izigame.me

so 1.0, currently the game has a mixed review on steam, half of the reviewers dont even have 20 hours ingame (not saying their review is invalid) and the game is practically invisible on steam right now. This is the context of my review to which ill get back to later.
Personally i bought the game on 1.0 and played it since, made a character in nightmare mode and currently im holding close to 69 hours (nice) in the game. I dont really have a base, any real farm or anything, just a platform with crafting stations, some crops i harvest and give to cooks to make food and thats it currently though im post gold armor and killed a bunch of bosses including the mummy (very hard boss) , next up im facing the master (pretty important boss). this is to show the game doesnt really enforce any real rules to your playstyle which i like, the game would want you to make a windmill, or something to farm for food, life potions or crops better but you dont have to so the "sandbox" part where theres no real playstyle enforced checks in.
The parts that feel the most fun for me right now are really the dungeons and bosses but it is to note that its not the only thing there is to this game, the game offers you thousands of ways to maximize your gear, destroy the world and create fun stuff whether its magitech or the gearing system which the game again does not force you to use but it makes your life 100 times easier and much more fun. If you are seeking a challenge in dungeons and bosses only you can have maybe more or less 60-70 hours of game play depending on your difficulty and playstyle though with one thing to note at least (see below)
things like UI, the crafting system, teaching spells to the player and giving the player an easier time understanding magitech and the gearing system need some work (they already do the last one via structures and stuff but sometimes i just need a big fat wall of text to learn how something works, tho im not everyone tbh). UI is kinda tricky to use as opening your inventory kinda disable some of your movement functions and hides your whole view, on top of that getting items from your inventory to another chest is kinda tedious, another thing is that when your main healing items run out from your hotbar you kinda have to go to your inventory to get other ones and doing that in a boss fight can basicly mean death if not careful. The crafting system isnt bad in itself, it just kinda needs polishing, we cant see an item's stats before crafting it and you can only guess the recipe of items currently locked by their shadowed shape in the crafting menu which isnt very intuitive. At last the spell system is great but to a new player you basicly get blasted a bunch of UI, you have no real idea what does what and your best bet if you dont wanna look up or ask is to play around with the buttons and see what happens (you can technically make spells that break blocks with that tho usually thats later in game i think) otherwise i think these are the main issues the devs should focus on right now, in terms of polishing theres a lot more though but except if you expect terraria 2 or something playing this game its not really a problem, the game is made by 2 guys, only one being a programmer (so being able to fix bugs), so expect some time to fixes and feature additions, the good thing though is that the devs really do listen to their community, they are actively online on discord and constantly reply to sugestions and bug reports thats why i believe in them.
one thing to note is that i asked for tips and help a bunch of times on the discord which i think is kinda something crucial if you wanna play this game, if you do consider buying it i recommend you join the discord in case you need help or just to search if someone else had the same problem as you: https://discord.gg/xRHXJQN9rn
One thing i do wanna say which is more or less related to the game is this: Modding.
Right now the game has modding support kindof, you can modify files and add new enemies or items, heck i tweaked some monsters to have different attacks, the main dev is very helpful and keen to helping new modders so please if you wanna play the game and make it better, make content, modify stuff or anything, join the discord, you'll have everything to do that there

Should you buy this game
I hate to say that to you but it depends, if like me you like modding, you dont mind asking for help when stuck or just for tips and you dont mind accommodating to inconveniences sure, buy this game right now its on sale and pretty worth the price, but if you are quick to turn down on a game and just think that this is just worse terraria, then i'd say wait 2-3 years before coming back to this this game has a lot of potential and progress is really just slow because its just 2 guys on the game, i played this game with the mindset i would have with terraria 1.0, i dont expect anyone else to do that but from that perspective the game has a great future ahead of it.