Birthdays The Beginning Review – A Sandbox Playground

<p>Sandbox games have really become popular in recent years&period; Games such as <em>Minecraft&comma; Terraria&comma; Starbound&comma; Cities&colon; Skylines<&sol;em>&comma; and even <u><a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;thegmodfree&period;com&sol;"><em>Garry’s Mod Free<&sol;em><&sol;a><&sol;u> have taken the gaming landscape by storm&period; The legendary creator Mr&period; Yasuhiro Wada of Toybox Inc &lpar;creator of <em>Harvest Moon<&sol;em>&rpar; has worked closely with Arc System Works to create an all-new sandbox simulation experience called <em>Birthdays The Beginning<&sol;em>&period; In <em>Birthdays The Beginning<&sol;em>&comma; you are given the freedom to create a cube shaped world that allows you to experiment and alter the geography AND climate of your world to support a variety of ecosystems&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Birthdays The Beginning<&sol;em> is an experience about freedom&period; Within the confines of the game&comma; you are given the ability to create any type of environment you can imagine&comma; from snowy ecosystems to arid deserts and grassy plains&period; You aren’t limited in what creatures you are able to create either&period; If the ecosystem is able to support it&comma; you can have Dinosaurs&comma; mammals&comma; sea life&comma; and even single-celled organisms&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;124747" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-124747" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-124747" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;04&sol;26211720&sol;Birthdays-9&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Birthdays The Beginning&comma; NIS America" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-124747" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Birthdays The Beginning&comma; NIS America<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>You begin with a small bit of story exposition&comma; a genderless character that is led to a cave that contains a being that asks you to help them build a new world&period; It seems you are chosen to be the one to help them&comma; and thus your journey begins&period; You are able to name your avatar and then are given guidance in how the game’s mechanics work&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>By shaping the environment &lpar;such as raising or lowering terrain&comma; or shifting the flow of water&rpar; you can effect things like air temperature and climate&period; The more land is present in an area&comma; the lower the overall temperature&semi; whereas the more water is present&comma; the higher the overall temperature&period; Certain creatures &lpar;as in our world&rpar; exist and thrive in certain climates&comma; so careful adjustments to the environment can help you figure out how your world works and how to achieve the desired results&period; Once you have built up a certain population of a variety of lifeform&comma; you are given the ability to birth new varieties of organisms&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Aside from standard terrain controls&comma; you may find items in the world that aid you in performing &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;mass alterations” from creating valleys and mountains and using the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Primordial drop” to create bodies of water&period; One thing you have to be cautious of though is that you cannot merely change the world at will&period; You have an HP meter&comma; which runs out over time as you perform actions&period; Once your HP meter gets low&comma; you will have to let your world fend for itself until the HP refills&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;124748" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-124748" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-124748" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;04&sol;26211900&sol;Birthdays-13&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Birthdays The Beginning&comma; NIS America" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-124748" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Birthdays The Beginning&comma; NIS America<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Birthdays The Beginning<&sol;em> starts out linear as the game gives you an episodic guided campaign that both organically teaches you how the game works&comma; but it also gets you used to mechanics and slowly helps you to level up to grow and gain new creation capabilities&period; There is also a Free Play mode&comma; which allows you to enjoy the creative sandbox&comma; to create the world however you like once you have gotten the hang of the game’s basics&period; Additionally&comma; the developers have provided a challenge mode that asks you to fulfill certain conditions and birthdays within a certain amount of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Cube Years” or C&period;Y &lpar;which are the game’s measurement of time&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Another interesting mechanic in the campaign mode is the leveling system&period; As you experience &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Birthdays” or new organisms are created you&&num;8217&semi;re able to capture those creatures and gain XP from the discovery&period; In doing so you&&num;8217&semi;re able to level up and gain new capabilities that will help you to enhance your cube world and allow even more new creatures to grow&period; Time is also a big factor&period; As you stop time to alter the world&comma; progress or even fast-forward time you&&num;8217&semi;re able to see your handiwork morph&comma; change&comma; and evolve firsthand&period; As with real-world ecosystems&comma; change does not occur overnight&period; This means that the time you spend making changes in the world is important&comma; but you will need to spend just as much time OUTSIDE of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Micro Mode” taking a bird&&num;8217&semi;s eye view of the changes you have made&period; In Macro mode &lpar;the opposite of Micro mode&rpar; your world is shown from a wider view&comma; and you are able to watch in real time as populations increase&comma; decrease&comma; and even as things become extinct&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Extinction is inevitable for species in <em>Birthdays The Beginning<&sol;em> &lpar;and arguably with our own&comma; if you believe what some scientists predict for us&rpar; but those extinctions will not come often&period; If and when they do it is only for your ecosystem to create new and more complex organisms&period; <em>Birthdays The Beginning<&sol;em> is a great tool for education I think&comma; as it is a fun way to show how ecosystems work&period; However one issue I ran into is that all of the measurements are done in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s obviously not a major issue but American players will have a slightly harder time figuring out and relating to the numbers at a glance&period; I kept wondering why my world was so cold &lpar;because it said 41 degrees Celsius&rpar; until I popped it into a converter and realized that 41 degrees Celsius was actually over 105 degrees Fahrenheit&comma; so my world wasn’t cold at all&period; It wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t be hard to create an option that allows temperatures to display in Fahrenheit and it&&num;8217&semi;d certainly make the game easier to enjoy without sacrificing anything important from the game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;124749" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-124749" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-124749" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;04&sol;26211946&sol;Birthdays-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Birthdays The Beginning&comma; NIS America" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-124749" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Birthdays The Beginning&comma; NIS America<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Another thing that may annoy players is that <em>Birthdays the Beginning<&sol;em> isn’t a simple game&period; It may look simple at first glance but to achieve the goals you are given in the campaign mode&comma; it will take a LOT of time&comma; effort&comma; and experimentation to ultimately succeed&period; Another possible drawback is how slow it moves&period; Even if you find enjoyment in it you&&num;8217&semi;ll likely wish things moved at a faster pace&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re just trying to get into it and learn everything then you may even lose interest because of the slow pacing&period; It takes a while to figure out if your adjustments to the world are doing what you want them to&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The ability to change temperature SOLELY based on the elevation of the ground is somewhat arbitrary&comma; and when you get into the water temperature mechanics&comma; you may find yourself confused as to what you need to do in order to raise the temperature to the necessary level to progress forward&period; Overall <em>Birthdays the Beginning<&sol;em> is a fun experience&comma; but it is slow and complex&comma; which will likely cause players to lose interest quickly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I recommend giving <em>Birthdays the Beginning<&sol;em> a shot&comma; it is definitely something fun to do when you just want to relax&comma; but I wouldn’t say it is something you are going to get addicted to or crave to play&period;  If you like games you can sink your teeth into&comma; then this is the perfect experience for you&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A Steam Review Key of Birthdays The Beginning was provided by NIS America for the Purpose of this Review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;