Flame in the Flood Survival Game

What would a survival game be like? What images conjure in your mind when you think of such games? Probably you might imagine hunting for food to keep you alive in a hostile environment. In this, either you would compete with the other food chain for dominance or you would build a wall of fortification to keep the rest of the food chain out. If you think so, then you could be in for a surprise because the Flame in the Flood is none of these things.

This survival game Flame in the Flood is set in the post societal America. The whole of the game is comprised of a large river that has submerged the countryside and converted it into smaller islands after destroying the whole man-made infrastructure.

The game has given pretty much a real life like experience. Not just in terms of the visual appeal, but in terms of the audio appeal as well, the game has done a very good job. The sounds of thunderstorms are terrible while the rivers flow with a gushing sound that feels refreshing. Even the music that blares in the background is excellent. It changes from guitar to mandolins to harmonica transforming the mood from mournful to cheerful one. All these things give an impression of despair and quiet beauty.

As a player in this game, you have to take care of the food, thirst, temperature or any injury of your survivor who will always be tagged along by an immortal dog. Since doing otherwise can lead to the death of the player, therefore you must exploit the resources that are littered in the islands but in very small quantities. As you flow over the river on your raft, you should also explore the little islands for different components and items that are essential for your survival.

The game requires you to expertly handle your raft through rocks, floating debris and human infrastructure remnants. If you hit one of these sites, then it is detrimental for both your health and the condition of your raft. Therefore, you should be careful navigating these rivers which often turn into violent rapids.

It is extremely important that you keep your raft in passable shape. In the beginnings the raft lurches on its own even on very placid waters and in the rapids, the controls become even more difficult. This is perfectly in accordance with how real rafts behave.

For piloting the raft, the gamepad seems a little easier in place of a keyboard. For this game, good control is very crucial because once you pass a particular place, you can never get back to that place.

Apart from the handling of the raft, there isn’t much to survival as long as you find food supplies to keep yourself alive. There are things in the game which does not ring true. For example, why the player has to search for drinkable water when he is surrounded by a huge river does not feel realistic. Apart from this, all the other recipes are very easy and fun to try, from catching a rabbit to using a knife for skinning it to the way how it is cooked.

It is a thrilling experience to push your raft when you are last on your stamina bar. With the sublime environment when things quiet down with a lap steel melody playing in the background and you are steering your raft through the remains of drowned towns feels like a strange and amazing experience.

However, there is a tedious side to this game because as a first time user, you will not know enough about the value of the things you will be collecting. Therefore, you might be collecting a lot of less valuable things in your backpack, which has a limit for storage. However, after becoming acquainted with the environment, the game is much more fun. You might then know the value of collecting other items like fire starting materials instead of just hoarding a lot of food which ultimately gets spoiled.

Unlike the other features of this game, its user interface is not something impeccable. All the relevant information are buried within many subcategories that it becomes very tedious to perform tasks like finding out about the missing components for building a particular tool.

At the end of the day, you can say that Flame in the Flood is one of the most thrilling games you could play. There are also other games like Fireboy and Watergirl which are just as thrilling and exciting to be worth your time.