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Text Review

здравствуйте, I зовут Grigoriy Dmitrievich. I know, we almost did not survive train crash but anyone have соленый огурец? или водка?

What kind of a game that takes place in Russia would we have if it wasn‘t full of hints towards how much Russians love alcohol ideally in the form of a jolly drunk Russian character. You know the type, the typical Russian in a hat with large ear flaps, who has a red nose from being drunk, who always carries at least a bottle in his coat‘s pocket. This is something Help Will Come Tomorrow has covered. On top of that, it is an indie title with a survival mode, many decisions to make in conversations that branch out the story, crafting, and resource management. Seems like a good recipe for success. But is it?

The game obviously has some features that got me to play it. It looks amazing. The graphics style is pure gold and if you don‘t like it, then I do not like you! The story is set in the frigid wildlands of Russian in 1917. A train going through Siberia full of passengers from many different parts of society got raided and who didn‘t escape into the cold got killed. You get to lead a group of four (out of nine total) survivors and now need to deal with the thirst, hunger, cold, wild animals, and remaining raiders.

As this is a survival game, the primary goal is to survive. Yet, the game never felt tense. Which is really strange. In a survival game tension and fear of constant death, Death you be your guide. Instead, Help Will Come Tomorrow felt slow and almost relaxing. At a few points in time, I felt this would make an amazing board game where you have all the time in the world to decide what to do next.

Your survivors just slowly move along the screen, doing nothing and you too don‘t do that much expect looking at two different screens: The home base and a map. The homebase includes 5 things – a fireplace, a workshop, a quarantine, shelter, and a protective wall. Each of these has it‘s little talent tree that gives you a few more crafting options or a few bonuses. For example, the fireplace allows you to get clean water to drink with the right upgrades.

From the map, you get to choose where you will go to find resources. When out there on such a … expedition you click on icons to find the resources and occasionally come across some random event such as wild animals or bandits.

All that you get to really do actively is to give out up to three action points to each of the characters so they do stuff so that your camp grows and they do not suffer from hunger, thirst, cold, and are safe. That‘s it. And also listen to the stories the characters tell around the campfire.

This part was what I put my hopes in. And it had the potential to be great. But… it wasn‘t. There were no interesting night stories with characters arguing about their different worldviews. The dialogues are shallow and predictable. The only thing that isn‘t predictable about them is how they will affect your camp. Sometimes, a seemingly innocent topic can make someone completely mad destroying the precious dynamics in your camp.

Sadly, these seem to just be random. Or at least feel random. There is little to no logic in what topic will insult who and how to prevent them from destroying your run. It‘s all about luck. And this theme continues on. For example, one run I was doing swell – my survivors were well fed, healthy, the campfire was low so nobody could find us. And bandits came and killed everyone. Or I had to make a bandage 5 times before it worked thanks to the almighty will of the random number generator decided to stop the bleeding! No logic in this, no thus no fun.

Conclusion

So… in conclusion: Help Will Come Tomorrow is not a bad game. But it isn‘t good either. It looks great and it had the potential the become an indie legend. But its mediocre dialogues and frustratingly random mechanics destroyed the potential. Thus the game is average. So… don‘t buy for 20 bucks. If it is around 10 and you really like survival games that will be a good price. For anyone else, wait until it‘s around 5 bucks and it will be worth your money then.

So, that’s it for today guys. I hope you liked the review and if you did, please up-vote the review, follow my blog, and be sure to share it with your friends. And comment, if you have anything you would like to add. See you guys later with more gaming content.