Plaion, formerly Koch Media, showed many games at gamescom. You can already find the articles of my colleagues with Kona II: Brume, Scars Above, System Shock and Mato Anomalies for Kyotenshi, and The Chant for Sodzounet. For my part, I can't wait to introduce you to the excellent city-builder Floodland.
We find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic environment, a dark period in our future where the Earth has been submerged by the waves, and where we would have lost all our modern comforts. A life reduced to simple subsistence. As one of the leaders of this new world, we support a community to help it grow and survive. Even, why not, to start enjoying life again.
It all begins on a protected island, away from the world, which serves as a starting area. Everything is dirty, abandoned, polluted. Make no mistake, the graphics are admirable, but the world is in a pretty poor state. Thanks to a few brave emissaries, the fog lifts. Some structures are revealed. A house, an abandoned boat, a water tower... Studying them provides a significant amount of resources. Looking a little at the huge map of which we have only discovered a fragment, other ruins of ancient human constructions are discovered, like a skyscraper of which we only see the last floors emerging from the fog of war .
At this point, the first goal is to find a balance between food and water. And, while not vital, don't forget to pick up some plastic, which turns out to be super important, the basis of most camp upgrades and constructions. The thing is much less simple than it seems and we have moreover failed in our first attempt because of a lack of drinking water. A shame for a world covered with water!
Resources are picked up by selecting areas. Below the slider, the quantity of units is indicated. After selection, the first available villager takes on the task. Except that they are not numerous and that it is therefore necessary to be careful to prioritize their activities. They may very well get lost in long and, for the moment, useless tasks, which will only reduce their reserves, and lead them to ruin. Once enough food has been saved, other villagers join the clan, which offers a little more leeway.
Very simple facilities complete the camp. A few tents to rest. A place to cook. A fishing port. On the nearby lake, a water sanitizer. Not to mention a pick-up point or two for berries and mushrooms. There are many resources to manage, all lined up above the screen: fish, meat, water, wood, plastic and research points. In addition, other resources are less obvious. The relics of the old world allow you to gain knowledge, just like texts, the bases of progression (based on a skill tree). Special plants are used to heal and the radio batteries are used to contact other communities via a communication tower (of which we can indeed see the top). We haven't had the opportunity to explore this part too much, linked to the politics between the clans.
As Clamoune, who played with me, says, when we played Floodland, the first reference that came to mind was Endzone: the cataclysmic side and the mistakes that don't forgive. To form an opinion in thirty minutes on a game that is reflected in the long term is particularly complex. But we agree that the title of Vile Monarch is very promising, bringing a political touch to say the least interesting. When speaking with the developer, we brought up the comparison with The Walking Dead, with this possibility of choosing to be the leader of your clan, like Rick Grimes or Negan, and he totally validated this way of seeing things.
The game is slated for an early access release on Steam on November 15. To be continued !
