More than two years into its Itch.io
First Access release,Overlandis a
simple game. You’re headed west
through procedurally generated slices
of Americana, each a
small turn-based
mission with scarce
resources and weapons
to scavenge. You start
with one survivor and
can recruit others.
Each can only hold an
item or two at a time,
like a stick for bashing
or a flare for lighting up pitch-black
night missions.
Burrowing, crystalline creatures
prowl each area and can easily kill
F
or hours after playing Overland, I felt guilty about leaving my
dog behind. Rita didn’t deserve to be abandoned. She’d
helped me find a vital fuel can the day before, giving my car
enough juice to finally leave the east coast behind. When I
abandoned her she was waiting patiently behind the car, and
there was no real reason for me to rush. But Overland’s quiet post-
apocalypse puts me on edge, and that constant simmering tension made
me leave the area before I needed to. There’s no going back.
your survivors in an attack or two.
Fighting them is usually a bad idea.
Kill one, and they start spawning all
around you. It’s usually better to
outmanoeuvre them.
Overland makes me
think of strategy games
like Into the Breach, but
it’s far simpler. I find it
tense because my
choices are so brutally
limited. Without
proper planning, the
time it takes to push a
barricade out of the way so my car
can exit the stage can mean death.
Ramming an enemy with my car a
couple of times will ruin it, and it’llexplode before I can walk to safety.
Even without survival systems like
hunger, thirst or freezing to death
because your left shoe has fallen
apart and you stepped in a puddle,
making it out alive isn’t easy.ROCKY ROAD
After just a few runs, though, the
strategy ofOverlandfeels too shallow
to keep me playing. I do like that it
forces me to make hard choices: do I
pick up the medpack or the gas can?
Kill the enemy or try to draw it
away? But ultimately I have more fun
with strategy games that give me
more options.
What does keep me starting new
runs, though, is tone.Overlandis
unusually quiet and so beautiful, and
the art and brief dialogue scenes give
the survivors a promising touch of
personality. Right now their dialogue
is too simple and repetitive, but with
stronger identities, I’d latch onto
characters and be determined to keep
them alive the entire road west.NEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
An isometric survival
game (with dogs).
FIRST RELEASED
April 19, 2016
VERSION TESTED
Build 349
EXPECT TO PAY
£16
DEVELOPER
Finji
PUBLISHER
In-house
LINK
http://www.finji.coRamming an
enemy with
my car a
couple times
will ruin itTake care of your dog in OVERLAND.By Wes Fenlon
“I find it tense because my choices are
so brutally limited”
Hades / Overland
THE BEST OF EARLY ACCESS
The cutest lil’
post apocalypse.