Sandbox games with crafting mechanics have always been a rather niche game genre that is aimed towards the more casual players among us. With the exception of a few big names like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, not many titles found in the genre are memorable due to their rather simplistic gameplay and repetitive/grindy game design. Deiland, developed by Chibig, is one of those games that I fear will be quickly forgotten, even though it has the potential to be one of the better titles in the genre.
If you regularly try out apps on your smartphone or tablet, you might have already heard of Deiland, as it originally was made for those platforms in 2016. The Steam and PS4 version that has been released a few weeks ago is basically the same in terms of gameplay, but has added some extra content and tweaks to the mechanics. The biggest change is the inclusion of a second planet that you can visit and explore, called Ankora. But before I continue to talk about that, let me first describe the actual premise of the game.
The game takes place in a young universe where children are sent to so-called Minor Planets, tiny planets that are the source of mystical crystals. You take control of one of those children, called Arco, who doesn’t remember how he got there or why his appearance is similar to that of a prince. Fun fact, the premise is loosely based on the children’s book ‘The Little Prince’. To survive on the planet, you have to plant and harvest several resources which you later can trade with off-world visitors. These visitors each have their own unique personality and are your main source of income and can even offer to trade rare items that are necessary to progress the story. In short: the more resources you can provide, the more you’ll learn about Arco and his role in the universe.
While the story can be boiled down to “the chosen one has to save the universe”, it does give you enough motivation and mystery to keep you going further and get the most out of your planet. It almost grinds to a halt at times, mostly when you have to spend several hours working towards acquiring a specific item or resource. It’s only near the end of the game that it starts to get going, which might not be worth the time for some players. Luckily, the side characters you come across are entertaining on their own and have their backstories to tell if you manage to get enough favor from them. I especially liked the playful banter between Arco and Yuki, a feline girl that can’t stop herself from stealing stuff from everyone she meets.
The gameplay of Deiland is pretty solid, for a sandbox game that is. You can plant crops, chop down trees, fish, build objects to improve your little farm, mine stone in hopes of finding precious crystals and fight creatures that want to terrorize your little planet. It doesn’t differ much from the 2016 mobile app version, but as the saying goes: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Still, I do have a few issues with it. First of all, before you reach the last hours of the game, you’ll already have unlocked every skill and item, giving you less motivation to keep playing. After 7 or so hours of playing, I had already unlocked 90% of what the game had to offer, which is a big issue for a sandbox game since those type of games should have a high level of replayability. Animal Crossing, for example, manages to give you something new even after playing it for 50 hours.
Another issue I have with the gameplay is that it often looks unfinished, both in visuals and game design. For example, there’s a mine that you can enter once you’ve reached a certain point in the game. Inside the cave, there are several rows of rocks that are blocking a path. You can pick these rocks away and sell them to a pirate, but can only do this four times a day, meaning you have to spend several in-game weeks to clear out the path. Once the path is free, nothing happens, even though it’s obvious that clearing the path is one of your goals in the game. Why else would there be a limit on the stones you can pick in the cave, while outside the cave you can pick as many stones as you want? The cave also looks unfinished in the visual sense. The background is a simple pitch-black backdrop to makes the cave look like it’s floating around in a dark abyss.
Some of the animations also tend to be lacking at times. When you cast a magic spell towards an enemy, you simply push it a few meters back, even though you supposedly set it on fire. When a meteor hits your planet, it hardly looks more than a plain .jpg that an intern quickly inserted into the game’s code. While visuals are not the most important thing in a videogame, they still need some polish in order to make it easier for the player to get immersed into the game’s world.
Conclusion
So, as you may have noticed by now, Deiland plays like an unfinished game that shouldn’t have been released yet. But, unlike many other games that have the same issue, the developer has supported the game quite a lot after its initial release and will even release a content update in the next couple of weeks. If they manage to keep supporting the game like this, I think it might become one of the better sandbox/crafting games on the market. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’d recommend the game in its current state. Maybe check it out if you’re a huge fan of similar games. Just don’t expect too much of it.
