Hollow Knight with crafting and city building? In Never Grave, this combination is already a hell of a lot of fun

A free demo of Never Grave, which mixes several genres in an interesting way, is available at Steam Next Fest. We tried it out

A game that is distributed by Palworld makers Pocket Pair and looks strikingly like Hollow Knight at first glance? I admit: Before the first launch of Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse I was skeptical and was more concerned with the question of whether someone had taken too much inspiration from another successful title inspired 

After several hours of play, however, I am flabbergasted: Never Grave can already stand on its own two feet despite the obvious visual role model. Because the game combines rogue-like gameplay with crafting and city building, which sounds really weird on paper, but is a lot of fun!

Thanks to the Steam Next Fest currently taking place you can also play the demo for free. We have also played other exciting titles, such as the fantasy Tarkov Dungeonborne or the horror building game The Tribe Must Survive.

Thanks to the current Steam Next Fest you can also play the demo for free. We have also played other exciting titles, such as the fantasy Tarkov Dungeonborne or the horror building game The Tribe Must Survive

(Here’s the Steam demo of Never Grave ) 

After a slow start, the game’s fun turbo ignites

In the beginning, Never Grave almost drove me away. Because the first ten minutes are really dull, at least for genre connoisseurs like me. As a cute witch, I get the basics of the controls explained to me, such as how to jump – but I have to jump over abysses or climb ledges for far too long without anything happening.

One gimmick stands out in the lame tutorial: I can give up my physical form at any time and just shuffle around as a hat. This allows me to reach otherwise inaccessible places and I can also maximize my jump height by leaving my body at the right time. A fun mechanic, without which I wouldn’t be able to progress any further in many places.

(I can leave my mortal shell behind at any time at the touch of a button to perform higher jumps as a hat.)

After the tutorial, the fun finally begins: I can now see how the individual genre set pieces are combined with each other and am very impressed. Never Grave achieves the symbiosis between rogue-like, crafting and building game as follows:

Rogue-like: I wander through randomly generated dungeons full of enemies, traps and portals. As in Hades or Dead Cells I find buffs, here in the form of spellbooks, which make me stronger until my next demise or give me other advantages. Artifacts, on the other hand, give me permanent new abilities, such as a double jump. And yes: there are also tough boss fights!

Crafting: In the dungeons, I can collect resources in many places, such as wood, stones, gold coins or monster reagents. I can use them to unlock new skills or improve existing ones, but also to do something good for the village.

Building game: The village? Yes, you read that right: As a witch in Never Grave, I help to rebuild a village that has been destroyed down to its foundations. During the course of the game, I find a whole series of building plans, which I first have to research in order to be able to construct buildings. On the other hand, I can even build 2D buildings according to my own ideas in a free mode. In return, the villagers give me more building plans or seeds, for example for growing tomatoes.

If you’re curious now, I have a special treat for you: 10 minutes of uncommented gameplay – I just pressed the record button while playing. Have fun watching!

Caught in the gameplay loop

The combination of the above three components causes something that only happens to me in a few games: I am drawn into a gameplay loop that keeps me in front of the screen for hours

If I had to record my thoughts while playing Never Grave in an experience report, it would read like this:

Just this one more dungeon

Only this blueprint left to explore.

Crap, I don’t have enough tomatoes!

Oh, how cool does this boss look?!

Uff, how hard is this boss please?!

Left or right?

Gosh, I should have gone left…

Yay, done! Off to the village to build the next house!

As a witch, I can not only give up my body and live out my existence as a hat, I can also slip into the bodies of defeated enemies! Unfortunately, this is not possible with all enemies, in my play session I only succeeded with a skeletal dog. You can find my time with the cute bow-wow in the video above from minute 03:36.

There are still some unanswered questions regarding the scope of Never Grave: How many building types are there? How complex are processes such as alchemy or growing your own resources later in the game? How many different dungeon environments are there?

I have to say, however, that even if Never Grave turns out to be a rather short game, I would recommend it in good conscience, especially to roguelike fans, based on what I’ve played so far.

By the way, there should also be a multiplayer mode in the finished game. However, I wasn’t able to try it out in the demo yet.

Great potential, but still many unpolished edges

Does Never Grave have any flaws?  Oh yes, a very big one indeed. The combat system just doesn’t feel smooth yet. Anyone expecting the soothing surgical precision of the visual role model Hollow Knight or Dead Cells will be disappointed.

Whether I’m throwing a punch, dodging enemies, climbing down a ladder or performing targeted jumps to avoid the deadly spikes on the ground – everything still feels a little too spongy, resulting in annoying mistakes through no fault of my own. The developer Frontside 180 should urgently make improvements here before the release in Q1 2024 

Another shortcoming is the level of difficulty: I am anything but a genre newcomer, also called anoob in academic discourse. Nevertheless, especially at the beginning, I hardly made it through a dungeon level without dying, which is partly due to the control quirks mentioned above.

However, even after warming up to the controls, Never Grave remains a damn difficult game in places. The first boss fight at the latest will keep you busy for some time, simply because your witch can only take a few hits.

My conclusion is still very positive. I didn’t expect much from Never Grave when I first started it. By the end, I didn’t want to stop. That’s a good sign! I really hope that the controls will be improved before the release. Either way, as soon as Never Grave is released, I’ll be more than happy to pay the game another visit.

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