Toggle Background Color

Reindeer Games

I just made an amazing discovery!




The Mouse wheel can zoom my vision in and out! This is great! This is gonna be so useful for stuff like hunting. I was always kind of frustrated by the short vision range...







So Anyways, UnReal World. I continue my journey down the coastline, trying to keep the shore in view, but also going far enough out that hopefully I'll spot some nearby large islands. Eventually one with a settlement on it does come into view and I row on over and head into town.





Its a small village, with few buildings and very little in them, which is unfortunate as my next task is to make a trade. Still I grab a couple ropes that'd be handy and walk over to a nearby sage. I try to introduce myself but he just grumbles about the early hour, the weirdo. Ultimately my attempts to trade for the rope by offering my fine squirrel fur and some of my roasted fish is fruitless, I'd have to give them ALL my fish or something genuinely valuable in order to get the ropes and fuck that. I dump them back in their storage shed and leave the village.

Its also worth noting is that Sage's name is Sami! Sami is the creator of the game, I've heard anyone in game who gets generated with Sami's name get the avatar of Sami himself meaning... Sami is rabid koala man.





Leaving the Island and its Islander settlement behind I continue down the coast. Long distance travel is tiring work and soon my guy is already starting to wear out. Thankfully I find another islander settlement up ahead, maybe I can stay there and sleep. However as I draw close to the island, I spot what seems to be a reindeer shaped figure in the wilderness around the town. Excited by the prospect of meat and hide, I beach my boat and wander into the woods in search of prey.





Reindeer are herd animals and I have unsurprisingly run into a whole herd. Before I can get further excited about that I immediately curse at myself, I still have my spear and paddle equipped! I put them away and draw out a bow and arrow. Unfortunately in the time those actions take a Reindeer has spotted me and the herd begins fleeing. I shift into hiding mode and begin following the tracks I can find, hoping they won't run to far before settling down. Sneaking is a frustrating experience as you move slow, and every once in a while you fail a hiding check which can frighten nearby animals into running. To drive home the failure, the game plays a loud sound file of a stick snapping, presumably because you weren't watching your step!




I manage to find a few reindeer and close in. Unfortunately by the time I get close enough to feel comfortable taking a shot, the easily spooked herbivores spot me and start running. I give chase and several times I take a shot as they flee, only to hit nothing but air and nearby trees. Each time I have to go retrieve my arrows as I've only got two, allowing the creatures to get even further away from me. Thankfully my good tracking skill still allows me to follow them.





Creeping through the woods I run into the herd again at the edge of the nearby islander's farmlands. Unfortunately once again I get spotted too soon by the herd. A rushed bow shot manages to graze one animal in the leg, but it runs off, fortunately without my arrow buried in its leg. Or maybe unfortunately, a good leg wound might have slowed it down enough for me to more effectively pursue and separate it from the herd. The Herd now crosses into an open field and my chances of sneaking up on them are reduced significantly. After some further attempts I decide further pursuit isn't going to work and call the hunt off. That said, the ability to zoom out my view a good amount was a HUGE help in this hunt, compared to my attempts on previous characters. I comfort myself by recalling that in my previous experiences, forest reindeer are fast and have good endurance compared to other similar prey such as deer and stags. Its a shame I couldn't bring one down, as I could get a LOT of meat and a sizable hide from one. I'd never be able to eat all the meat myself, but I could trade a lot of it to the Islanders for something, I'm sure. Defeated, I head to the village.



The islander settlement turns out to actually be a Driikkilais walled town. Apparently walled towns are pretty common along the coast. I wonder if they have trouble with foreign raiders. I'm sure medieval Finland got plenty of uninvited vikings showing up from neighboring lands to have a party. Anyways, checking out the town I find a sheep pen. There isn't too much else around, some dried foods, some weapons, a few tools that I already have, some rope, and a punt. Nothing I can really afford. Frustrated I walk back to the entrance of the town.



I immediately spot another reindeer... how many of these bastards are ON this island?! I whip out an arrow and take a shot. I miss and the arrow flies off into the distance out of sight. Worried I ignore the reindeer and look around. It takes a while but I eventually find it. Stupid arrow. I have exactly two rough arrows, and I can't help but blame THEM for my misses, I need better arrows. But I can't make better arrows without some rope/cord and some feathers. Bah. Right now I'm waffling between leaving the island ASAP or swearing not to leave until I've feasted on reindeer. For now I just decide to stop. Mindful of the ermine skin in my inventory I travel to the nearby island shore and begin the first stages of preparing it. Leaving it there I travel back to the Driik town, ignoring some reindeer on the overworld map. Upon arrival in town I walk into a nearby building and go to sleep, in my experience the locals don't seem to mind you crashing on their floor.





I wake up in the late evening. I check the local sauna but the fireplace currently is dead. Leaving town I spot a Black Grouse in the forest. Hello featherpile! I manage to sneak remarkably close to it, but unsurprisingly I have no luck shooting my bow at such a small target and the damn thing flies off unharmed. Fuck you too bird. Hmmm, wait a second.... I got an idea. First though I head back to the shore and start my ermine skin on the next step of the tanning process. I then wander around the nearby woods, grabbing a few branches and a few larger stones.




I travel back to the town and stand outside the entrance. Using it as a reference I walk directly east into the forest. This'll help me find this location again if the overworld map proves inconsistent where it drops me into the detailed map. I then cut down a young tree and construct a few lever traps. After building each I throw a handful of berries I still have onto them. As I'm finishing the third trap I turn around and find my first trap has already caught a black grouse! Whoa! Amused I walk over and club the poor thing over the head. Butchering the bird produces a skin, 31 usable feathers, and two cuts of grouse meat. Not bad! These feathers are enough to make ten arrows. Now I just need some cord. I reset the trap but unfortunately I only had two handfuls of berries left. There are some crowberry bushes nearby, but they're all either not ripe or listed as "Picked" meaning the local animals have eaten all the berries lately. Whatever, I still have one baited trap that might catch something, and I got what I wanted out of this anyways.





I walk back to shore and exchange my rinsed and dry ermine skin for a cleaned and tanning grouse skin. Birds don't produce furs, but their skin can still be tanned to produce small amounts of leather. Heading back to town to avail myself to their workbenches to finish the ermine skin, I'm surprised when I pass my traps and find another grouse has fallen for my second baited trap. Wow, these stupid little lever traps are proving more effective than I would have predicted. I club and process the bird and head back to shore to begin processing this skin as well. Before I do that though I build a fire and set my grouse cuts roasting. With the grouse skins processed onto their next steps and the cuts roasted, I finally head back to town. It is after midnight now, so not wanting to be a rude stranger banging away on a fur in the middle of their village, I use a fallen tree trunk just outside the walls. While doing so I note there are some very fresh reindeer tracks in the area. SOON REINDEER. SOON.




Waiting for my grouse skins to finish tanning I wander the woods looking for some berries to rebait my traps with. As I draw near the shore I spot something along the water's edge. Moving in to investigate shows it is a hare, dead and partially eaten by some predator. Perhaps I spooked some fox or lynx away from its meal. The skin is damaged beyond use but butchering produces 3 cuts of hare meat, not bad. After this I decide to head up to check on my skins. Instead of using the overworld map I walk along the shore in the detailed view, and this proves to be a fortuitous decision as I suddenly spot a reindeer wading out into the water.... what?





At first I walk to the water's edge and pull out my bow, preparing to try to shoot it. Then I realize two things: first, if I miss my arrow will fly into the water and I'm not sure if I'll be able to recover it. Second, the Reindeer flees away from me, but seems to stop at the edge of the shallows, it seems unwilling to swim deeper into the water. Deciding to take a risk I put my bow away and pull out my spear. I wade into the water and close in with the creature. As I get closer it attempts to flee past me a few times, but I'm able to sidestep by using CTRL-Numpad to move whithout changing my facing. Cutting it off like this I get close enough and thrust my spear at it. Apparently moving through the water is tiring work and the creature has trouble evading me. The first blow is only glancing, but the second scores a nasty hit to its neck and the animal collapses, unconscious. I've used my club to beat previous animals to death, but that has been killing small creatures in one solid blow, I'm not sure that'll work for a creature as large as a reindeer. Not wanting to prolong its suffering or risk it waking up and escaping, I instead give it a quick and merciful end, thrusting my spear into its skull.

The deed done I set about processing the corpse. It takes an hour alone to skin the creature, obtaining a decent skin. Butchering the animal takes almost two hours and produces a hundred cuts of reindeer meat, 100 pounds. This is more than I'll ever be able to eat before it spoils. Walking back to shore I continue along the shoreline a bit and realize I was extremely close to my grouse skins, funny that. Grabbing them I cut down a nearby young tree and burn the whole thing. I use the resulting large fire to cook my hare cuts and about a third of the reindeer meat. While those cook I clean the reindeer hide, which weighs a hefty 10 lbs. By comparison the skins/furs of the animals I've done so far have all been about 0.3 pounds. However, I've apparently pushed myself too far and by the time I'm done cleaning the skin I end up collapsing from exhaustion. Taking a hint I recover my cooked meats and, without even building a shelter, go to sleep.






Waking up I start the reindeer skin tanning and then head back to the Islander town. This raw reindeer meat will spoil soon, especially in the summer heat, so I want to offload it as soon as possible. After a bit of experimenting I trade some of the meat for a leather rope. This triggers the objective for trading and the game informs me my next task is to to make or procure boat and go boating. To facilitate this I'm given a spare handaxe, thanks, that'll make good trade fodder. Next I grab a bag of salt, thinking I can salt some of the reindeer meat I have left to preserve it. However even offering the handaxe and some of the reindeer meat isn't enough to buy the salt. I was told salt was expensive, but this is ridiculous. Instead I eventually settle for trading my remaining uneaten fish, the grouse and hare cuts, the rest of the uncooked reindeer meat, and the extra handaxe for a Fine fishing net. Hopefully that proves to be a worthwhile investment.





I return to my shore side tanning spot. The hour is currently midnight and the game tells me my reindeer hide won't be ready for the next step until the early morning. Ok, that is fine, I got something else I can do. I wander around a bit and collect some rocks, followed by cutting some branches from a nearby tree. Next I turn my hand to crafting some arrows. Or, at least, I would, but apparently crafting a single arrow takes a single rope. What the hell?! It takes a WHOLE POUND of rope to make ONE arrow? This is bullshit! Frustrated I throw the rocks into the water and pop back into the overworld map. I might as well do the stupid boating thing. Next it wants me to fish while in the boat, and this time I have to catch something. You know, in hindsight if I was planning on spending this long on this island, I should've put out my nets. Oh well. Several multi-hour fishing attempts fail to catch anything. I just cannot use a fishing rod to save my life. And the problem with that is it can be a literal danger for Miska. Regardless, I row back to shore and rinse the reindeer skin clean. It'll be another few hours until it dries however. I go back out into the water and after two more 2-3 hour attempts FINALLY catch something... 4 stupid roaches.





With fishing complete my next task is a major one. I have to start building a cabin. Unfortunately this is not something I'm going to want to commit to until I've reached the destination of my current journey. Building even a single section of cabin is a commitment I'm not willing to make. Still, maybe I can cheese it?





I cut down a nearby young tree and carve the resulting slim trunks into a bunch of stakes. I then start trying to build a fence, but by this point my guy is so exhausted I can't keep working. I throw myself onto the ground for a nap but am almost immediately woken up by rainfall. This is why you build a shelter... Irritated I quickly finish the fence and am disappointed when the game does not count it as building something. Oh well. Grabbing my things I head to the island town and crash in one of their buildings.



Note to self: Disable steam pop up notifications while playing URW

Waking up I grab my club and rinsed reindeer skin and begin softening it into a proper fur. The process takes 4 hours and a kid next to me sleeps through almost all of it. My work produces a standard quality 10 lbs reindeer fur. I also get a message saying that something in my pack is smelling foul, one of my food items is starting to spoil. Examining my food I don't think its the dried meats, nor the roasted reindeer and roaches, I just cooked those. The rye bread maybe? I eat some of it and the game tells me it is "Just plain good". Ok, still not sure, whatever. I really hope my reindeer roast isn't spoiling THAT fast...



I rest in place in the cabin to recover my fatigue from processing the reindeer skin. Right when my fatigue bar is almost back to empty I'm interrupted as a Reindeer comes into sight. A REINDEER. Much like the fox in the first Driik town, this too-stupid-to-live Reindeer has run right into the middle of a town...




Apparently the thing has completely exhausted itself from running around the town in a fright and I am easily able to close in with my spear. I feel almost guilty as I bring the creature down with a few quick thrusts and process its corpse. This one was a small reindeer and I only get 85 lbs of meat this time, as well as a decent skin. Knowing I'll never be able to eat all this meat I immediately trade it, my roaches, and some of my already excessive amounts of roast reindeer for ten smoked trouts. These smoked fish will keep edible for quite some time and will make a good reserve of food in case I run into difficulty in the future.



At this point, I want off this stupid island with its stupid reindeer. I got a fresh reindeer hide to tan, but I think that can wait until I make my next camp somewhere along the coast. For now, with a good supply of food, I want to keep the journey going towards the Easterner lands.

Stupid Reindeer.