Ophelia Payne

EONIA Revelations is a calm and immersive atmospheric experience from Geometric Bytes, currently in early access on Steam. When the solo developer reached out to me asking if I’d like to take a look at their game, I looked at a couple of trailers and videos, and I was intrigued. 

Let me remind you, I am more forgiving of indies, especially with solo developers. This game is also in early access, meaning there is still work to be completed and tweaks to be made. At the time of writing this review, I have about 10 hours in the game and have barely scratched the surface of the content that is available. The developer has responded to posts about bugs or questions on the Steam page as well and has been very engaged on social media. During my few days playing, there have been a few updates too, so I see a lot of care being placed on fixing and updating already. Seeing some players having over 50 hours into the game is also encouraging.

When you first start EONIA Revelations, you are greeted with the lovely message below. Immediately, I was charmed. How could I not want to jump in and play this now?

You play as Blin Albius, a knowledge seeker, exploring a colourful world while collecting samples, completing quests, sketching animals and uncovering secrets. Your training revolves around exploring and documenting what you see and observe. You will read books, and your progress depends on what you discover. You will eventually learn skills like crafting, fishing and alchemy, and I can’t wait to dive deeper into these.

The first impression I got from this game, and I think this is high praise, is that it reminded me of the first time I played Skyrim when it first launched. Not the story, not the characters, not even the graphics…just the way it felt to me. Something about wandering the world seeing what might pop up on your map, seeing what areas you could explore or get stuck in…. that kind of thing.

The music is sublime, fully capturing the calm exploration nature of the game. There is no combat so far, not sure if there will be. The NPCs you meet have a dry wit and humour that I appreciated too.

Early in the game, you will acquire a journal. Get familiar with it.  You will need to reference it a lot. Or maybe that was just me. I constantly found myself lost as to what I was supposed to do, but then I remembered the journal would tell me. It will also be the source of knowledge when it comes to animals, plants and minerals you find. It will hold all your quests and give you questions to ask when you go back to the starting tower.

The map seems large, and I’ve only managed to find some of the points in each of the coloured sections I’ve wandered through. I know there is more to discover, and I have a lot of quests in my journal still to complete within the content that is currently available. According to the developer, there is approximately 25 hours of content, but seeing people with over 50 hours of play time shows that you can get lost in the world, just exploring.

Every sector has its own climate, environment and animals. Every biome has its own ancient stories to discover.

As mentioned earlier, EONIA Revelations is in Early Access, but is available currently at a really great price of around $20Cdn. I think it’s well worth the price for what I’ve seen and explored. Especially knowing how much more I still have left to do. If you’re not in the market now, still add this to your Wishlist and keep an eye on it as the project progresses.

Until next time…be good to yourself and be good to each other.

**Thank you, Geometric Bytes, for graciously providing the review code.**