Remember when games were actually fun? I often say that. And I think one aspect of fun is when a game doesn't try to distract you with bullshit all the time.

Elin is like that, but it's also not just that. It's a deep game, but its mechanics never get in the way of what I actually want to do.

Elin feels like an MMORPG, but it's single-player. If you knew games like Maple Story, Ragnarok Online, possibly even Runescape old-school back in the day, it looks kinda like that. I think it all comes from Ultima? In any case, it kind of follows the top-down isometric CRPG/dungeon-crawler view, which I think is great to help you fill in the blanks with your imagination.

It's a game that embraces its weirdness and nonsensical logic. Animals talk and can perform jobs around your settlement. Everything in this world, including people and puppies, is born from eggs apparently. You can eat the eggs and they might provide bonuses.. well, you might not want to eat the human eggs. You can make a sword out of grass, or food. The tourist you just met will open with "I wish all humans would die". You can harvest tomatoes that are "larger-than-man" sized. Who knows what else I haven't even encountered yet. I just learned you have to look at traits when eating food because they give you EXP. One of the starting "pets" you can have is a dog, a cat, or a little girl. You want the little girl because she's a strong tank at the beginning.

It's not so much the weirdness that I love about this game, but what it promises. It's definitely not a game that's "wide as the ocean, deep as a puddle" - it's the full ocean, period. A lot of top-down dungeon-crawlers promise to be deep, but aren't really. You quickly get the hang of their mechanics and past the gimmick, you realize it's actually not that complicated or you don't have a lot to discover. Elin is not like that.

I think the philosophy is best summed up as "anything can be anything." I sometimes pick up bows made out of processed foods. They're not great, but in a bind you can eat them.

You start by selecting a race and class. I picked Pianist because you can do music, but to be honest I'd recommend a more combat-focused class. You can learn everything anyway. Then you are thrown into a meadow, where you learn you are now the proud owner of this parcel (or you can pick a cave start too, but I haven't really tried that one). Congratulations, you also have to pay taxes now.

Wait, taxes? I thought I was going adventuring.

But this also means you will have to make money on the settlement if you want any chance to pay these taxes. It's not a "you have insurmountable debt" game though like Recettear was, it's just one more feature on top of the dungeon-crawling, the crafting, the skills learning, etc. There's a full settlement system where NPCs perform jobs, tourists pay you money, you have a shipping box to sell items and get gold bars from, which is one of the many currencies you can have. I'm pretty sure if I were to mine gold, I could then make my own gold bars instead of being dependent on the shipping box, but don't quote me on that. It's just a gut feeling because in this game everything somehow makes sense.

The game has a skill for everything, and experience is directly tied to these skills. You will level lockpicking by picking locks. You will level dual wielding by dual wielding weapons, etc. It's a bit grindy at times, but with the proper bonuses and patience it grows by itself.

Oh, and for once it's not a roguelike. Death during the first 90 days doesn't provide maluses so you can experiment, and after 90 days you will lose I think half your money (you can get it back) and possibly items? I don't know, I had a cursed guitar that made my performances better in my inventory and suddenly it disappeared. My cape protects me from thieves so I don't think it was them. I had to get a lute and learn how to play it instead :( I've had that guitar since day 1 since I picked it up on the floor of a dungeon.

I've been playing for a LOT of hours and I'm only still doing level 3-4 dungeons at best. I routinely see dungeons level 24 or more. I'm probably missing something to get stronger which ties in to what I said earlier - while the start is easy enough, the game promises a lot more beyond the surface that you feel like you just have to find. Or you can consult the wiki.

Meanwhile, the tremors are getting closer each time and I'm starting to mutate because of the Ether disease...

It also has modern amenities, like being able to configure chests very deeply. The game never tells you about this, but there's a wrench icon on every container inventory that allows you to configure how they behave as storage.

My only issue is time goes by really fast, especially on the world map. It feels like it's always night time (with reduced vision, don't forget to equip a torch), and I'm already past my second winter.

There are nightly builds, with new stuff added every day, which is great to see. Just yesterday two new plants were added to the game.

If you want to get it it's on steam but unfortunately it has never been discounted. You can also yarrr it but because of the nightly builds honestly take the plunge.