First Impressions: Balrum (PC)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Balrum through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.] 

Balrum
Release Date: February 29, 2016
Systems: Windows, iOS, Linux
Publisher: Balcony Softworks
Developer: Balcony Softworks
Time Spent: 5 Hours 20ish Minutes

What first drew me to Balrum was the isometric point of view and the visual aesthetic that is reminiscent of both the Diablo Engine and Infinity Engine.  The similarities end there as Balrum contains a fairly robust crafting mechanic that lets you cook, create potions and poisons, create buildings and repair structures, create and repair weapons and armor, and harvest nearly everything in the game that is not a bush or a pile of rocks.  The game harkens back to that mid-late 1990s PC adventure game era where a wrong misstep could lead to death and woe be the player who doesn't save often because the autosave feature seems to be few and far between; I've only seen the game autosave when I entered a nightmare sequence upon going to sleep.

I had originally planned this as a Game EXP article, but upon only gaining enough experience to reach Level 2 after nearly 3.5 hours, I knew that there was going to be a lot more than what turned out to be the starting tutorial area, being the starting village.  And I'm okay with that.  I really enjoy the direction the game is going and its lack of handholding.  Once you understand that the game is purposefully not pulling punches, but not in a way that feels entirely unfair, it becomes a lot easier to enjoy.  The one note of contention is that while your character starts out at level 1, nearly everyone in the village is around is also level 1, but has four times as many hit points and all hit really hard, which is relevant because accidental stealing is a real thing that can happen because of the controls.  In one instance I accidentally aggroed a villager by picking their produce and triggered all other villagers in the vicinity and was promptly killed; you can watch that here at the 2:59 mark.  What also bothered me about this was that the character was programmed to attack you for "stealing" even when the game doesn't specifically tell you that you're stealing; although maybe I should have noticed the tilled earth under the mushroom and that it wasn't growing on grass?  Either way, I think that that was a bit of an overreaction both in terms of the character and the devs for having something like that escalate that quickly without any way to de-escalate the situation.

The controls are probably my least favorite thing about Balrum.  You have the option of using either the mouse to click where you want to go, kind of, or WASD.  Because this is an isometric game, WASD feels the least natural in terms of moving about the world, so for the most part I've been using the mouse to click where I want to go.  Sort of.  When you left-click, you hold down the button and drag the cursor for your character to follow and when you release the button, they stop where they're at, not where you click.  When you right-click on a square on the map, your character will go to that spot.  Essentially having to drag your character across the screen and leave it to the computer to decide how they walk around obstacles has led my guy to walk through minor traps.  When you're using the left-click method of movement (lcmm?), if your cursor hovers over an NPC and you're within talking distance of them, the dialogue box will automatically pop up, which has led to a fair amount of talking to people when I don't want to.  Moving items around in your inventory feels a little strange too and there've been several instances where I've left a crafting table because I want to click on an object and drag it over to the crafting window, but because I held down the button, the game reads that as me telling my character where to walk; instead you're supposed to single-click the item to pick it up and then move it.  Lastly, separating items, when you have 10 pieces of wood and you only want to put 5 pieces into the fire, requires you to hold the shift key and click the item, whereas to me it feels like you should be able to right-click the item to bring up the same window; except right-clicking an item usually is the "take item into your inventory" button when you're looting.

I can definitely see myself coming back to Balrum after this current spat of games I have lined up for articles in the coming weeks.  Howlongtobeat suggests that the game could take between 30-70 hours, although that's likely dependent on the character build, and individual playstyles of the four people that rated it.  I'll probably end up being close to the 70-hour mark if only because I think I took a slightly more difficult route by having my character be focused on spellcasting and alchemy, but maybe that just means that I'll be augmenting my lower HP with more health potions and making that sweet skrilla by selling all of the gear and materials since I won't need it to craft weapons...except that my guy is wearing armor and wielding a shortsword.  I'm sure that I'll continue posting gameplay videos up on YouTube, so check back semi-frequently on our Balrum [A Stage Select Start Playthrough] on a weekly basis and I'm sure we'll reach the conclusion by the end of some future month.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
And You Always Seem Outnumbered