Quorum Games has released the demo for their debut title, Call of Elyndra, for Steam Next Fest. They’ve made a lot of promises in the demo’s lead-up, advertising the game as the ideal blend of farm sim and JRPG. They’ve certainly gotten my hopes and my expectations up, but can this development team built by RPG Maker veterans deliver?

Home on the Range

You and your friends, Kaelan and Ariadne, shared a dream of escaping The Empire. You ran to the neighboring Kingdom of Elyndra, and the town you wound up in posed a challenge for you. Grow as many crops as you can in seven days, and if you do well, we’ll let you stay. A villager shows you to an abandoned plot of land with a ruined building on it, gives you your first set of tools, and sets you loose to farm.

The first seven days don’t really have much going for them, despite being the majority of the demo. I get that it’s to give you time and space to explore and get used to the gameplay cycle, but without some gameplay aspects some of that exploration is really cut off. Namely, you don’t have access to fishing yet, and the social system hasn’t been fully implemented. I love spending the ample time I have early game just going around and talking to the villagers in a farm sim, getting to know them. I miss having that.

One thing I’ll give Call of Elyndra is that the UI and tutorial instructions are very clear. You’re not going to start playing and suddenly have no idea what you are doing. I like the idea of axes, pickaxes, and scythes being just a spacebar press opposed to scrolling through your tools. Farming is a little more complicated, with the hoe, watering can, seeds, and fertilizer accessed through the same menu, but they’re all neatly in a row and it works out. Your weapons are also accessed differently, so there’s no fumbling or confusion when you need them. Left click for melee, right click for range. Pretty easy!

Oops, I Broke It Again

One thing I really didn’t appreciate, however, was how often your tools break. The starter stone tools all broke – scythe, axe, pickax, and wood watering pail – every single day of play. I would literally start the day by going into town to buy a new set, go home to work, and go to sleep when my tools broke again. It’s definitely good motivation to craft yourself some more durable copper tools. But it’s so annoying to deal with early game, especially when I’m prioritizing quality armor.

Call of Elyndra also begins by immediately linking you to both the dev team’s Discord and their bug report sheet. Which is good! Because you just might need it. I know I certainly did. First, when I discovered that half of my hoed spaces, once harvested from, wouldn’t let me replant anything. Then in a combat section an enemy knocked me into a wall and I got stuck there. One pixel out of the walkable map – just one! – and I lost four in-game days of progress.

Thankfully those are the only bugs I have encountered, which seems to be really good for this Steam Next Fest demo. However, these bugs are devastatingly game-breaking. Having the bug report sheet is a really good sign that the team will be active in fixing the issues, but they will definitely need to be patched out.

Its Dangerous To Go Alone!

Speaking of combat, I do like the system that Quorum Games has cooked up. Not needing to fumble for the weapons I want to use is a huge help, and the immediate switch from range to melee is great when the enemy rushes you. Plus, holding and getting the target to aim with? Fantastic.

It does leave me questioning why we have companions, though. Like, Kaelan and Ariadne are great characters. One represents the player who enjoys the combat path and the other the one who prefers the farm sim aspects. They’re essentially your mouthpieces in cutscenes where you’re the silent protagonist. However, that is all that they do. They don’t walk around with you in-game or provide any service in maintaining the fields. Your friends don’t even fight by your side in the combat sections like I expected. They might as well be metaphysical angels on your shoulders for all the effect they have on your actual gameplay.

Needs More Time to Bake

Having actually played the demo now I find myself really wanting more from it. It’s understandable that Call of Elyndra is still a work in progress but given that the demo is literally the first chapter of the full game it should play like a full game. That’s kind of the point of a demo, to give players a taste of the final product so that they’re excited for it.

The thing that immediately grabbed my attention, just from having perused the Steam page and their press release, is that Call of Elyndra is meant to be a 2.5D game. The Steam page even shows a number of screenshots demonstrating some really nice graphics. However, the demo itself is a pure 2D creation. That in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Quorum Games boasts of having some notable names in RPG Maker fame – Michael Schaffer and Lliam Sedawie (LVLup) – so 2D makes absolute sense. However, a demo is meant to be a glimpse at what you’re getting with the full release, or at least the early access. With that, and the missing social and fishing systems, this reads more like a glimpse at the Alpha build.

Call of Elyndra Demo on Steam has a lot of promise to be an outstanding farming RPG, but I think it needs a lot more work before it can live up to those promises. It desperately needs at least seven in-game day’s worth of dialogue for all the characters. Call me back to Elyndra once the graphics are where they’re supposed to be, at least, and we’ll see.