Recent reviews by Xylem

Super fun and novel PVP experience. Incredible graphics. Highly recommended.

I had a blast with this game. I've never been good at turn based tactics, so it was challenging, but not *too* challenging.

I made it through the main story in about 50 hours. I imagine I could have put in another 20 hours clearing all the side quests.

And I'm seriously tempted to start a new playthrough on a harder difficulty.

I absolutely loved this game. It's designed so well, and is such a refreshing twist on the genre. I played many hours of both Terraria and Starbound, and Dig or Die definitely takes inspiration from both. Where Terraria sometimes overwhelmed me with things to do, Dig or Die keeps the player very focused. Starbound has some great qualities, but in my opinion falls short with the repetitive story missions. Dig or Die takes some of the best from each game, while throwing in some of it's own ideas, base building being the most notable.

While it is a wide-open sandbox world, the game gives you all the hints you need to progress, while never telling you what to do directly.

I like games that are punishingly difficult. I started my first playthrough on Hard difficulty. I found this to still be fairly easy to handle, so I quit and started another on Brutal (the hardest setting). This was perfect. Even later in the game, some of the easiest enemies could kill me if I wasn't careful. It took about 50 hours to finish the game. I'm sure other types of players would enjoy it on lower difficulties as well.

I definitely recommend this game to any fans of this kind of game.

Multiplayer will not work for me no matter what I try. Controller settings simply do not save, making it impossible to add a second player. Yes, I have read every thread and tried every "solution". Nothing works. It's too bad, it looked like a fun game.

Easily one of my favorite games ever.

This game is not perfect. It is not for everyone. But I had a lot of fun with it, so I definitely give it a soft recommendation.

Pros:
-Blowing stuff up is extremely satisfying and never gets old
-The spell/rune system is very novel and allows for hundreds of cool custom spells
-Enemy AI is smart enough to be fun

Cons:
-Performance is very poor. I can play many games (e.g. Far Cry 5) on High, but this game is only playable for me on Low.
-It is fairly repetitive. You go through the same loop over and over. There isn't a ton of variety.
-The enemies are fairly uninteresting with a few exceptions.
-Some mechanics are not explained in game ("shaping bonus") although it is mostly fairly intuitive

Overall I consider this game to be an excellent proof of concept of this type of gameplay. This is the type of magic system that I want in the next Elder Scrolls game.

I had enough fun with it to to recommend, taking into account the caveats above.