As Far As The Eye

i am having fun, but there is a dev oversight problem. I encountered an unwinnable scenario where i couldn't progress to the next "halt" because the current one only had 300 stone and progressing required 360.
This programming error in the procedural generation made continuing impossible and forces me to fail, losing all the time and energy put into the campaign. It is a clear oversight and needless to say very annoying. I hope the devs see this comment, but i will still give the game a thumbs up despite this problem.

really fun game would recommend, though it can be a little difficult at times.

Super cute turn-based resource management! I love playing the looooong journeys. Doesn't allow saving, but you can back up save files ;)

My only complaint, if you can even call it one, is that the last journey besides custom game is really hard, maybe impossibly so (or maybe I'm just bad at the game)

This game can be very challenging, but it is a rewarding experience when a run comes together. The maps look great, the pupils are nice, and guiding a tribe through its tribulations can be very fun. Sometimes the game requires a little too much from you, to the point where using any of a certain resource from a map can mean you are forced to use the marketplace to buy what you need at an exorbitant exchange rate. And unlucky events can really derail a run. But careful planning gives you the tools to accomplish the tasks required.
You will need a dedicated cook and food supplies to have any hope at surviving, along with specialized pupils that make gathering resources much more efficient. Looking ahead at what will be required to move to the next Halt also lets you prefarm some materials and lessen your burden at the next stage. Choice usage of your Knowledge on Council decisions and Caravan upgrades can really help smooth out your run to give you more storage space, reroll the worst Pupil traits, and prepare for and handle bad events.
It would be nice to be able to restart stages at least, as some random events can be extremely punishing. But runs aren't too long overall and are pretty fun with different challenges every time. Recommended if you like these kind of strategy roguelikes.

Ce jeu me hait. Et moi du coup je le hais aussi. Mais dans le secret de mon petit coeur mou, je l'aime, passionément.
Beaucoup de gens trouvent ce jeu trop dur et injuste. Nope. Non non non non non : ce jeu est simplement cruel.
Il faut leur pardonner, à ces gens qui crient à l'injustice, ils ont été, comme moi au début, trompés par l'emballage : graphismes mignonnets, ambiance sonore relaxante, musique idyllique qui appelle à la détente. Et là, vous tombez dans le premier piège : ce jeu n'est pas une balade bucolique. C'est un jeu qui demande de la rigueur, au croisement de la stratégie, du puzzle et et du jeu de rôle, où le maître mot est OPTIMISATION. Et c'est dans ce hiatus là, entre aspect enfantin et progression digne d'une campagne romaine que le jeu a encouragé l'incompréhension mais trouve son identité. Une identité magique, belle, cruelle, intelligente, et qui ne prend pas le joueur pour un naïf et un faignant, contrairement à ce que pourrait faire croire son emballage. En un mot comment en cent, voilà un jeu absolument unique. Cela fait plus de 40 ans que je joue (coleco, atari 2600, trois pixels et demi, etc.) et je n'ai jamais rencontré un tel ovni sur ma route de joueur, déjà bien longue.
La courbe d'apprentissage est rude, très rude, et le chemin peut-être cruel, rageant, décourageant parfois, mais passé une poignée de dizaines d'heure, tout se met en place, on comprend instinctivement les mécaniques et on jongle avec, et c'est là que le jeu brille. C'est un jeu très demandeur dans ses premières dizaines d'heures, et il n'est pas pour tout le monde. Beaucoup se sont fait piéger par son aspect, et ne le lui ont pas pardonné la promesse de promenade champêtre. Je les plains, ceux-là, qui n'ont pas pris le temps de découvrir que derrière le joyaux artistique, se cache un diamant de gameplay. Si vous avez la patience, si vous aimez les jeux exigeants qui vous rendront au centuple ce que vous leur aurez donné, n'hésitez pas une seconde. As Far As The Eye est un jeu rare, comme vous n'en rencontrerez sans doute pas d'autres dans votre vie de joueur.

The last game I've been immersed in, is As Far As The Eye, which is a French turnbased strategy game about resource management and rougelike survival. I have spent 48 hours in this game, and here are the things I would change with it. I would ensure that there are no tiles of the game that are only accessible if your pupil has the 'walk-on-water' trait. Right now, the game occasionally spawns maps with tiles that are are completely inaccessible unless there is the microscopic chance you have someone on a very small team with the ability to walk on water, where the lakes surround these tiles in a way so that they render them completely useless to the play through. This is not well tuned, an alternative is making the walk on water trait an additional trait that is much more frequent, but ideally I'd change it so that the maps have code that ensure these blocked of tiles that make the game look broken do not occur. Because what if the exact resources I need are on those inaccessible tiles? All the maps are automatically generated, so I understand it's not a matter of editing existing maps, but something that requires a code solution.
As for the finetuning, the game is very hard, there are a lot of things that need to be tuned in this game especially in the higher levels. I would ensure that there are no situations where there is a copious amount of resources that needs to be collected in the higher levels when the resources are not available. To win my last round I was asked to (in addition to other goals) get 1400 spices, where 600 spices were available to harvest on the map. And yes there are additional ways of getting spiced there is a small chance you find 50 spices in a cave, that a passerby caravan lowers the goal with a quarter, or that you use the market place to trade for the additional resources, but the best exchange rate manageable is still 12 wood for 1 spice, or 6 rock for 1 spice. With the limited amount of time that the game gives you to complete the goal, getting a requirement that high, when the map is that inhospitable is not reasonable. I can't be expected to arrive at the map with 800 spices in my pocket, on top of everything else, when I don't even know what the requirements to pass are going to be for reaching the Eye.
As for map changes, I would also ensure that the map before the Eye (the final boss level map) can never be a canyon (a map entirely or close to devoid of wood), it just heightens the difficulty level to such a high degree when there isn't even wood around to build buildings out of, and it is also required in all cooking. I mean I can see the point of having canyons earlier, you have to arrive at a map with lots of wood in your pocket, but having them as the final step is just to set up the player for failure and I don't think it's fair. The later stops are also hidden from the player so I don't know if the last level is going to be a canyon until much later in the game when I'm invested in the journey.
There are eight goals in the game, four short journeys to the eye from each of the compass directions, and four long journeys to the eye from each of the compass directions. I completed the first set of four short journeys from each of the compass directions, North and East were very hard, I barely made it through at all, but after many attempts I made it. I've completed the West long journey, and I think I can win the South long journey too. But from where I'm standing the last two long journeys are completely unwinnable. South is entirely luck based, there are random catastrophic events that happen much more often than in any of the other seasons - this is the challenge. But the catastrophic events are so harsh, that it's practically impossible to keep buildings standing with how often they are damaged by lightning strikes, and fires, and flooding, and wind damage, and mountain rubble. The catastrophic events need to become milder in severity if they're going to happen that often. Just taking a few damage points off would go a long way. Or there needs to be another benefit that can compensate in the progressing towards the goal, like perhaps it could be made so that they don't eat as much as the other tribes? Right now there is simply not time enough to fix all the building, work towards the goals, and keep everyone fed at the same time.
All in all it's a great game, I love that each time I go back to it, the maps are different, and that I need to adapt my player style for all of the different tribes, but it still could use some more polishing to become a truly gratifying experience that rewards the player's effort, and gives them honest chances to win. Right now, the randomly generated maps feature is very cool, but it steers the direction of the game a bit too much, it needs more guard rails in order to let the game become the most optimal version of itself that it can be.

Very good cozy-vibe game. Pretty challenging when you get started. I still lose after 10 hours of play. I absolutely love the art style and chill soundtrack. The little whispers of the dudes can be weird after several hours of hearing them shush at you, so I turn them down to more background noise. I like the world-building of the story behind everything. Felt unique enough to be something different but similar to other board games (worker placements) or management sims. I really liked it.
Definitely worth the $5 sale price. I don't know if I'd pay $25 for it. My one negative is that while the maps are different and generated rather than static (campaign mode is static and campaign is basically their tutorial)--and you can play custom maps too--there's not a lot of content. It would have been cool for the devs to add more to this: other challenges/campaign style mode, a tutorial that's more helpful, multiplayer or some kind of co-op situation, or really just other map or pupil (character) variants/mechanics. As it is, it's a $10-$15 game, $5 sale is very worth it.
Updated this review to add more details after additional play time. Highly recommended.