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If you’ve been hunting the same area continually for five years, eventually the animals are going to learn to avoid that area. Additionally, waters can be over-fished and animals can be over-hunted. Forest Village approaches food in some interesting new ways, for example your villagers require a variety of food types – you’ll need to hunt, fish, gather… – or else they’ll face vitamin deficiency. Your initial task is to find a suitable source of food, and eventually you want to expand upon that, with more farming, hunting, and gathering as time goes on. Players start with a small village, maybe consisting of a well and three huts for it’s inhabitants to live in. It’s definitely a weird turn, to take a brand that holds nearly no weight with most gamers, and take it in an entirely different direction, but Forest Village is capable of standing on its own. Life is Feudal: Forest Village takes the Life is Feudal property and expands it from MMO to survival simulator. As strategy becomes more recognizable – as the village becomes self-sustainable – the actual survival aspects become moot. And this is the part where these games begin to collapse upon themselves.
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Over time your population swells, just like the song, until the beat becomes recognizable. Like any good song, there’s a strong introduction: your villagers are secluded and without much in the way of shelter or food, and it’s up to you to start. With these city-building strategy games that focus more upon survival than expansionism, there’s very nearly a musical beat to the way in which they’re played.
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