take with me. Necessities were:

Knife, axe, rifle, bow, my eight arrows, storm lantern, crowbar, five flares, three brands, rifle cleaning kit, two sewing kits.

Ten scraps of cloth and ten sticks, one log for emergency snow shelter, clothing repairs and fire.

One litre of water. Four rabbit steaks, and four eaten before departure.

Medicine supplies; antibiotics, disinfectant, bandages and such.

Waiting for the right break in the weather, I said goodbye to my cosy farmhouse and began the long walk over Heartbreak Bridge and Contemplation Bridge to the Rural Crossroads. Finding luck with the weather and a lack of wolves, I investigated two abandoned houses there, unearthing a few tins of food. I decided to sleep the night in a comfy cabin, figuring I was two tired to strike on into the unknown. Little did I know that my little stay at the deceptively cosy Rural Crossroads would bring me closer to death than I had ever known. ..

I'd made a schoolboy error. Shut indoors for the day and a night due to a blizzard, I'd munched through my supplies and decided to risk the past-date sardines. Their gift to me was a night spent clutching my stomach and groaning, quaffing antibiotics and drinking litres of water. In the morning another blizzard rolled in, and out of food and water I knew that I would havery to risk the blinding snow to check the small store down the road. I'd been holed up for too long already, and left weak from the poisoning I could not stick out a long stay without more supplies.

The store was disappointing, just two candy bars that I greedily wolfed sown and a half litre of water. I pushed my way back to the cabin, into the teeth of the wind. I still needed more water, and there was no stove inside the cabin. Setting up in the lee of the cabin, sheltered from the wind I started a fire and began to melt and boil some snow. Night had fallen, and just as I was finishing up I heard it. That low, gutteral growl and frenzied barking. I leapt to my feet and ran round the cabin to the door. The wild snarling I heard right behind me... almost on my heels... I just managed to slam the door in its face. My heart was beating wild and hard and fast. In real life, too.

In the early morning the weather cleared, and I knew then that it was time to move on, lest I die in that cabin. My burden on my back, I emerged blinking in the morning light to see the wolf eighty yards away across the road, nosing amongst the trees. I would risk it, I began to creep up the road. It sighted me and began to follow. I pulled out a flare and lit it, backing my way up the hill painfully slowly, halter now and then by a drift of snow I had to work around. The wolf followed at a respectrum distance, teeth bared, growling. The flare kept it at bay, but every time I turned to move more quickly it would suddenly pad faster, closer, before I'd whip around again with the hissing, blinding flare in hand, keeping it at bay. I was locked in a deadly game of creeping Indians, and I did not know how long until my flare would give out...

£8 at the moment.

It's really good, although I've been getting all my survival sim goodness from DayZ recently as it has an Dave and an Ian.

And no bugs.

Currently £7.49 (half price) on Steam.

Heads up guys and girls, at long, long last The Long Dark is almost here! To say I'm excited is almost an understatement, for the first time ever I've taken time off work for the launch of a game. Here's hoping I'm not setting myself up for disappointment, but all signs point to something special. The game is being released on August 1st, around 4:00 in the UK apparently. With it you get the first two episodes of 'Season One' of The Long Dark, which will run to five episodes. All these episodes, plus future sandbox updates, are included in the price. If Season One is a success, they'll tell a new story in The Long Dark world with Season Two. The first two episodes run between fifteen and twenty hours of game-play total, and since the sandbox has already given me 150 hours of fun I have to say this game is pretty damn good value, even at full price.

Recently the game was updated with 'The Faithful Cartographer'. Initially reaction was mixed as to the new UI style, but it's grown on me. There's some neat new elements and they can be seen in the video below.



Now for the meat! Hinterland Studio initially blundered two months ago with a countdown to a countdown, which is patently ridiculous, but we did get a pretty neat announcement trailer out of it with a cracking song. Here it is below...



And finally as of last night a new trailer launched for the game, featuring the voice acting, new regions and locations and the spooky aurora. I've been skipping around excitedly ever since. I love quiet, contemplative post-apocalyptic fiction and the game really seems to be tuned into that.



Finally you can read some rambling from me on post-apocalyptic fiction and possible directions the Long Dark might take. It's mostly wishful thinking on my part, but it will make a good bored-lunchtime read. You can find it on the Long Dark forum here: http://www.hinterlandforums.com/forums/ ... long-dark/

Aside from Cities: Skylines I've never been this excited for a game launch before. (Fortunately my hype for SimCity diminished appreciably the moment they told us how big the maps would actually be.) I'm not sure which of you have bought the game on my burbling recommendation, but I hope to hear of some adventures in The Long Dark if you have done. It's available on X-Box One and PS4 as well, if you don't fancy it on Steam. Be aware though that the UK PS4 release has been put back a week, owing to Sony making Hinterland resubmit it again after it unexpectedly got a PEGI 16 from the European Ratings committee.

Eeeep!

In the meantime, here's a selection of screens taken on my various chilly adventures around Great Bear Island...



That Cormac McCarthy vibe...



"Just keep walking..."



Heartbreak Bridge, Pleasant Valley. One of the safer spots on Great Bear Island. Over the hill on the right, not so much.



It may look beautiful, but cloudless days are the coldest. At least you can see the wolves coming. Usually.



Hibernia Processing Facility. You have to really run a gauntlet of prowling wolves to get in, but there's great loot to be had here. Rather forbidding atmosphere though.



Leave not one inch unexplored...



Desolation Point's lighthouse is pretty cosy, but has a rather bad wolf problem on its doorstep.



However the views are breathtaking...!

See previous post for new trailers of which I am endearingly excited in a childlike manner.

Well up for coming back to this! Especially if it actually has a campaign now.

Ooh, PS4!

ERMAHGERD!

To further up the hype stakes, they've just released a live action trailer that, defying convention, is actually pretty damn good. In part thanks to the great talents of Christopher Plummer. Y'know, General Chang from The Sound of Music. This clocks in at just over five minutes and is worth watching on a big screen, with sweet sound.



There's also to be a proper film apparently, written by the writer/director of the game but produced by some lug from The Resident Evil movies. Excitement raised and appreciably diminished again!

Doesn't sound like the story is off to a good start.

I lasted three days until I got food poisoning because I couldn't work out how to cook fish.

Damnit.

No!Chef

The Yes, Chef!s branding department will be in touch regarding substantial damages for this flagrant abuse of our trademark.

Please be marketing meaning of branding!

You'll find out at MeatUp.