☆ Review: The Kindred "I'm A Voxel Girl, In A Voxel World!" ☆

The Kindred video game will to most look like a Minecraft clone and it might sound like a creepy sect to some!

I'd say it's Minecraft inspired but not a clone, maybe a different flavour of Minecraft, a more chilled out version.

Also, some will say that it's a bit buggy right now and they'd be right BUT this is an early access game made by a very small team of devs. Each week the game is getting better and bugs are being ironed out.

Now we've set the scene, what is it actually all about gameplay wise?

Well you are put in charge of 6 little voxel people called The Kindred and it's your duty to look after these little dudes and dudettes by acting as a god to them and ordering them around in order that they survive.

Firstly you'll need to assign jobs to each of your Kindred folks. These jobs are the likes of Farming and Labouring tasks. Farming is subdivided into Crops, Hunting, Shearing, Shepherding, Produce and Milking.

Then there are the labouring tasks which are Mining, Crafting, Logging, Cooking and Research.

Each Kindred has their own skill set for these tasks and has an associated rating to help you to determine who to assign where.

Once you've assigned your Kindred you are then able to get cracking with the plenty of jobs that are out there for you to do.

At this point there are pop-up tips that give you some guidance on what to do next BUT here is a slight issue in that the pop-ups are partially blocked by the micro map on the right-hand side of the HUD. Some of the crucial advice is therefore lost behind the map.

You can get the general gist of the tip but that's a definite bug/design element that needs fixing.

When I started out I put some time into planting some food and get that grow patch working for my little folk.

I then looked at building a little base for my guys. That required me to chop down some trees and use the wood to create some flooring and then craft a bed at the crafting table.

I then went on a Fox hunt and a duck hunt to get me some meat.

After that, I did some mining and picked some apples and oranges from the plentiful trees.

Later on, I found various ores to mine some more materials and it this point I was ready to start using the melting pot to craft the materials for new tools.

Then I found out that I was able to designate certain areas as Animal Zones and then gate them off with fencing. Within these areas, I could start herding animals to make it easier to either hunt them or milk them or shear them.

Come to the end of the day I was shattered and so were my tiny crew. I had built them beds and assigned them each to their very own cosy retreat.

It was the end of a hard first day and there were lots of jobs to be done tomorrow!

Summary:

This game has stacks of potential and it's a labour of love by the devs. A couple of things that made the lovely experience a little less enjoyable was the following:

- It was tough to find your 'Home Base' once you had created it, so the game might benefit from a HOME marker system to make it easier to find your way back to your mini town.

- I would like the mouse control to be a bit more intuitive so that I could traverse the map without using the keys.

- Key items like the crafting bench are hard to make out from a distance. I wonder if there could be a better way to distinguish these items from far away so as I am able to locate them and use them quicker. Maybe adding those items as quick keys might help so as I don't have to search the map to cook a meal.

- Strangely enough, it kind of gets too dark at night to see anything. So unless you know how to build a turbine from minute one you are going to have some long dark nights at first!

- Finally, I feel it would benefit the game if it had a hand holding tutorial at the start of the game to introduce all of the mechanics before you are plunged into the wilderness.

Overall i'd say keep an eye on this title as i'm confident that the love that is being poured into its design and creation will bear fruit soon.

I'm just off to pick a mushroom and kill a duck.....bon voyage!

RATING: MELTING

"Just needs a little more time in the kiln"

Ratings Explained

ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)

MELTING (Just Falls Short Of Greatness)

MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)

Game Link: Steam 

Dev Link: The Kindred

 

Review By Rich