The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands is a tough game to review because what it looks like and what it actually is aren’t quite the same thing. If you go by looks, it’d be easy to say that this is a game where the primary goal is survival, and that’s not wholly inaccurate early on. Once you’ve built up your defenses enough that the nightly monster attacks no longer pose a serious threat, however, what’s left is instead gameplay reminiscent of those browser clicker games that are so easy to get sucked into. You start by clicking to slowly obtain wood, but then you build a bonfire to draw workers to your little village. It’s not long before someone gives you a cart ensuring that workers can bring back more resources than they would otherwise, with this being just one of several job-specific equippables you’ll be crafting to increase worker productivity. This is less a game about survival than one of constant escalation, then, with the challenge coming more from pairing workers to tasks they’re suited to while balancing resource production than one where you’re constantly at risk. That’s not an inherently good or bad thing, of course, but it’s certainly something bound to run afoul of many people’s initial expectations.

The mythology is vague, but it isn’t the focus

When you first start The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands, the opening text crawl you get explains the back story in the form of a legend that the playable character seems to be following the advice of. A star supposedly fell, causing the sea to rise and a sleeping god to awaken, so the legend advises one to sail to a new land, light a bonfire, and find a way to awaken an ancient titan to defeat said god. I’m not sure why this god needs to be defeated, though, because it appears to be completely harmess; you can keep your village running for 200 straight days and this god minds its own business. In fact, it attacking the titan at the very end of the game comes across more as self-defense.

Maybe I’m overthinking it; there’s not much dialogue in this game at all, as the only other lore-type text you get is from wandering travelers who occasionally come into camp and ask for a small amount of food. See, the very first thing you do when starting out is gather wood to build the titular bonfire, and this bonfire serves as a beacon both for workers who join your village and the occasional wanderer who provides information or a tool. Even the text you get from these wanderers is light on content and doesn’t explain much, so there’s a lot here that ends up being left to the imagination. That’s not entirely unexpected for a game dealing with gods and titans, though, which is to say that I didn’t find the sparseness of lore to be a negative. Still, I wouldn’t have minded a little more explanation about why this god needs defeating in the first place. Especially since there’s one point where a pilgrim shares a story (related in third-person and without specifics by the on-screen text) that makes it appear that a legendary hero was the one to imprison the titan—legendary heroes typically don’t imprison innocent creatures. Now, I don’t require some thousand-word epic detailing everyone’s motivations, but even something as basic as a wanderer explaining that the nightly monster attacks are caused by the awakened god would establish some stakes.

The reason this would be so effective is that monster attacks are a real problem early on. The first five days of attacks are more than manageable, mostly consisting of small numbers of wolves that go down without much of a fight, but every sixth day sees an attack by a building-sized spider. Having only one or two nighttime guards to throw at one of these spiders is a quick way to get a game over. There’s also a third type of enemy, but I have no idea what it actually is. It looks like an anorexic chupacabra. This third enemy type can also be dangerous, as it moves fast and can easily kill a single guard if their patrol moves slightly away from the group at an inopportune time.

Addictive clicking and management action

There are two difficulty modes: normal mode and hardcore mode. The only difference I’ve found between them is that hardcore mode deletes your save upon the main character’s death, while normal mode lets you try again from the beginning of that day. Having the main character overwhelmed by enemies is the only way of losing that I’ve discovered, so assigning lots of workers as guards is a pretty effective insurance policy. You’re bound to lose some guards either way, though, and your inability to control anyone directly contributes heavily to this; you can order your main character around and change the jobs of workers, but the ways they move and patrol are random. This isn’t a problem with most workers because monster attacks don’t occur during the day, but guards patrol a small area around the main character at night and can often become separated if you carelessly mix worker traits. It works like this—each wanderer has one of several attributes (strong, brave, quick footed, honest, wise, and hardworking), and this indicates a proclivity for certain jobs. Quick footed workers are great for gathering tasks and awful for guarding because of their fast movement, while strong workers make for ideal guards. Brave workers tend to be good scouts and explorers, while wise workers can be turned into alchemists without the risk of going insane and having to be put down by guards. As for the other two, I’m not 100% on their uses, but I suspect that honest workers don’t risk stealing supplies and hardworking workers tire less quickly.

Early in the game, you don’t have many options for who does what, but certain jobs can equip certain items to make workers more efficient. Those gathering wood can be given axes, those gathering iron and coal can be outfitted with pickaxes, and farmers can make use of sickles. Obviously guards can be equipped with weapons and armor as well to increase their battle efficiency, but the upgrades for the other jobs I’ve mentioned increase the speed with which they gather. There are also a wooden cart and leather pouch that can be equipped to allow workers to bring back more of their resource. Early on, this is helpful for making your random assortment of workers excel at jobs they’re not particularly suited to. Later on when you have enough workers to pick and choose who does what, however, it can allow you to obtain more of each resource than you could ever need. For me, this is the appeal of The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands; it starts out as a clicker, but eventually allows you to create a village that doesn’t require your input anymore to thrive. The only downside is that you’re effectively done with the game once you get to the point where this is possible, so there’s no in-game reason for doing so. It’s entertaining watching your village finally reach that point, but the only thing you’ll get for it is an inflated score.

Some complaints

The underwhelming end is really my biggest problem with the game. Those drawn to the clicker-game aspect of things will be disappointed by the cap on workers that keeps your village from continuing to grow. Those drawn to the survival aspect will have long since checked out since monsters only pose a real threat early on. Those interested in the lore will be disappointed by everything getting resolved with a short fight sequence between the titan and god that plays out more like a QTE than anything. The mostly linear sequence of things you build means that there’s not much replay value to be had here, either. I’m also not thrilled about how the controller support works; this game is also available on iOS and the menus were very clearly designed with a touch screen in mind. While a mouse and a touch screen aren’t that far apart (though you’ll be scrolling through menus a lot toward the end to find the specific option you’re looking for), playing this game on a controller is a bit of a mess. Using a mouse, you can interrupt the main character’s job to have them do something else, but I was unable to do so on a controller for some reason. As I watched the main character get devoured by wolves while he casually prepared food for the village, it dawned on me that a controller wasn’t the ideal input device for a game like this. I’d recommend just sticking with a mouse.

Pleasant graphics and music, but that end loop needs addressing

The objects and people populating The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands’ world are relatively simple cel-shaded 2D objects, but a lot is done to make them stand out. The stars in the night sky, the way you can tell how much time you have before the nightly monster attack based on the moon’s position, the soft glow of sunrises and sunsets—all of this combines into something more than the sum of its parts. The text even changes color from white to black depending on the time of day, and while the resource list at the top of the screen sometimes gets washed out anyway, this never became an actual problem. The music is also incredibly pleasant and atmospheric, but lacks memorability for the most part. The one exception to that is the short loop that plays once you finally beat the game, but that’s partially because it plays endlessly until you quit the game; if you defeat the god to win the game and then resume your save without exiting to desktop, this short loop will play on without end and start to drive you a little crazy.

*A Steam review key for The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands was provided for the purpose of this review

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