Ready Set Indie Games Reviews Craftopia Early Access (PC)

Before I begin my review of Craftopia I would like to point out a few things:

Photosensitive and Motion Sickness Warning

The following game Craftopia uses flashing lights, images, and/or motions that can be an issue for those who have Photosensitive issues and/or those who suffer from motion sickness, Even if you’ve never had them before. If at any time during watching this gameplay video you feel:

Temporary confusion
Episodes of staring blankly
Uncontrollable jerking movements or twitching of the arms and legs
Loss of consciousness or awareness
Psychological symptoms such as fear and anxiety
Cold sweats
Dizziness
Fatigue
Headache
Irritability
Inability to concentrate
Increased saliva, nausea, and vomiting

Immediately stop viewing the video and seek medical attention. Your health is more important to me than a view of a video.

Viewers Discretion Advised.

The following Gameplay Footage of Craftopia is an early access version of the game. Therefore, the footage you see may or may not be featured in the final version of the game, also there may be some noticeable bugs in the game.

In this Gameplay Video, Ready Set Indie Games plays Craftopia Early Access on PC.

Developed and published by Pocketpair, Craftopia is an Open World, Survival, Crafting game that was released on Sept 04, 2020. The game is currently in Early Access and I will admit this one flew under the radar for me. One of the main reasons I started playing Craftopia is because my boyfriend DanVanDam was talking about it and how he was enjoying it and so hearing how much fun he was having in the game, I decided to grab a copy of the game for myself and I will say even with the minor bugs in the game, I am having a lot of fun with the game.

The graphics for the game are breathtaking and give me a Zelda Breath of the Wild feel, so if you are into BoTW then you are going to want to give this a try. It features all of the best parts of BoTW. It features crafting, fighting, and dungeons. The only thing it doesn’t have is Gandolf, Zelda, or Link. In the beginning, you get to choose between three races starting off, which give you different stats. You can play a Human, Elf, or Demon. My multiplayer character is Human, but I am also running a solo game where I am playing a tiefling character named Lucinda. You can play the game solo or with others. So no matter if you like to play solo or with others, the game’s got you covered. I will say that the Multiplayer does hold pretty strong for it to be in early access, although it does say there are some issues with it. The only issue I have seen is that it takes a moment to load in sometimes, but once loaded it runs pretty smoothly. I have yet to be booted from a multiplayer session when I’ve played.

In terms of a story and the big part of the game is that you are trying to bring back civilization to its glory days. So you start off with the bare minimum and as you Age the civilization further (known as Age of Evolution) you get more things that you can craft based on the Age of Evolution. I would also like to point out that you can upgrade your stats such as Life, Mana, and Stamina by visiting a floating platform in which Anubis resides. Personally, I would have preferred they used the Goddess Isis as she is the Egyptian Goddess for life and magic, so she would be a better fit here than Anubis which is the Egyptian God of Death, and if you are getting stronger doesn’t mean you’re dying. Unless you’re looking at it like the old you have perished. Sorry, that’s a wormhole of it’s on and I tend not to go down it. Let us continue with the review.

When it comes to the controls you are in luck whether you play with keyboard and mouse, or controller. The game offers both options for its controls. I personally play with the keyboard and mouse, while DanVanDam plays with the controller. I haven’t heard any complaints from him about the controller support for the game and the controller seems to be able to keep up with the keyboard and mouse controls. Now some of you may see that the camera moves crazy in my video, reassure that is not the game and more so player doing, as I have limited space on my desk for my mouse to really move around. Which has now been rectified since writing this article. The camera moves pretty well and the keyboard and mouse work very well as well.

As I mention before the game features dungeons that you can explore. Some of them are puzzle dungeons where you have to get out of the dungeons, and then others are dungeons in which you can farm for materials such as this Abandoned Mine that DanVanDam and I stumble across in our excursion out into the world. Whenever you do an Age of Evolution you get to choose a part of the world to open up. This makes it so that you can explore more of the world and gather new materials. Once these places are open each of those new places comes with its own set of dungeons. Unlike other games, where the dungeon doesn’t replenish; these dungeons do replenish so you are able to revisit them and gather more materials and that’s something I enjoy. There are treasures throughout the world and in the dungeons so it does make it beneficial to revisit the dungeons.

As mentioned before with the Age of Evolution, you have to meet certain criteria in order to upgrade to the next Age of Evolution. This also requires gold, but let me tell you that you can get gold fairly easily in the game in order to do so. Now I know there is a relaxing chill mode for the game and a normal mode which is a little more difficult and I’m not sure if it’s based on the mode you’re playing. However, I sell things in the Market Place in the game and I have a ton of gold from doing so. So gold is the one thing you don’t have to worry about when it comes to this game.

Another thing I wanted to take the time to mention is the crafting. As I am really fond of crafting. I tend to be the one in these games that go out and hunt for food to cook and make sure the camp can freely grab food as they go. The hunting in the game is satisfying, the only issue I have is while I’m hunting the animals sometimes will straight teleport from one location to another, and as this is an early access game it is funny to see them do so. Realistic I hope they get this fixed soon. Also, you can’t hide in bushes to hide with hunting and so that is something I would like them to add, is the ability to hide in bushes so the animals cannot sense you.

I do want to take the time to also say that the fishing in this game is so relaxing, and is one of the best fishing farming I’ve ever done. I usually have issues with fishing in survival crafting games. So, when I say this fishing is really easy to do I really mean it. You simply cast your line and when the bobble goes into the water, you click to pull the fish out. Sometimes it takes a minute to drop into the water, which usually means you are getting a pretty good fish. I have pulled out Sharks, pufferfish, and many other fishes and it’s just so satisfying.

Also, when getting materials such as minerals, stones, logs you can simply hold down the mouse button instead of constantly clicking the button. It makes the gameplay so much more enjoyable for me. Before you know it you’ve lost hours in the game from collecting and crafting, and when you’re looking for a game to escape from your everyday life, that doesn’t require too much work. I highly recommend Craftopia. Especially, if you love farming, survival, crafting, and base building.

If you would like to play Craftopia for yourself, you can do so on PC via Steam for $24.99 USD. Just remember that the game is in Early Access so you are paying for the game in its current state with the hopes that the game will be worked on and improved. If you are a little weary about Early Access I’d like to inform you they just did an update of the game on 12/15/2021, so they are still working on the game a lot.