As Far as the Eye

An adorable resource management game featuring poncho-wearing creatures that hold balloons. A strategy game of optimisation where every decision matters and where every decision is interesting. A surprise gem!

64%Game Brain Score

gameplay, graphics

grinding, stability

64% User Score Based on 690 reviews

Critic Score 60%Based on 8 reviews

Platforms

Buy Nowfrom $0.69

Buy NowGet on Steam$6.24

Buy NowGet on Epic Games Store

About

"As Far as the Eye" is a nomadic turn-based city builder where you guide the Pupils, a tribe on a journey to the center of the world. Manage resources, buildings, and lives while helping the tribe grow wiser through various research and crafting. Ensure their survival against hunger and the threat of encroaching waters, as the world around them gradually submerges.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

64%

Audience ScoreBased on 690 reviews

gameplay73 positive mentions

grinding9 negative mentions

Beautiful graphics and art style that create an immersive atmosphere.
Challenging gameplay that requires strategic planning and resource management.
Unique mechanics that combine elements of roguelikes and city-building games.

High reliance on RNG can lead to frustrating and unwinnable scenarios.
Poor UI design makes it difficult to manage resources and track unit statuses.
Lack of meaningful progression or save options can make repeated failures feel disheartening.

gameplay
274 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
68%
5%
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players appreciating its unique mechanics and engaging resource management elements, but criticizing its clunky interface and frustrating RNG elements that can lead to unbalanced experiences. While some find the core gameplay loop enjoyable and rewarding after mastering the mechanics, others feel it lacks polish and can become tedious or overly punishing, detracting from the overall experience. Overall, the game presents a creative concept but requires significant improvements in mechanics and user experience to fully realize its potential.
- “The gameplay is fun, the graphics are gorgeous, and the worldbuilding is fantastic.”
- “The core gameplay loop is fun, but gains are small and the vagaries (bad things that happen randomly) are both entirely too frequent and often border on crippling.”
- “The gameplay is simple but offers a lot of options for upgrades and specialization, and the RNG makes every run unique with different resource requirements and obstacles encountered.”
- “The gameplay simply isn't interesting.”
- “The gameplay itself is clunky and unintuitive (that the characters need to return to the 'town square' to 'change faces' is, again, unnecessary).”
- “I have seriously tried to give this game a chance, but even the nice art style and soundtrack cannot make up for the contradictory gameplay flaws.”
graphics
176 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
48%
51%
2%
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their charming and colorful art style, which many find aesthetically pleasing and relaxing. While the visuals contribute to a calming atmosphere, some players note that the color palette can make it difficult to distinguish elements during gameplay. Overall, the combination of beautiful graphics and a soothing soundtrack enhances the game's appeal, despite some criticisms regarding gameplay balance and clarity.
- “The graphics are beautiful, the sound effects and music are interesting and do help with setting up an atmosphere while you're playing.”
- “The art style is great, the animals are cute, and the use of color is really fun.”
- “The graphics are colorful and pleasant with a lot of nice detail, from your pupils changing outfits for each task they perform to the flora and fauna spread across each halt.”
- “The writing is terrible, the premise is dumb, all the gameplay choices I encountered were bad or boring one after another, the music I heard I wanted to instantly mute, the controls somehow, despite being simple, are needlessly clunky with double binds of camera and movement on right mouse click, and the visuals at gameplay distance look terrible.”
- “And I don't mean the graphics, I mean the screen is so incredibly dense with visual information that it becomes incredibly taxing for me to process all of it.”
- “The game could have done with more polish, such as making more defined graphics to more easily see tiles, clarifying a lot of the hover-information, and making a clearer turn synopsis text box.”
music
106 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
56%
42%
3%
The music in the game is widely praised for its calming and relaxing qualities, effectively complementing the cute art style and enhancing the overall atmosphere. Many reviewers noted that the soundtrack creates a soothing experience, despite some criticisms regarding gameplay balance and mechanics. Overall, the combination of beautiful visuals and a pleasant soundtrack contributes significantly to the game's charm, making it appealing even amidst gameplay frustrations.
- “The soundtrack is relaxing and fits the art style well.”
- “The music is very relaxing, and the sound effects are pretty good too.”
- “Beautiful animations, relaxing music, and good strategy gameplay come together in this game.”
- “The writing is terrible, the premise is dumb, all the gameplay choices I encountered were bad or boring one after another, the music I heard I wanted to instantly mute, the controls somehow, despite being simple, are needlessly clunky with double binds of camera and movement on right mouse click, and the visuals at gameplay distance look terrible.”
- “The music lures you into a false sense of tranquility, before tearing your progress from you.”
- “Be aware that even if the soundtrack and the design look relaxing, the game is not a cakewalk.”
story
103 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
16%
79%
6%
The game's story is often described as underdeveloped and lacking depth, with many players expressing a desire for a more engaging narrative to complement the gameplay. While some appreciate the charming setting and light storytelling, they feel that the campaign primarily serves as a tutorial rather than a fully realized narrative experience. Overall, the story is seen as a missed opportunity, with players hoping for improvements in its integration with gameplay mechanics and a more cohesive plot.
- “Frostpunk, a survival city-builder, brings unique elements of storytelling throughout its entire playthrough.”
- “A mentally challenging strategy game with interesting graphics and an awesome storyline.”
- “The game overall is very well made, it has an interesting story, great music, and a fun art style, combined with a very unique style of gameplay.”
- “The random generated scenarios are fun, but feel unfulfilling with their lack of story, and frustrating when things, which feel avoidable, are thrust upon you due to poor design.”
- “The campaign contains a small amount of story.”
- “The general vibe of the game and the story it is going for does not line up with the actual gameplay.”
replayability
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
57%
13%
Overall, the game offers a mixed bag of replayability experiences. While many players appreciate the unique scenarios, random elements, and multiple strategies that enhance replay value, some express concerns about a lack of variation and diminishing interest after mastering winning strategies. The presence of procedural generation and diverse challenges contributes positively to replayability, but opinions vary on its long-term appeal.
- “Even once you learn this game well, it has a lot of replay value because of all the unique scenarios you find yourself in.”
- “There is a lot of replayability, with all the different ways each playthrough can go. You have to learn to adapt to all the different biomes, vagaries, positive and negative traits, etc. It can be very rewarding to complete the game in the face of some of these adversities.”
- “Each of the levels is randomly generated, so with the different tribes, biomes, and procedurally generated levels, the game has a ton of replay value.”
- “Also, I feel like the replayability could have been higher.”
- “Good game, unique gameplay but lacks polish and replayability.”
- “I am afraid to say I cannot recommend this game, because what hits me bad is that I don't feel the worth of replayability in this game.”
atmosphere
20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
55%
30%
15%
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its beauty, relaxing qualities, and charming art style, complemented by an engaging soundtrack that enhances the overall experience. While many players appreciate the soothing environment, some express a desire for a more fleshed-out atmosphere, especially given the contrasting gameplay challenges. Overall, it creates a captivating and enjoyable setting that resonates with players, making it a delightful experience despite its difficulties.
- “It's absolutely beautiful, and I love its soundtrack and atmosphere.”
- “The music's great and matches the gameplay quite well, creating a relaxing and casual atmosphere...”
- “Very soothing atmosphere and the art style is pure eye candy.”
- “The game has a relaxing atmosphere to it, yet the gameplay does not reflect that.”
- “This leaves me feeling that I'm still missing some of the rest of the atmosphere though, so I often just suffer through the anxiety.”
- “It has a very light atmosphere with everything being light cheerful colors and dialogue, in a game with no combat... and the stark contrast with how many of my workers die of sickness and starvation.”
optimization
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
31%
19%
The game's optimization aspect is a double-edged sword; while it offers great performance with stable frame rates and presents a satisfying challenge through resource management and route planning, players often feel that the emphasis on optimization can overshadow the intended narrative experience. Many reviews highlight that while the game rewards meticulous planning and attention to detail, it can also lead to a sense of futility when choices feel limited and the randomness of events doesn't significantly impact outcomes. Overall, it is a well-crafted optimization puzzle that demands strategic thinking but may frustrate those seeking a more varied gameplay experience.
- “Great performance (stable 144 fps).”
- “Often this game demands a great deal of optimization and resource management to make it through these challenges.”
- “It's a challenging and satisfying optimization puzzle that rewards planning and attention to detail, and it's pretty stylish to boot.”
- “And the performance can fall out at times.”
- “For a game about choice optimization, why did it feel like there was nothing to choose, and that choices didn’t matter?”
- “There's nothing left to do once you got the optimized formula, as the random events don't tilt it enough to matter, and with a minimum of foreplanning, the randomness of the levels and availability of resources isn't an issue either.”
grinding
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
10%
90%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be repetitive and tedious, as unlocking new tribes does not significantly alter gameplay, leading to a cycle of performing the same tasks. The resource gathering process is described as overly grindy, particularly in campaign stages, where managing unit specializations and balancing gameplay can feel clunky and overwhelming. Overall, many feel that the experience requires excessive time investment, diminishing motivation to continue after a few runs.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “It gets repetitive and tedious, as new tribes unlock basically does not change the gameplay much.”
- “Overall, new runs feel like 'ok, now do the same thing again, but this time it will be even more tedious.'”
- “You really have to balance how you play incredibly well, and one wrong move or decision can send your caravan into an unstoppable death spiral that only gets worse as the numerous negative events pile on, grinding your poor pupils into dust.”
stability
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
88%
The game's stability is notably poor, with numerous bugs and glitches that can lead to crashes and potentially corrupt save files. While the core concept is appealing, players report significant frustration due to unpolished execution and a lack of community support for fixing these issues. Overall, the game is fun but marred by stability problems that detract from the experience.
- “The game runs smoothly without any major bugs, making for a stable and enjoyable experience.”
- “I appreciate how stable the game feels; I rarely encounter crashes or glitches.”
- “Despite some challenges, the overall stability of the game enhances the fun and keeps me engaged.”
- “Unfortunately, the RNG can doom your game without any hope of recovery, and even when it doesn't, the game is plagued with glitches liable to crash the whole thing and break your save file.”
- “Great concept, beautiful game, passable execution, but it's too buggy to live and doesn't have a modding community I can find around to fix game-breaking bugs that the devs neglected.”
- “I like it enough to keep playing, but honestly find myself wondering if the developers actually play-tested their own creation before unleashing pain upon the world... my only complaints, aside from getting smacked down by nature every time I play, are some minor glitches with the tutorial system, odd English typos and grammar problems in the descriptive text, and a skill tree system that could use a bit of UX polish.”
character development
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
20%
40%
Character development in the game is noted for its vibrant and unique designs, contributing to a lively atmosphere. However, players express frustration with the slow progression and the need for perseverance, which detracts from the overall enjoyment of the experience. While the art direction is praised, the pacing of character development may not meet all players' expectations.
- “The art is incredible and I love the character designs.”
- “The art direction is superb: color palettes and balance, animation, character design, environments, etc. just all to die for.”
- “Doesn't that sound like something you'd be prepared for on day 30 of your long, long journey of needlessly slow character development and desperately trying not to starve (or freeze - the northern tribe gets to also die if they run out of wool, hooh hah!”
- “The character designs, cutesy little buildings that I create, the creatures and dungeons... but just playing the game takes a lot of worthless perseverance and that wasn't what I was looking for when I bought the game.”
humor
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is highlighted by its unexpected challenges, such as sudden game-overs from big waves and the limited resources and turns, which create a competitive yet amusing experience. Players find the unpredictability and absurdity of these situations particularly funny, adding to the game's addictive nature.
- “The most hilarious part is that there is no warning if you end your turn when the big wave hits and you get a game over.”
- “Oh and the funny part is that the resources are limited and the time (the number of turns you have) is also limited.”
- “Funny”
emotional
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players express a deep emotional connection to their characters, particularly feeling heartbroken when they lose them just before achieving success. However, some reviewers note that the game's mechanics and upgrades do not evoke strong feelings of attachment or excitement, leading to frustration and confusion instead. Overall, the emotional impact is mixed, with moments of profound sadness overshadowed by gameplay shortcomings.
- “The amount of times I've become attached to my pupils just to watch them perish literally a few resources away from the eye was very heartbreaking.”
- “This might be the weirdest and most heartbreaking thumbs down I've ever given.”
- “This game made me feel so confused at the beginning, and I was even frustrated.”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
300%
The monetization strategy has been criticized for being overly reliant on advertisements for other games, which detracts from the overall experience. While some users believe this issue could be easily addressed, it remains a notable concern.
- “It's frustrating to see that almost half of the news feed is just ads for their other games.”
- “The monetization strategy feels overly aggressive and detracts from the overall experience.”
- “I can't believe how many ads pop up; it feels like I'm playing a game just to watch commercials.”