The Flame In The Flood

I came back to see the reviews here are 'mostly positive'. No, sorry this deserves more.

I won't go in to it because I haven't played for years, but I still think of the game now and then. It's a beautiful meditative game and you should play it. Above all the soundtrack is outstanding! (I am listening to it now, as I often do even years later)

I had a hard time warming up to this gem. But once I understood the assignment, I was all in. Kudos to the creators and developers. Quite the unique experience.

ABSURDLY GREAT Soundtrack and a great aesthetic. Loved the game and the story being told

The Flame in the Flood throws you into a hauntingly beautiful, procedurally generated river odyssey through post-societal America. As a survival rogue-like, it nails atmosphere: the art direction (courtesy of a BioShock veteran) is stunning, with a melancholic soundtrack that perfectly complements the desolate landscapes. Gameplay revolves around tense resource management – foraging, crafting tools, treating afflictions, and evading wildlife while racing against the rain. The river journey by raft and foot feels unique and immersive.
Performance notes: Played smoothly on both my Steam Deck OLED (Linux SteamOS, High settings) and Lenovo ThinkPad T480 (Windows 11, Low settings). The game installed on MicroSD card on both devices with zero issues – great optimization.
Why I recommend it despite stopping: The core loop is compelling, and the world is incredibly crafted. However, it's undeniably difficult. The survival mechanics are punishing, and rogue-like progression demands patience. While I respect its design and atmosphere deeply, the challenge curve eventually outpaced my personal preference for more forgiving exploration. I lost interest before finishing, but not due to quality.
Verdict: If you crave a challenging, atmospheric survival experience with unique river-based exploration and stellar art/sound, this is a gem. Just be prepared for a steep climb. It's a demanding journey, but a memorable one for the right player.

The game was too hard for me.
Edit: I beat it, finally, woohoo!
Although I had to flee from the Boar King, I was able to kill many bears, the White Wolf, and the Elder Wolf—yay!
My favorite way to kill bears is to set up a single Spear Trap close to the bear’s cave and shoot it with three arrows. The first arrow aggros it, the second hits as it starts to charge, and the trap staggers it. Then, the final arrow finishes it off.
The White Wolf fled once, but in our next encounter, when I heard its howling, I set up Spear Traps at every possible pathway. It tried to flee again, but hehe, it had no chance!
Thank you VakarisJ for a very detailed guide and Millsshogun for a great win!

Very nice little game. Doesn't have a lot of content, but just enough to keep one engaged for 4 - 5 hours. Story mode is beatable in about the same amount of time.
The artstyle and the music is the absolute vibe. The main character's face, however, needs something to be done about it. The health portrait as well... They cooked how unsettling those are lol
Difficulty is another weird aspect. It starts off challenging, intimidating even, since the game throws strong enemies at you before you figure out how to deal with them. Afflictions will get in the way a lot, some of them are too easy to get and hard to get rid of. However, after a few hours and enough resources the game becomes trivial. Least you become complaisant, there are not enough curve-balls late game to create a compelling, tense situations. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Achievements are mildly annoying.

A girl and her dog traveling on the River, through rain and thunder, draught and danger, drifting from shore to shore in search of a shelter, dimly lit by fire and fireflies.
Despite some minor bugs, it’s a fairly challenging survival game with an amazing premise and unique art style – all tied neatly together with a great soundtrack making it a truly unique and somewhat cozy experience.
In the flooded world with scarce resources, a scout meets a dog with a strange backpack. Inside she finds a radio with a transmission trying to break through the static. Is there someone else alive? Are people still there? Scout and her new companion decide to entrust their lives to the River in search of food, resources and answers of course.
Between regular locations and areas, the campaign consists of several fixed, story locations on the River that the player will have to encounter and progress through. Each of them gives us a new lead on our goal of finding the ultimate shelter in this flooded world. Besides that, many regular locations have a chance to give you an encounter with some NPCs, offering supplies, shelter or just a friendly conversation – probably the scarcest thing of them all today. There are not a lot of strangers in the game, but they are unique. We have the bog witch lady, the graveyard keeper, the feral twins and that one salesman guy who gives the worst bartering offers known to man.
The main story is alright with an interesting twist at the end, but it does what it’s supposed to – give you a reason to press on. What’s important is the motif of a girl and her dog traveling on the River, through rain and thunder, draught and danger, drifting from shore to shore in search of a shelter, dimly lit by fire and fireflies. Random talks with other characters are brief, but give this small respite from the dangers of the wilds and loneliness. It is a good premise executed very well – really atmospheric and somewhat cozy.
The main gameplay is traveling through the River on a raft from location to location. “Sailing” itself requires you to go with the flow of water while steering clear of rocks and other obstacles like floating debris. You can also encounter rushing water on which the raft is faster and harder to control. There are also areas in which the flow is really slow so unless you paddle or use the motor, you may run out of resources before you reach any new location. If you crash into too many things, your raft will sink, and you’ll drown. If you visit a Marina, you can not only fix your raft’s health but also give it various upgrades providing you have the resources. Upgrades include the motor requiring gas to run, a portable stove, shelter and probably, the most important one, the rudder improving your steering capabilities.
As with any survival game, we have various indicators, and we can’t let them reach zero. To satisfy our hunger we can search for the fruit of the wilds growing in different locations or take a little risk and try to hunt some game. You can craft hunting traps to catch it, but if you're out of resources to make them, you can also be creative and lead animals into other predators to loot them later. Hydration is also important, and we get water from wells or rainfall. The thing is, to eat and drink is to do it correctly. Don’t eat poisonous plants or raw meat, prepare them first. Don’t drink water from the puddle or even, although it’s tempting, the River – boil it first. Otherwise, you’ll get various afflictions.
Then there is the temperature meter which you keep up by crafting warmer and warmer clothes from animal pelts and staying dry near the fire. The last one is the exhaustion meter – it will deplete if you don’t sleep or have too many afflictions. If any of the meters deplete fully, you’ll collapse and have one last chance to do something with stuff from your backpack.
What are these afflictions? These are various problems you can “collect” if you make mistakes in the wild. Drink polluted water and you’ll get dysentery; eat raw meat and you may get parasites; step into poison ivy and such. Some are easy to cure or may even cure by themselves in time; others require your immediate attention and if left untreated will evolve into more severe conditions, draining the meters fast and probably leading to your death.
Hoverer, mistakes in the wild do happen, and everything is curable. That snake was waiting literally behind a building so how would you notice? Welp, just drink some dandelion tea and you’ll be fine (now that I write this, I don’t think that’s how it works in real life I think...). The question stands; will you be able to cure it in time? A lot of the time you’re missing one crafting component and just can’t seem to find it anywhere. That’s why it is important to learn the game, prepare some cures beforehand and keep them on the raft just in case.
In campaign at least, you can often be reactive to whatever happens – there is a good chance you’ll be able to make a cure on the go. But you’ll quickly learn that it’s not the solution. You’ll encounter different biomes – some maybe desolate wastelands with scarce water, dangerous industrial zones, or places where it rains constantly. Also, you’ll only find a workbench for more advanced crafting in cities. You didn’t craft warmer clothes, because there was always a fire to keep you warm? Well, now you’ve entered an area with constant rain and no way to light a fire. Boom, hypothermia. You didn’t stock up on clean water because it was always around – well, now there is draught, slow River and you ran out of filters, good luck hydrating now. You discarded that aloe because it was “useless”. Well now you’ve stepped in poison ivy like an idiot, how’ll you take care of it now?
During the campaign you’ll probably die a bunch of times, but there are checkpoints and paced progression so it’s fine. Endless mode is permadeath and paced differently, like bears showing almost in the beginning. But things you had in Aesop’s (or Daisy’s) bag you get to keep for the next attempt.
I love the art style of the game, how it plays around with light and shadows. Has this unique, bit cartoony, campy vibe to it. Reminds me of Psychonauts a little bit, not only because of the camp and scout atmosphere, but also through the designs of the characters. While the game is brutal and full of danger, it still feels somewhat cozy – at least when you’re not fighting for your life in a fetal position behind the fridge after eating rat poison.
The author of the game’s soundtrack is Chuck Ragan and his songs really shape the atmosphere and vibe of it. It’s a huge part of this game’s uniqueness, it’s great. The overall ambiance of the game with the winds, rushing water and wolf growls is really cool.
It has some bugs unfortunately with you having to reenable the gamepad often or when the boars fu.cking animation-cancel during a rush only to immediately rush you again. Also, the crafting menu sometimes messes up not allowing you to switch categories, but it’s nothing that a trip to main menu won’t solve. Dead mobs block your arrows, and I heard that items sometimes landed off the map for some people.
It’s a great little gem of a survival game with really cool and unique premise. I’ve seen so many people whine that they don’t know how to expand inventory or that they must, get that, run away from threats – it’s supposed to be challenging. We used to learn the mechanics of video games, you know. Please give this game a chance, try to learn and conquer it. You’ll see that it’s a nice little work of art.
Aesop looks like he’s wearing the 2015 MLG glasses and now I can’t unsee it.