Only last week, I reviewed a survival game. It’s quite a popular genre, especially with me. Tlön Industries and V Publishing have Kentum for me to write a few words about now.

“Stranded in the year 10,000, Kent—an average Joe turned clone—must survive, explore, and rebuild civilization with the help of a quirky robot companion. Craft, farm, and automate in this 2D craftervania adventure as you uncover Earth’s secrets and kickstart humanity, one machine at a time.”

That blurb up there covers the basics. You play as Kent, who is erroneously left in a hypersleep chamber for several thousand years. After crashing on a mysterious planet in the year 10,000, you have to survive and try to restart the human race. Kent is a very unassuming human, nothing much more than a maintenance man and a far cry as the saviour of the human race. Oh yeah, he also died in the crash and was brought back as a clone. If Kent’s clone ever dies while playing Kentum, another clone takes his place.

You know how a survival game works by now, yes? You start slow and steady with a lot of nothing but the very bare basics. In this regard, Kent has a stick. You explore the map and gather resources. You then use those resources to to craft and build increasingly better and more diverse equipment and upgrades. Kentum throws in an interesting twist to the genre, a Metroidvania-like map and core gameplay mechanic. Hence why the blub used the “craftervania” label. When you think about it, a survival/crafting game is not that far from a Metroidvania, in that both use the basic idea of you needing a specific item/weapon/tool to advance. The way that Kentum blends the survival and Metroidvania genres is a bit like having a beautifully moist chocolate fudge cake and wondering if smothering it in chocolate fudge icing would be a good idea. Yes, yes it would. It would be a mouth-wateringly amazing idea that you’d want a big ‘ole slice of.

Kent may be the last human alive, but he is not alone on his mission the restart the human race. O.R.B., a rather dry humoured AI powered floating companion that follows you around, is your guide. O.R.B. is never really short of things to say that can help or even annoy, but his conversations with Kent are often stuffed with humour and wit. The map is crammed with a wide variety of flora and fauna that serve as your main pool of resources to craft from. As with any survival title, Kentum is a slow burner that requires a lot of time and patience to get the most out of. As the idiom usually goes, “Great oaks from little acorns grow”.

Using your crashed stasis pod as a base, you slowly build and upgrade it. Start with something as simple as a campfire to cook food on to help you survive. Over time, you add to your base with a variety of additions. Use planters to grow your own food from seeds. Build machines such as grinders and kilns that can turn your basic raw resources into more versatile ingredients for more complex builds. Eventually, you can craft automated machines and conveyer belts that you can use to make a factory to keep those much-needed resources coming. Combat and traversal in Kentum is simple, at first. However, not only can you build and upgrade your base, you can improve Kent’s armoury and skill set. That stick that you start with can be improved to become a tad more impressive. Before too long, you’ll be crafting projectile-based weapons and even new ways to get around the map. Craft a hand glider, grappling hook and even a hover board and you’ll be exploring in style.

Kentum offers up three different play modes. There’s Sandbox Mode, which should be pretty self explanatory. Creative Mode, I think every survival game comes with some kind of creative option. And finally, there’s Story Mode, and this is the main meat of the meal. No prizes for guessing that this mode is where the big survival aspect comes in. You can even tinker with a multitude of options to tailor the gameplay to your tastes. Change how long an in-game day is, how many days in a season (yes, the game has seasons which effects the numerous flora and fauna), the loot drop rate, difficulty setting, item decay rate, and more.

I never let the cost of a game interfere with my opinion of the gameplay, but I do let it influence my view on whether the game is worth it. Kentum comes with an amazingly low £15 price tag, and is now available for PC, PlayStation, Xbox with a Switch version coming soon. For just £15, Kentum is an absolute steal of a game and it is crammed with top-notch gameplay.  It’s one of my favourite survival games on the market right now, and that addition of a Metroidvania-like map makes it feel familiar, but surprisingly new at the same time.