Life Is Hard : Pixelated 2D City Management. Barbarian Horde Simulator. (First Look, PC Gameplay)
Channel: LIFE RPG
Date: 27/11/2015

Today Dayton Does takes a First Look at Life Is Hard. This 2D city-management simulator is full of danger and adventure. Pay your tithes to the warlike Nords until you are strong enough to defend yourself.

Life Is Hard seems fairly bare-bones at the moment, but it is exceedingly deep. Balancing resources and people is always an enjoyable task, and Life Is Hard presents its own unique spin on the genre.

Life Is Hard review, First Look at Life Is Hard, Life Is Hard PC, Life Is Hard Gameplay, Lets Play Life Is Hard, Life Is Hard episode 1, Life Is Hard part 1, how to play Life Is Hard by Brandon Dayton.

Life Is Hard review coming soon to IndieGameBundles!

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"Life is hard" is a strategy/village management game. Your aim here is to control a tribe. Defend your village, harvest resources, expand your town, colonize the islands, upgrade your tools and weapons and contact with other civilizations. There is no specific aim in our game. You can do whatever you want. 

Whatever you choose, your path won’t be easy. Your plans can be ruined by one of many random events. But it’s no need to get upset! In the moments of crisis there come those, who are the only support of justice. Those, who are ready to lead people into the thick of battle.

Life is Hard is a very complex strategy and resource management town builder. You control a tribe, your ‘minions’ (no, not the annoying yellow things we’re all sick of), and need to fight skeletons, barbarians, swamp people, sometimes tribesmen and the inevitable starvation that we all put our townspeople through whenever we play these kinds of games. You’ll need to build housing to expand your population, pay tributes to the barbarians you’re at war with so they don’t flatten you the next day, mine for stone and ore, grow food, build portals and explore the surprisingly large world for those diminishing resources. It slightly reminds me of Kingdom, so if you liked that, you’d probably also really like Life is Hard.

You’ll also have to keep your villagers happy with a steady supply of beer, made in a tavern. Keeping inter-village relations friendly is also a great idea. Occasionally, a caravan trader will stop by and you have the option to trade with him or loot his goods (which will damage your relationship with him and his village). You can also send out your own cart to gather resources, although it will occasionally break, requiring resources you’ve gathered at home to repair. It may also get looted itself, so it’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the expense and the risk.

The game offers multiple bonuses at the start to help customize and diversify each playthrough, adding hours of replay time. You can pick one god out of six at the beginning of your township and each god gives you extra resources, damage, or faith. Damage bonuses are particularly useful against the nightly mobs and later on in the game barbarians, faith is used to cast healing spells or special attacks for your paladin, and extra resources are very, very helpful. Believe me when I tell you, you’re going to be counting every single resource you have. 

At this stage, the game is still in Early Access and still has quite a few bugs. Currently you cannot save your game at all, which is both a blessing and a curse. The steam overlay is currently a little funky, although it works perfectly fine. The tutorial pictures will sit on top of the text if you’re not playing the game full-screen with a higher resolution, although this is easily fixed by doing the aforementioned. I really love the hot keys that are available for each of the building, spell and tribe menus, as well as the menu’s themselves. While they’re mostly easy to understand, you’ll come across one or two buttons that don’t seem to have a clear purpose, but again, it’s not too big of a deal. The developers first language is not English, and while all the text is completely understandable, you’ll definitely notice. 

Overall, I definitely recommend this game if you enjoy resource management and strategy games. If you’re not a fan of playing perfectly finished games I’d definitely chuck Life is Hard on your wishlist to wait until it’s out of Early Access, but so far I think it’s worth the $8. Big thumbs up! -Rebz