PSN: The Flame in the Flood.

The Flame in the Flood is an indie survival simulator to be had on PSN for around €15 ($16). If one's a multi-platform gamer with especially Steam included, the genre-nomer 'indie survival simulator' is almost an immediate reason to disqualify the title as something one should be interested in. Survival games are a dime a dozen and range from average to absolute bottom of the barrel. The paltry number of titles in the genre that can be called genuinely good are few and far between and are further poised to fail simply due to the fact that the genre is not only trodden flat and tired by now, but also by genre-fatigue experienced by the consumer at large.

One's in a dystopian world and is held back by hunger, thirst, health and a woefully inadequate stamina-pool. On top of that, everything and everyone is hostile, the weather-simulation is bi-polar in nature (pun) and resources are scarce. To add variation to this theme of misery, developers add zombies, angry mutants, religious zealots, imperial armies who shoot on sight, tunneling subterranean eldritch horrors and/or Cthulu. During daytime the sun will burn the protagonist to a crisp and during the night, the protagonist will freeze something fierce while a papercut will make that effect worse, if spending the night doesn't have the protagonist waking up with an infection because of the lack of proper bedding. So that means that a new entry into the genre that has most gamers roll their eyes while sighing deeply has to be really good to be not only noticed, but also played for longer than ten minutes.

The Flame in the Flood is in my perception one of those rare titles that redeem a genre that has been abused and left for dead in a ditch by unscrupulous developers looking to cash in quick. 'The Molasses Flood', the studio responsible for The Flame in the Flood, has succeeded in delivering an engrossing experience. Graphically and sonically the game's very atmospheric. While some may classify the graphics as 'nothing special', they get the job done and convey quite adequately what's going on. Collectibles are noted using the environment for instance without them magically lighting up, magically vibrating, making a sound or even sparkle. The absence of these helpers in lieu of a less intrusive method makes the gameworld more believable. The musical score is americana that reminds of Ry Cooder in places. It's forlorne, hinting at what used to be and conveying hope for better times. It's always there, but never overbearing and during moments of silence, one becomes aware of it missing with a weird sense of loss. Graphics and sonics provide a rocksolid foundation thus.

The premise of the Flame in the Flood is without context, sadly, as there's no backstory to it all. The game starts with a dog that is wrestling a backpack free from a skeleton. He delivers the backpack to his master, a young girl who's sat next to campfire in a dilapidated summercamp. The ones where you expect to meet Jason. It's that we learn that America has been through an apocalyptic flood-event that, judging by the fact that the dog obtained the backpack from a skeleton, happened a good while ago.

The girl pets her dog in gratitude and control is given to the player. From there on out, it's survival as we know it. The girl is a hunter-gatherer who, while seemingly on the move ever since America was flooded, knows nothing about survival. Yet, she's so quickwitted that once she picks a single cat-tail, she learns about ten schematics of helpful tools that can be made in part with cat-tails. She moves on to her raft she uses to travel the flooded world. Playing on from that point, it becomes apparent why The Flame in the Flood is one of the better survival games.

The girl, dog and raft are a trinity. As you steer the raft from island to island in the hopes of finding resources to continue the journey, one'll soon look for specific islands that'll best help the journey forward. There are many different islands that all have resources specific to a given island's theme. Camping-grounds always have a fire already burning, marinas provide a place to repair and upgrade the raft while farmground provide nourishment. Some islands are safe, other islands are dangerous. However, 'safe' and 'dangerous' are flexible based on the protagonist's status and health, the weather and time of day. The journey to safety is wrought with peril.

The challenge of The Flame in the Flood is not necessarily surviving from day to day, but in carefully balancing the different factors that act upon the protagonist and carefully considering which island to make landfall on. Here surfaces the one complaint I have about The Flame in the Flood; the islands are procedurally generated and there's no way to predict their character or what dangers hide on them. This can sometimes lead to starting a run that is lost before even leaving the starting-area due to a hidden seed determining the RNG. From my experimenting with the game's opening thirty minutes there's no safety coded in that allows for the first few islands to be benign. Yet, the starts that allow the player to get their footing are more prevalent than the opposite and setting out on a doomed journey that never progresses beyond the opening islands should be infrequent.

The game-modes are twofold. There's the 'Story-mode', which has a distinct lack of story. The girl is traversing the flooded landscape of apocalyptic America more or less balancing on a razor-blade. Eventually, RNG permitting, she finishes her journey. Then there's 'Endless Journey' mode, which is the most fitting mode for the premise of The Flame in the Flood. The girl traverses the world on her raft, endlessly visiting islands in order to stay alive in a 'the journey is more important than the destination' kind of deal.

Everything in The Flame and the Flood comes together brilliantly. The game's a true survival-title that unintentionally dips into horror- and empowered lone wolf stories. The crafting makes sense as the girl makes believable items out of the stuff that she collects. She won't create an assault-rifle out of iron-ore and a piece of wood, but she will create a snare-trap with items taken from the environment. As the player progresses, the raft will become a good shelter that can brave rapids while the girl becomes ever more adept at surviving in the brutal post-flood world.

Coupled with the graphical presentation and atmospheric music, The Flame and the Flood's survival mechanics make for a game one won't soon forget. The danger of becoming obsessed with making a journey successful is real. I can recommend this game wholeheartedly to anyone with an interest in the survival-genre of games. It's price-point is friendly enough to play through the game at least once.