Of Life and Land Review | PC

Kerzoven is a relatively small Swiss game company based out of Biberstein. Most of their public information is written directly in Swiss German, and they are backed by the local Switzerland Arts Council, Pro Helvetia. From their website, it mainly appears have only two people are in charge, and no other projects have been previously released.

Of Life and Land takes place in the territory of Kerzoven - yes, the exact same name as the developer, which can lead to major confusion. The user interface implies that other worlds will be released in the future. You are the advisor and guide to Eliane, the leader who must aid a small band of 10 settlers to colonize the northern region.

The entire realm of Kerzoven is fixed; there are no seeds or alternate terrains when starting. The settlers began in a lush valley filled with ample wood, stone, wheat, fish, and fruit. Despite the name Eliane being introduced, there isn’t much of a plot or characters. Instead, you are directed towards quests in order to have some kind of direction.

These quests are a form of tutorial, explaining controls and concepts. The first measure is to start production lines of constant wood and stone gathering. Next comes creating housing and a means of feeding the settlers. Some of the quests are blatantly unhelpful - with one simply saying “use the building menu to find out how to produce rags” when it wanted a Tailoring Table.

Quests are semi-related to overall technology. Buildings are divided into seven tiers and are unlocked by bringing up the town’s population and satisfaction; there is currently no technology tree. This happens naturally by completing quests. However, it is also possible to ignore the quests and increase needs by other means.

When choosing where to build, nodes will be highlighted in green to show which tiles can be worked by the building. This helps guide where you should construct to both increase efficiency and prevent empty space. If a building isn’t working out, you can deconstruct it and receive a refund on the materials.

You don’t have direct control of the citizens, instead relying on a priority system to build either high, medium, low or paused. However, in case of ties the citizens prefer to work on the oldest construction site, regardless of distance or materials. This can often result in a need to completely destroy a site if it is overall inefficient. The developer Kerzoven recommends restarting the campaign entirely if the AI isn’t working as preferred.

The citizens also have their daily routines - the biggest is eating and sleeping by their whims. You should highly expect all production to cease around nightfall from around 21:00 to 04:00. People can also be averse to bad weather, including rain and snow. Anticipate dozens of hours of nothing happening if you decide to play at normal speed.

The AI will not get the memo that a job has been canceled entirely. If a citizen is already en route to a construction site, they will travel the entire distance and then dump the raw materials at the destination. They will only go and collect it back if their next job calls for such material. This means it is better to cancel a building before work even begins, or otherwise waste days or hours of labor. 

Once a building is finished, a citizen must be manually assigned to work on it. Some buildings only have one production - like hewing stones - while others might have multiple tasks such as gathering or farming. When there are several employees, they will all work on one production until it is maxed out; there is no mixing and matching per building.

Of Life and Land winds up with the opposite citizen problem of Thriving City: Song. In that game, job allocation was far too aggressive and many production lines could wind up abandoned. But in Of Life and Land, the lack of automation means you must monitor the entire map at all times to make sure settlers are doing anything.

Of Life and Land moves extremely slowly - both in time and user interface. An in-world minute is around a real-time second, leading to days that last around 24 minutes. Most construction jobs and productions can take several days, making it agonizingly long on the default settings. However, the game speed can be increased to 30,000% resulting in several days concluding almost instantly.

What makes the game feel extra slow is the sluggish camera pan and rotation speeds. Can often feel like Of Life and Land if flat-out lagging. It is highly advised to enter the option menu and increase both of those values to at least double the default settings.

As with other civilization games, like SteamWorld Build and IXION, having a static map stifles creativity. With a lack of randomness, the scenario can eventually be “solved” to completely maximize production efficiency. Hopefully, future updates will allow for more variety and potential build expression.

  
What makes Of Life and Land’s world feel more alive in the wild animals running around the zone? These aren’t just for decoration or another type of resource - they have AI and routines of their own. Some might destroy resources, disrupt production, or even attack settlers. It is a constant balance to maintain harmony with this aspect of nature. You will want to domesticate certain wildlife and hunt down others but still keep a few around so they can continue to breed.

You can track all forms of population and data in the “Faction” menu. This displays the current citizens, types of creatures in Kerzoven lands, buildings, and employment. The window can be pinned, but not copied. So, you can’t compare population to employment at the same time and must toggle between tabs constantly.

An extremely strange design choice is that windows do not ever block map interactions and confirmations. For example, you might build an intended cabin, and then when closing the UI you construct a second cabin right where the “X” close window icon is. The intent seems to make it easy to build multiple buildings in a batch, but in practice, it mostly results in too many extra copies.

To correctly toggle off construction, you must re-enter the correct menu and press its icon a second time. As mentioned above, if you miss and click on the empty space between icons you could easily make a second or third building. Additionally, pressing the ESC key will both un-toggle, but also close the building menu entirely. This overall design makes it a little frustrating to build and plan.

The graphics of Of Life and Land use simple jagged polygons, similar to that seen in Stolen Realm and Going Medieval. However, those games keep the characters’ faces simple and undetailed. Kerzoven has instead tried to give people realistic features in this cartoonish style. The result is a bit of uncanny valley, with everyone looking a bit demonic and zombie-like.

The simple graphics work much better for the terrain and finished buildings. The polygonal designs are much more believable when used on stones and processed wood. Additionally, most of the animals have small and cute facial features that match the environment.   

The sound design in Of Life and Land is rather disconnected. All sound effects are proximity-based, which can make the world feel silent if played on a macro level at a maximum distance. To even hear the tiniest footsteps and interactions you have to zoom in extremely close and almost follow individual people. Having atmospheric chatter at any distance could help the map feel more vibrant.

While Of Life and Land currently has one official scenario, it also includes a full map editor. You can either alter the existing Kerzoven map or make an entirely new one. For the latter, it is a completely blank slate. There is no guide or instruction for the editor, and it is up to you to figure out how all the terrain and layers interact with each other. You may also fully populate the area with any creature and even make quests with custom goals.

The editor is a means of building future community content. By making and distributing new maps, players can have all kinds of gameplay. Unfortunately, there is no Steam Workshop integration so players will manually need to upload their saved worlds and share them on outside websites and Discord.

Discord is currently the main way the developer Kerzoven is distributing information. Social media and the Steam page for Of Life and Land can seem barren and almost abandoned. Being on the Discord server is the most concrete means of learning about the game’s mechanics and its future road map. But for prospective buyers who are unaware, it can seem like the game has already become vaporware.

Of Life and Land shows a lot of promise, but it is very unclear if Kerzoven will reach their goals. Like many Early Access titles, purchasing is always a gamble. Of Life and Land doesn’t particularly do anything new or exciting compared to other civilization builders like Patron or New Cycle. More causally players should add it to their Wishlist and monitor how updates progress.
 

Kurtis Seid (@KurtisSeid)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed