“Survivors of Ragnarök” is a real-time strategy / city management game that is similar to the older “Dwarf Fortress” and the more recent “A Game of Dwarves.” In these types of games, you’re gathering resources and crafting items to try and make your little “city” thrive into something spectacular. Before we get started, I’d like to thank Garrett Colas for setting me up with a free preview copy. It’s important to note that this game is currently in the early Alpha stages, so the content that you may see in this article is subject to change and in no way represents the final production copy.
Survivors of Ragnarök (PC, Mac, Linux)
The main menu, in its current state, allows you to start a new game (survive), create your own map (creative), view the tutorial, and quit the game. The tutorial is simply a collection of pages that you read, complete with screenshots and text. The tutorial doesn’t tell you how to go about creating a fortress of sorts, but it gives you a general idea on how to move around the environment. Inside the game, you’ll have access to a menu that will allow you to change the screen resolution, save, load, create a new game, and quit. This menu also allows you to toggle windowed mode and fullscreen mode.
New Game Menu
In-Game Menu
Tutorial
Creative mode gives you all of the materials and objects you need to just go nuts. It’s similar to Minecraft’s creative mode. Survival mode, on the other hand, gives you one dwarf and little to no supplies. I spent the first ten minutes clicking on random things to see what happens, and I admit that I still have no idea what I’m doing. I managed to figure out that you can click on various objects in the environment and your dwarf will interact with it. If you click on an animal, he’ll go about attacking and killing it, after which you can click on the materials left behind to add to your inventory. I chopped down a few trees, collected wood, and watched as he went off on his own to eat food that was laying on the ground nearby.
Creative Mode
Survive Mode
The interface is fairly basic, giving you the ability to view the materials you have and craft new items. When you click on the crafting menu and attempt to craft an item, you’ll see the objects needed to craft the item along with the necessary prerequisite tools. There are times where I’ve hit the plus button to craft an item and nothing would happen, and other times I crafted two of an item only meaning to make one. As I explored the Alpha, I realized that there is a learning curve, especially with what to click and how to go about interacting with the environment. I’m hoping that as updates are added, I’ll be given better instruction as to how to move around the interface and properly use its features.
Inventory
Crafting Menu
The gameplay and camera view reminds me a bit of Terraria, though you’ll have limited “control” (I use that word loosely) over how your dwarves interact with the environment. You can assign your dwarves to specific duties, giving you a way to tell which dwarf to perform what function. The resource gathering, crafting, and exploration remind me a bit of “A Game of Dwarves” and when you put the two games together, you come out with something that I’m finding to be an overall great idea. I’m looking forward to seeing how this game progresses over the next few months. Time permitting, I’ll write a few follow-up articles to keep you all apprised on the game’s development and progress.
You can learn more about and pre-order “Survivors of Ragnarök” by visiting the following websites: