The Flame in the Flood Review (PC)

very good
key review info
  • Game: The Flame in the Flood
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: Yes  
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The Flame in the Flood style

The Flame in the Flood reminds me in many ways of Beats of the Southern Wild, the movie from 2012 that imagined the way a young girl named Hushpuppy (a breakthrough performance from Quvenzhane Wallis) and her father as a major flood affects their isolated community.

The movie used the concepts of magical realism to tell a tragic story about family relations, the involvement of the state and the impact of climate change on the people living on the edge of society while the new game uses roguelike mechanics to explore the loneliness and desolation that a major river can leave behind when it overflows.

There's a powerful feeling of nostalgia and wonder embedded in both these experiences and the protagonists, even if we have limited details about their situations and lives, are both frail and powerful, showing the resourcefulness that has allowed humanity to survive in the face of major challenges.

The Flame in the Flood allows players to make choices that can determine the destiny of its main character, which leads to as much heartbreak as it does to positive outcomes, and its survival concepts are well thought out, even if they can become a little repetitive in the long run.

The game is developed by The Molasses Flood and can be played on the PC and the Xbox One from Microsoft.

Story

The Flame in the Flood takes place in a rural corner of America that's affected by a major flood, with a river that has burst its banks and managed to make tiny islands of the highest spots of the land and has carried away most of the humans.

Players control Scout and her dog Aesop, a pair of survivors who need to move away from their initial shelter to get the resources they need to survive while also searching for the radio signal that can lead to some kind of rescue.

There's not a lot of story in the game, but the developers are wise to use the vagueness to their advantage, allowing gamers to focus on the character they are guiding through the world and on the locations they can explore.

The Flame in the Flood water world
The Flame in the Flood water world

The Story mode comes with a Traveler difficulty setting that is a great way to see some of the core mechanics of the title with a smaller amount of pressure from the survival mechanics.

The campaign has some unique narrative elements that enhance the experience of playing The Flame in the Flood, but I prefer the Endless mode because it makes each run through the game unique, giving players a chance to craft small stories centered around Scout and her valiant attempts to stay alive despite the battering she takes from the elements.

Gameplay

The Flame in the Flood is a survival game that challenges gamers to steer a raft and a pair of protagonists as they collect the resources to stay alive for as long as possible in a world filled with threats.

Scout is frail, and the player needs to make sure that she gets water and food and that she finds places to sleep while keeping out of the rain, which is pretty frequent along the river because that can lead to hypothermia and a swift end.

In order to stay alive, the character and her dog will use a flimsy looking raft to move down the river, trying to maneuver around the various flotsam and the empty patches of empty land to find areas that the flood has not stripped bare.

Each of these locations has a certain profile, which plays a role in the resources and the threats that can be found (Aesop will helpfully point each of the items out), but the game randomizes locations and items found via searching for each new campaign to keep the challenge level high.

As Scout finds more items, she can start to craft to get more advanced tools and to then try and secure supplies of water, food and medicine, but her best efforts can be quickly reversed by the lack of luck or by a chance encounter.

Wild boars and wolves lurk in the darkness of some areas and, initially during the first few days, pose a mortal threat because even while running away they are fast enough to cause broken bones and lacerations that can slow the player down.

These can be healed, but they can also progress towards more complex afflictions with often deadly results when the player is under pressure to also find food or water or to simply find a way to fix his broken raft.

I had campaigns where I could have filled my pack corn cakes and had more rabbit than I needed but failed to find water or shelter when it was raining and others when I managed to progress to the second zone without too much trouble and then was maimed by a wolf so hard that I then died on the raft.

The Flame in the Flood is an unforgiving experience, and one bad move can quickly lead to the death of Scout a few days after she starts her journey, which allows Aesop to travel the flooded world with his backpack and its contents and look for someone new to give a head start to.

The game is charming initially, but constant failure can take a tool on a gamer's desire to engage with it for long periods of time, especially when it becomes clear that the randomized nature of the locations and resources tends to lead to failure most of the time.

I like the variety introduced by the rafting mini-game and by the items Scout can create to make survival easier, but The Flame and the Flood often feels unfair and would benefit from the addition of some sort of difficulty slider that would allow players to find their preferred level of challenge.

Graphics and audio

The Flame in the Flood is a very stylish game, with the look of the experience clearly designed to enhance the gameplay mechanics and to immerse the player as much as possible into the mix of longing and hope that surrounds Scout at every step.

The environment and the main characters look like they have stepped out of middle-century paintings, with plenty of sharp angles and washed out colors that underline how transformative the raging river has been to the world it has assaulted.

The river, especially when it's running fast and wild, is interesting enough that it distracted me from the job of actually piloting the raft, which led to some spectacular crashes that had negative effects on Scout's survival.

The locations that Scout visits could have used a little more variety in terms of layout, and it would have been great for long term plans to get a little more details about the types of resources that each of them contains.

The music of The Flame and the Flood complements the presentation well, with often subdued tones and plenty of emotional moments created by Chuck Ragan and by his guests.


The Good

  • Solid survival mechanics
  • Great art and music

The Bad

  • A little too random
  • Needs a little more location variety

Conclusion

The Flame in the Flood will impress players during the first few hours with its style and the way its survival mechanics interact with one another, but the game will likely only keep fans of the rogue genre engaged in the long term.

The core survival mechanics are solid enough, and there's a clear feeling that players can learn from their mistakes, finding out how to use certain items to their advantage in the long term and where to try and find the resources they need.

The Molasses Flood is trying to walk a very fine line between challenging and frustrating and for those who are new to the genre even the easier campaign will be likely too hard to progress through.

The Flame in the Flood has a unique style, offers some great decisions and can keep a fan of the roguelike engaged for many hours, but it might need a little more refinement before it can also draw in other types of players, despite its hugely attractive art and music.

story 7
gameplay 8
concept 8
graphics 9
audio 9
multiplayer 0
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good
 
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