SMOKE AND SACRIFICE Review for PC

It’s dark and I’m punching sour trees to try and knock down sour fruits and sour branches that I can use to craft curiously non-sour gear. The fog is rolling in and as I add one last fruit to my bag a spectral skeleton appears and attacks me. Decaying lantern in hand I run away from its teleporting slashes and AOE shrieking until I run headlong into a nest of giant wasps. A few stings bring me down to low health and I use the last of my sour fruits to cling to life. I’m so close, just a few more seconds to a save point. Then I die. I’d forgotten to equip a new lantern to fight off the health sapping fog. Time to do it all over again.

Smoke and Sacrifice by developer, Solar Sail Games Ltd, and publisher, Curve Digital, is a top down, survival story game set in an eerie underground world full of strange mask wearing people and monstrous beasts. The team behind the game took obvious inspiration from the hit indie Don’t Starve which tasks also players with surviving in an uncompromising world. Crafting elements, the 2.5D perspective and the challenging hunt for material are all lifted from the original. Unlike Don’t Starve, Smoke and Sacrifice lacks a base building system and is fully realized single player adventure which, thankfully, doesn’t implement a permadeath system. This story element is the main differential between the two games and luckily it shines.

Players take on the role of Sachi, a character from a vaguely Tibetan culture, who ventures into a dark world in search of her son. The world she lives in is one covered in ice and bones which stays a verdant land thanks to the Sun Tree, a mass of mechanical lighting systems whose operation is continued thanks to the annual sacrifice of children. Sachi quickly learns not all is as it seems as she begins the search for her own seemingly sacrificed child. The story is surprisingly compelling and features interesting characters, worlds and creatures. Learning more about Sachi’s world through cryptic conversations with NPCs and cutscenes favorably differentiates Smoke and Sacrifice from Don’t Starve.

Game art and assets are lovingly designed with weird and creative creatures and characters. Looking closely at the screen, one can see small details woven into facial animations or small textures woven into the ground. Animals like the polyps point to land born jellyfish while lantern plants provide a measure of safety during the deadly fog. NPC gardeners wander around the world picking plants or fashioning lanterns while giving hints about the story. Often these creatures and characters interact with each other in strange ways.

While exploring the bone and mine laden tundra, I came across a giant bird fighting several fire-breathing, tunneling, mole-like anglers. Normally the ice bomb regurgitating avian would have been too much for me to handle but, in the spur of the moment, I jumped into the fray. Planting barrel bombs I’d collected from a nearby treasure chest I engaged in a frantic battle of explosions and chaos that, when the dust cleared, had earned me a massive pile of rare items. Like other systems based games, like Far Cry, Smoke and Sacrifice shines when these elements come together. The game also benefits from its meticulous hand-crafted environments.

Unlike the procedurally generated maps of Don’t Starve, the underground world is handmade. The map is made up of several biomes including ice and fire that require special gear to move through. Story progression is thus tied, Metroidvania like, to finding gear and returning to previous areas. Traversing the game players can come across save stations, teleporters, treasure chests, crafting stations and crafting instructions inscribed in stone monuments or tapestries. Each biome features different hazards, monsters and crafting materials. Backtracking is not usually necessary as most areas feature better and better material for gear. As such the game conveys a strong feel of forward momentum as Sachi continues to press forward in her quest.

Still this does not make Smoke and Sacrifice a perfect game. While the game takes steps to differentiate itself from its competition, it is still very much a survival game. As such, story takes a backseat to more mundane elements like crafting and gathering elements. Balancing health, item durability, and a cluttered inventory of rotting items mean that you’ll be spending much of your time managing status bars. Most interesting items, like bombs or mines, are tied to the late game. And while there are a wide array of interesting items and mechanics, from animal traps to creature taming, few are explained much beyond a single cursory sentence from an NPC. The quest menu is also rarely much help and returning to the quest giver does not always yield useful information. This, of course, recalls other survival games like Minecraft which leave most information obtuse and hidden behind wikia entries. While combat is always difficult and exciting it’s not terribly compelling, utilizing only simple mouse clicks to attack.

The game’s UI also leaves much to be desired. Like Don’t Starve, the field of view is quite small and often means you’ll be engaged by enemies you don’t even notice. Picking up specific items is often difficult, an issue exacerbated by the quickly cluttered inventory that lacks sorting options. There are no hotkeys or control options either, meaning you’ll often be forced to stop the action to root through your inventory for useful items. Pathfinding for both Sachi and her enemies is quite primitive and easily manipulated. Flaws aside, the game is still a very competent survival story game.

Smoke and Sacrifice is first and foremost a survival game. While story driven, if somewhat linear, these elements are second to prerogatives like balancing meters and gathering food. UI issues and simple combat also bog down parts of an otherwise impressive concept. However, Sachi’s journey is compelling and her world is expansive and creative. Crafting allows for a wide array of interesting creations and the joy of watching different game systems interact helps create the illusion of a real world. For fans of the survival games Smoke and Sacrifice is a strong and refreshing take on the classics. For players new or to “tree punching simulators” it provides a compelling story to rope them into a notoriously obtuse genre. However, for gamers tired and worn out by the plethora of survival games that have been released in recent years there is little to entice one in. While the story and world are creative and unique one cannot say the same about most other elements which borrow heavily from classics like Don’t Starve. In these respects, Smoke and Sacrifice is not an evolution of the survival crafting game genre. Rather it is the iteration of new ideas onto an existing mold, repeat with both the advantages and drawbacks that entails.

7.9 out of 10

Here is the Smoke and Sacrifice Release Trailer:

Smoke and Sacrifice is available for PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch.