I saw this game recomended on the forum for people that didn't want to just play a MC clone. This game succeeds, but not in a good way.
This game does not hold your hand at all. There's no documentation, the guide is just a rearanged recipe browser, and the main way to find out stuff to do is by happening upon a lore book. While I'm content with making up my own goal, an explaination to some core mechanics would be massively helpful as the workarounds are rather obtuse.
Prime example: Lighting and smoke. As others mentioned torches go out after a day or two and most sources of flames produce smoke. The first few nights involved a brisk strut (no sprinting) to place torches outside my windows, then in the morning I'd have to take them down again. Most permenant light sources require either extended mining trips or rare materials like beeswax (not parapham). After much trial and error I settled on digging 2 blocks into a wall, placing a torch, then placing glass to keep smoke contained. I still need to break the glass to replace the torches, so this isn't ideal.
Later I'd discover a village where a coal block was permanantly on fire. This inspired replacing torches in mineshafts with coal blocks, which works wonderfully until it's time to strip mine. The same village had all the torches burnt out and mising textures (unless its suppossed to look like 2 grey planes stuck to a stick), but they had a bucket of lava in a chest. Now my base has a glass floor with lava beneath as a permenant solution. Thankfully the radiant damage didn't seem to take effect, though thanks to magma converting adjecent blocks I had to abandon my cozy wood cabin asthetic. Of course I can't use this on explorations.
It's just so tedious. That's not mentioning the other painful mechanics like slab and panel placement. I hope the whole game isn't like this.
The game is work in progress. Creating a guide is not a priority at this stage. However, I understand your frustration. Luckily, our community has created a huge volume of guides available in our community forum at www.mesecraft.com . I would highly recommend you check some of those out as they are very informative and creative. (Thank you to our users).
No the game does not hold your hand. It's a survival game. The mechanics are meant to be a gameplay element. If you are careless in survival, you may die. The most obtuse aspect of this is probably thirst/water management. It sounds like you had some challenge adjusting to the environment and dynamics in MeseCraft. I'm glad you were able to adapt. That is the goal of survival.
Once again, the game very clearly states that it is in alpha stage of development and is work in progress so I don't really feel like this is justified criticism at this point. To me, it sounds like you want something simpler or more akin to what you're used to and expecting. You should try MineClone which keeps traditional mechanics from the other blocky game we don't need to mention here.
Please consider my feedback and adjusting your review. Thank you for playing MeseCraft, EmDotRand. I appreciate the review.
I don't mind complex. Cdda has way more micromanaging of your character's state. I also don't mind taking out the bug mention, though this better not turn into another eternal alpha. It seems nearly every game is a continuous WiP nowadays. Expect an issue about water vessals ammong other things.
I think EmDotRand's criticism is spot-on. The most annoying thing about Mesecraft is the lack of good lighting sources. I don't mind the smoke so much, but there's not really any better alternatives to go mining than to farm pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns which doesn't fit in very well and is tedious. I think having the ability to hold a light source with you would be a much better option. It makes the caves scarier and you still can't just spam torches in the same way you would on VoxeLibre/Mineclonia.
And I agree, the lighting is a big part of exploration and pushing into the game. So lighting can't be cheap and infinite. Players always find ways around this design e.g. JackOLanterns (kind of hilarious) but that wasn't an intentional design, players worked around my design. I think we can find a compromise.
I saw this game recomended on the forum for people that didn't want to just play a MC clone. This game succeeds, but not in a good way.
This game does not hold your hand at all. There's no documentation, the guide is just a rearanged recipe browser, and the main way to find out stuff to do is by happening upon a lore book. While I'm content with making up my own goal, an explaination to some core mechanics would be massively helpful as the workarounds are rather obtuse.
Prime example: Lighting and smoke. As others mentioned torches go out after a day or two and most sources of flames produce smoke. The first few nights involved a brisk strut (no sprinting) to place torches outside my windows, then in the morning I'd have to take them down again. Most permenant light sources require either extended mining trips or rare materials like beeswax (not parapham). After much trial and error I settled on digging 2 blocks into a wall, placing a torch, then placing glass to keep smoke contained. I still need to break the glass to replace the torches, so this isn't ideal.
Later I'd discover a village where a coal block was permanantly on fire. This inspired replacing torches in mineshafts with coal blocks, which works wonderfully until it's time to strip mine. The same village had all the torches burnt out and mising textures (unless its suppossed to look like 2 grey planes stuck to a stick), but they had a bucket of lava in a chest. Now my base has a glass floor with lava beneath as a permenant solution. Thankfully the radiant damage didn't seem to take effect, though thanks to magma converting adjecent blocks I had to abandon my cozy wood cabin asthetic. Of course I can't use this on explorations.
It's just so tedious. That's not mentioning the other painful mechanics like slab and panel placement. I hope the whole game isn't like this.
The game is work in progress. Creating a guide is not a priority at this stage. However, I understand your frustration. Luckily, our community has created a huge volume of guides available in our community forum at www.mesecraft.com . I would highly recommend you check some of those out as they are very informative and creative. (Thank you to our users).
No the game does not hold your hand. It's a survival game. The mechanics are meant to be a gameplay element. If you are careless in survival, you may die. The most obtuse aspect of this is probably thirst/water management. It sounds like you had some challenge adjusting to the environment and dynamics in MeseCraft. I'm glad you were able to adapt. That is the goal of survival.
Once again, the game very clearly states that it is in alpha stage of development and is work in progress so I don't really feel like this is justified criticism at this point. To me, it sounds like you want something simpler or more akin to what you're used to and expecting. You should try MineClone which keeps traditional mechanics from the other blocky game we don't need to mention here.
Please consider my feedback and adjusting your review. Thank you for playing MeseCraft, EmDotRand. I appreciate the review.
I don't mind complex. Cdda has way more micromanaging of your character's state. I also don't mind taking out the bug mention, though this better not turn into another eternal alpha. It seems nearly every game is a continuous WiP nowadays. Expect an issue about water vessals ammong other things.
I think EmDotRand's criticism is spot-on. The most annoying thing about Mesecraft is the lack of good lighting sources. I don't mind the smoke so much, but there's not really any better alternatives to go mining than to farm pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns which doesn't fit in very well and is tedious. I think having the ability to hold a light source with you would be a much better option. It makes the caves scarier and you still can't just spam torches in the same way you would on VoxeLibre/Mineclonia.
Holding light sources is implemented. Is it broke? This may have regressed with an engine update.
And I agree, the lighting is a big part of exploration and pushing into the game. So lighting can't be cheap and infinite. Players always find ways around this design e.g. JackOLanterns (kind of hilarious) but that wasn't an intentional design, players worked around my design. I think we can find a compromise.