Fantastic Haven: Prologue

About

"Fantastic Haven: Prologue" is a free precursor to the full game, where you assume the role of Elders protecting a world with vanishing magic. Your mission includes saving fantasy creatures, restoring balance, and promoting harmony with diplomacy and teaching. The prologue offers 4 creatures, 10 unlockable buildings, 1 region, and 7 narrative events to explore.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

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

80%

Audience ScoreBased on 340 reviews

graphics38 positive mentions

optimization12 negative mentions

The game has a cute concept with engaging gameplay focused on rescuing and rehabilitating fantasy creatures.
The graphics and art style are visually appealing, creating a relaxing atmosphere for players.
There is a lot of potential for the game, with interesting mechanics and a unique blend of city-building and creature management.

The game suffers from significant performance issues, including lag and crashes, making it unplayable for some users.
The user interface is confusing and lacks clarity, making it difficult for players to understand gameplay mechanics and manage resources effectively.
Many bugs and glitches hinder the gameplay experience, such as golems not functioning properly and creatures getting stuck.

graphics
62 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
61%
34%
5%
The graphics of the game are generally praised for their beauty, unique art style, and ability to create a soothing atmosphere, with many users highlighting the cute and engaging visuals. However, there are significant concerns regarding performance issues, including lag and bugs, especially at higher settings, which detracts from the overall experience. While the graphics are appealing and immersive, improvements in performance are eagerly anticipated by players.
- “The graphics in this game are beautiful and the music is incredibly relaxing.”
- “The graphics are simply amazing, and the gameplay makes you immerse yourself in the world of the game for hours.”
- “Great building simulator with excellent graphics and atmosphere.”
- “The game has terrible graphic performance; people with motion sickness better to stay away.”
- “The graphics are a bit laggy when moving the camera around.”
- “Got an i5 laptop with an Nvidia MX350 graphics card and it lags?”
gameplay
34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
35%
56%
9%
The gameplay is generally praised for its engaging mechanics and charming visuals, offering a mix of resource management, exploration, and city-building elements. However, many users note the need for improved guidance and accessibility features, such as a comprehensive tutorial, to enhance the experience. While the gameplay loop is enjoyable and relaxing, some players express a desire for more depth and automation to prevent it from becoming repetitive.
- “The gameplay is easy to grasp and the visuals are pleasing.”
- “The gameplay is simple yet engaging, and the graphics are cute.”
- “The graphics are simply amazing, and the gameplay makes you immerse yourself in the world of the game for hours.”
- “I'm a little surprised to see that none of the reviews thus far have pointed out the lack of guidance in the gameplay.”
- “It's a very mildly narrative game with an incidental gameplay loop of clicking on stuff every time something breaks, you need more of a specific resource, or you need to research something.”
- “Even the core rehabilitation mechanics are almost entirely hands-off; after basic enclosure setup, every issue that arises is solved in one or two clicks.”
optimization
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
67%
The game suffers from severe optimization issues, with players reporting consistently poor performance regardless of visual settings. Despite patches, the game remains laggy and unresponsive, detracting from its otherwise promising concept and fantasy setting. Significant optimization work is needed to improve the overall experience.
- “The idea is great, but the game still needs optimization.”
- “The concept of the game is great, but it needs significant optimization and a lot of work.”
- “The main issue of this demo is that its performance is terrible; the map seems like a rather small fragment, yet it works so slow and laggy. It's not properly optimized.”
- “The performance is bad even after patches addressing performance; it is quite badly optimized.”
- “The fantasy setting has potential, but right now it has terrible performance.”
music
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
67%
17%
17%
The music in the game is generally praised for being relaxing and complementing the beautiful visuals, creating an enjoyable atmosphere. However, some players feel that the music lacks variety and suggest the addition of more background options and sound effects. Overall, the soundtrack enhances the game's appeal, though preferences vary among players.
- “The graphics in this game are beautiful and the music is incredibly relaxing.”
- “The game concept is wonderful and will captivate players with its wonderful soundtrack.”
- “I love the art style and the music is super chilled and relaxing.”
- “With no music, the game is quite silent; I only hear the occasional footstep.”
- “It's just my preference, but the music doesn't provide any relaxing nuance.”
- “I hope to see additional background music options and sound effects for placing water, trees, or feeding the rescued creatures.”
stability
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is generally described as cute and enjoyable, but it suffers from numerous bugs and glitches, including issues with camera sensitivity and creature behavior. While players find it fun, they note that it feels clunky and unstable, indicating that it has potential but requires significant improvements in stability.
- “There are still glitches, such as the golems randomly refusing to refill the feeder.”
- “Though there are a few glitches or bugs to do with the creatures drifting across the map or their bars not filling even though the requirements are met.”
- “Has potential but right now is a buggy clunky mess.”
story
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
50%
21%
The story is described as easy to follow but lacking depth, with many reviewers noting that it feels more like a city-building game with minimal plot rather than a zoo or sanctuary focused on saving fantasy wildlife. While the adventure and crafting elements add fun, the overall narrative is seen as underdeveloped, especially for a "prologue" that suggests more substantial storytelling.
- “The story line is easy to follow.”
- “With an easy and understandable plot and controls.”
- “The creature's are interesting and very much work like a zoo sim, the adventure aspect keeps the game fun with a story line, and the crafting aspect keeps things moving nicely.”
- “It didn't really seem to have much of a plot either to me.”
- “That again could be because it is a 'prologue,' but I figured 'prologue' would mean we would get some story.”
- “This feels more like a city building game with a small side quest to take care of some monsters - not a zoo/sanctuary that is actually saving some fantasy-based wildlife.”
atmosphere
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is praised for its impressive graphics and soothing atmosphere, which are considered essential for its genre. Reviewers highlight the overall ambiance as amazing, contributing to an engaging building simulation experience.
- “It's an amazing atmosphere.”
- “Great building simulator with excellent graphics and atmosphere.”
- “It's a game with nice graphics and a soothing atmosphere, which I think is very important for games in this genre.”
monetization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The monetization aspect of the game has drawn criticism for misleading advertisements that overpromise features, particularly suggesting a blend of zoo management and mythical creature breeding that is not reflected in the demo. Players express disappointment, hoping the full game will align more closely with the advertised concepts.
- “The advertisements are misleading and based on what I see in the demo - they overpromise.”
- “All the advertisements on Facebook hinted at it being a Zoo Tycoon meets mythical creatures, but they were very misleading in comparison to the demo.”
- “Hoping the main game will be more focused on breeding and releasing creatures to balance the ecosystem than the demo hints at, because that's what the advertisements made it feel like.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious, characterized by excessive clicking and management tasks such as remaking golems and balancing supplies. The focus on resource management detracts from the enjoyment of interacting with the creatures, making the gameplay feel more like a chore than an engaging experience.
- “On the bad side, the game has a bunch of tedious clicking and management (remaking golems, food, curing diseases).”
- “The demo is a lot less about the creatures and a lot more about tedious balancing of a huge array of supplies and order of upgrades to accomplish tasks.”
humor
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is praised for its humor, featuring a variety of amusing mythical creatures like golems and quirky flying animals, which contribute to a lighthearted and whimsical fantasy atmosphere.
- “This game is full of funny mythical creatures, such as golems and strange flying creatures.”
- “Funny cute little animals in the fantasy world.”