It's on sale for 50% off. It's quite the DF-style sort of game, in that it has a large amount of obscure things to do to progress and also gives you exactly zero help in learning how to do it. Also, brutal death is coming in every shape and form on a constant basis. So far I have learned that you can die of Pumbaa, poison, crocodile, small snake, big snake, terror puma, gravity, and bird.
The point is to start as an ape and work your way up the evolutionary chain to human. Or at least pre-human. You have to evolve everything from switching items between your own hands to the ability to digest fish and meat. It's quite good, and purportedly based on evolutionary science. So far I am yet an ape in the starting area, but I have mastered the unbridled power of [a stick] and am therefore the uncontested monkey king of all that my clan (The Crow Magnums (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_early_modern_humans)) surveys.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/536270/Ancestors_The_Humankind_Odyssey/ (https://store.steampowered.com/app/536270/Ancestors_The_Humankind_Odyssey/)
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/536270/header.jpg?t=1598563741)
I recommend minimal HUD, full tutorial.
(https://i.postimg.cc/50FPRK1V/Monkeynews.png)
Once you start walking upright you can traverse the whole map in no time at all. Once you get used to the methods involved in long distance journeys and know the way around you can walk the whole thing in about 3-4 in game days at a relaxed pace even as the basic monkey.
That said the world does manage to feel huge, especially at the beginning when you're a knuckle-walker. Once you become a biped the world seems so much different because your camera perspective shifts upwards.
So there's only a handful of craftable items, each stone can be turned into a tool by bashing it with another stone/tool.
Obsidian Scrapers and Basalt Choppers are basically better stones, with the scraper being extra good at butchering corpses and the chopper better at sharpening sticks and being used as a backup weapon. Generally this means the chopper is just better, but obsidian is easier to find than basalt.
Granite Grinders can be used to refine some materials into more potent forms. Leaves, horsetail reeds, turmeric and aloe sap being the ones that come to mind. It's not super useful late game, but early game it's a nice way to get more out of resources you can only gain limited benefits from.
Lots of stuff can be stripped, branches can be stripped down into sticks, coconuts can have the husks removed before being split open which turns them into food instead of drink, aloe leaves can be stripped to produce aloe sap which protects against heat and bleeding, reeds can be stripped to produce fibers that can be used to protect against bleeding. The fern fronds you use to craft beds can be stripped to provide a stick which can be dipped into termite mounds and beehives, termites are a tasy snack, honey is a food item and a bleeding cure if you choose to rub it into your wounds instead.
Piles of sticks can be made into simple barriers, once you can walk upright (not necessarily constantly) and two-hand carry items you can craft thorn bushes into an improved barrier.
(https://i.imgur.com/mNwGUQY.png)
Yeah, it does lack in end-game challenges. I just made it to Australopithecus, so I assume I'm near the end. I live in the Savannah, close to the
Canyon, which is and/or the desert, which leads to the ocean
But I don't really run into anything that can challenge me (Mind you I maxed out aspects of my combat tree eons ago). I suppose that's the point, becoming the apex predator and evolving from there. There's a heat mechanic, but not much else. Loads of new wildlife to bludgeon and devour. I haven't run into the "evolving too fast locks you out" issue, though. I don't think that's possible. I'm a million years ahead of the curve right now, and the only thing I might have missed out on was that there was probably a swimming branch, but I avoided swimming like the plague because the waterlife is terrifying. Now I live in a place without swimming water. Becoming fully bipedal was the real snowball point for me.