#birdie plays sotf

[madmaryholiday]

started a new file in sons of the forest so i could try out some combat. set enemies to low aggression, health, and damage.

successfully killed 4 cannibals before they got me.

then respawned in their camp, which was full of them, got killed again, and got a game over screen.

there was a guy between me and my equipment bag, man! how was i supposed to get it before he killed me?

anyway i just reloaded and avoided the area where i died lol.

currently stuck on the beach while i build up supplies so i can actually go find a good place to build a base.

[madmaryholiday]

gonna try sons of the forest with enemy combat again. it seems like they might've made some enemies a little easier? still gonna use custom mode and set everything to the lowest possible settings, though. wish me luck, i guess?

[madmaryholiday]

decided to try a pacifist run in sons of the forest on low enemy aggro/health/armor to see if avoiding combat would let me progress through the game without being attacked.

i lived in relative peace with the local cannibals for five whole days (always standing my ground or walking away instead of running, not approaching too close, etc.)

and then they sent a giant raiding party and started attacking me anyway and i had to kill 6 enemies in a row.

and another 4 later in the day.

and a couple giants even later.

i gave up after ANOTHER giant raiding party started to close in the next morning, because there was no way i was going to keep up that frequency of combat.

apparently you just. HAVE to fight the cannibals eventually.

guess i'm sticking to peaceful mode.

[madmaryholiday]

one of the achievements in sons of the forest requires getting eaten by a shark. tried on one of my peaceful saves, but like 10 minutes of treading water in an area where there are supposed to be 3 aggressive sharks swimming around didn't even get me one nibble.

switched to the save with combat in case the sharks just weren't aggressive at all on peaceful mode, but goddamn if it didn't take ANOTHER ten minutes before the sharks finally, leisurely took a couple bites out of me. had to wait several more minutes before they finished me off, lmao.

then because i was on a save file that enabled combat, my steam deck overheated and i had to shut it down. i think a group of cannibals loaded in on shore while i was waiting for the sharks to get me.

[madmaryholiday]

will probably have to abandon this save file in sons of the forest, unfortunately. i've largely managed to hold my own against the cannibals, but rendering more than a couple enemies at a time seems to be INCREDIBLY taxing on my steam deck. like i'd get MAYBE half an hour before it started stuttering and overheating and i'd have to shut it down.

made it 13 days, though, and managed to get a base built and make friends with virginia. so i mean it wasn't all bad?

seriously, though, i hope they figure out how to optimize the game better for steam deck soon. it's such a goddamn pain to be in the middle of doing something and the steam deck decides that it's just too hot to keep functioning ok bye hope you saved recently!

actually i should probably report that on the discussions page so the devs have a better idea of how it runs.

[madmaryholiday]

Unfortunately, I think the longer you stay in one place, the more aggressive the cannibals get. The last raiding party consisted of a giant and 3 very agile dudes. Died once but was able to use Kelvin as bait so I could get my gear back and switch weapons before trying again.

Attempting to explore more, but it's honestly terrifying to be walking through dense forest, not knowing if you're being watched or if you're heading right for a cannibal camp. Really wishing I had more tape so I could make bone armor. That shit lasts maybe two light hits if you're lucky, so each fight immediately destroys everything I have.

What I need is a friend who is actually good at survival games to cover me while I hunt for supplies lol. Though tbh idk if my steam deck could handle multi-player for more than a few minutes right now.

Desperately wishing they'd optimize the game better for steam deck. Or that somebody would figure out what settings won't kill it after half an hour.

Seriously, if I could find one of the brick shaped reusable ice packs my dad used to use in his lunch box, I'd just strap it to the back of the damn thing and see how that goes. But alas.

[madmaryholiday]

i've been doing surprisingly well against the cannibals. took out a group of 4 without dying to them, and a group of three some time before that. i'm perpetually low on tape, though, so i can't make any more bone armor for now. trying to build up my base (and by doing so, build my strength level) for a bit before i explore too much.

oh, i also did get the gun. gonna try not to use it much until i stock up on ammo, but it's an option now if i get seriously ambushed, which is nice. i'm tempted to give it to virginia once she warms up to me more, because cannibals keep menacing her when they venture onto the beach to attack me. but i'm also nervous about possibly needing the gun to fight groups of cannibals myself.

side note: i'm annoyed that you can only carry 3 fish at a time but like 6 pieces of meat. there aren't a lot of critters coming to the beach, so i've had a bunch of fish drying out, and i can't stock up on them for exploring like i can with meat. i know there are turtles around somewhere, but i feel too bad for them to kill them for meat.

maybe i could set some traps at the treeline and check them every day or so? i don't like spending too much time there cos it's hard to see if enemies are hiding in the underbrush, but like i said, critters don't come to the beach...

[madmaryholiday]

beach base is best base. i've killed 3 cannibals so far (one singly and two together) because i saw them coming from a mile away and was able to get a few good hits in with the axe.

still not confident enough in my abilities to LEAVE the beach, which poses some difficulties. there aren't a lot of supplies near there, so i haven't been able to make much armor or stockpile any meds. but as i get stronger chopping wood and stuff, hopefully i'll get better at fighting and feel a little better about venturing into the forest.

[madmaryholiday]

Was all set to finish sons of the forest tonight (just on an extra save file cos I wanted to get the ending achievements), but I got to the final bunker with my golden armor and.....

Couldn't figure out what to do.

Explored as much as I could, but I must not have done something or found something that I was supposed to?

Anyway, I'll have to figure out how to do it tomorrow.

Side note: the leather outfit looks better on Virginia than the track suit, but her extra limbs still clip through the outfit a little. Realized that her "dress" is molded more like a romper, which honestly makes more sense for her legs. I think I like the leather outfit better, though? She looks much more prepared to fight cannibals.

[madmaryholiday]

So remember when I said that the Three-legged lady's default outfit in sons of the forest turns transparent in the rain?

Well I went to switch out the dress I'd given her with a tracksuit I'd just found, and, uh.

Clumsy Clipart arrow to avoid getting flagged, but you can see the problem in the bottom left, there.

Her disembodied chest is just. In my inventory.

Which, in a game where cannibalism is very much a thing, takes on an extra creep factor.

Unrelated, but the tracksuit doesn't cover her extra limbs. They just clip through the outfit as she moves. The dress looks a bit weird, too, but it definitely looks better than the tracksuit.

[madmaryholiday]

so with the last major update to sons of the forest, they included a couple things that are definitely good in theory but in practice have been very annoying.

the first is that there is now a cooldown on sleeping. this means that if you go to sleep once, you have to wait a certain number of in-game hours before you can sleep again. which is more realistic, yeah, but it also means i've been stuck in winter for literal hours unable to do much but hunker down in my secondary log cabin which has little in the way of supplies. i think i have two or three more in-game days before spring comes and i can go back to my original campsite for more supplies.

like seriously, you run for 30 seconds in the snow and you get an alert that you're cold and wet, and the edges of your screen start going icy. presumably, you eventually freeze to death if you don't build a fire or go near an already burning one. i have the winter coat equipped, and it made minimal difference from the default outfit.

the second is that fires actually use fuel now. which, again, more realistic, and now we actually have a use for all the little chunks of logs that you get after chopping doorways and windows. but i was only able to add fuel once, and now my fire goes out in like a minute and a half.

my first fire actually disappeared entirely and i had to make a new one, but the second one has lasted through many, MANY re-lighting attempts without the option to add more firewood to it despite it visibly being little more than ashes.

....actually i should probably report the fire stuff as bugs on the steam community hub. i'm guessing they intended you to be able to add fuel more than once to an existing fire.

anyway, i'm considering making a break for it once my steam deck cools down enough to play again and hoping i can get to my original campsite before i freeze, because i really don't know what else to do except relight the fire every minute and a half and wait for it to get dark again.

[madmaryholiday]

Accidentally stumbled into the final act of sons of the forest while looking for supplies. My exploration strategy is to leave a tarp shelter up every so often to mark where I've been, and I'd run out of tarps while exploring the east coast of the island. Turns out there's not much for supplies aside from rope in that whole area, which seems like an oversight when compared with how frequently you come across supplies elsewhere.

Anyway, I figured I'd have a look around the bunker I'd found, hoping there would be a tarp somewhere, and suddenly there was a giant mutant blob throwing monster babies at me, and some other guys were shooting it.

Had another mosey around after that whole thing, and I found an item I know is meant for the final fight.

My steam deck overheated then, so I didn't have to decide whether to make a new save file. Mildly annoyed, but I mean I didn't find anything I would've wanted to keep for further exploring anyway. Gonna avoid the bunker until I run out of other places to find.

[madmaryholiday]

might have to abandon my not-peaceful run. apparently i can only die once before it's game over, so every time i run into one of the bigger enemies, he kills me and i get a game over.

i did get a GPS tracker on virginia, though, so if i do keep playing this save file, at least i'll be able to keep an eye on her.

[madmaryholiday]

tonight's sons of the forest update:

have acquired two of the three keycards i need to....advance the story i guess? found a fancy dinner party full of dead mutants, which was fun. i can make some guesses as to the overall story now, but i'll save them for when i get further into the plot.

i also now have a shotgun and a crossbow, which should make hunting significantly easier.

my steam deck overheated while i was on my way to the last keycard location, so i'll have to retrace maybe 10 minutes' worth of walking, but it's not a big deal.

noticed that the designation for the game's viability on steam deck has changed from "unknown" to "incompatible" or whatever the doesn't work tag is. which like yeah it taxes the CPU like whoa, but the controls work fine, and the text is mostly readable. it also runs pretty okay on the lower graphics settings, only noticeably dropping frames when the steam deck is close to overheating.

but i'm also playing solo on the least-taxing graphics settings possible, so....

actually, yeah, this game is currently not very playable on the steam deck unless you're like me and can also tolerate only playing a couple hours at a time.

it's still a lot of fun, though. and even on peaceful mode, it's creepy as fuck because all the bodies of the people the cannibals massacred are still there, mostly EXTREMELY fresh-looking. you get this feeling like the monsters are watching you even though you know you won't encounter any on this difficulty setting. the cannibal camps have buckets of fresh entrails in them, and there's blood splatters in all kinds of interesting places. they really did a good job with the atmosphere.

[madmaryholiday]

Tonight's sons of the forest update:

Shovel acquired. Second winter slept through. Hoping to actually get going on the plot this weekend. Shovel was required to do anything plot related, and getting it required getting other items first.

Very glad that I stuck to peaceful mode, btw. I would get absolutely wrecked in the caves.

Three-legged lady is chilling at my camp. Will have to see if now that I have the shovel she'll lead me to new places.

She still brings me dead animals because I continue to be bad at hunting.

[madmaryholiday]

Oh, so my sons of the forest update for the night:

Three-legged lady eventually brought me to where I was trying to get to, and I got a shiny new axe.

Currently lost in a cave I previously didn't know was actually massive looking for an item I need to find the shovel, which I think will finally kick off the story.

Current strategy is making a lean-to at important spots not indicated on the map so that a little house icon pops up to indicate the new save spot. Bonus effect of letting me mark where I've been so I don't keep trying to search the same abandoned campsite for a key item.