We I seem to have abandoned poor Mizzy as I haven’t touched her for ages.

I found I had Stranded Alien Dawn  for free on the console. So what is the game? Basically  it’s a survival simulation game where you oversee a group of survivors who crash land on an Alien planet. Four survivors arrive on World in an escape pod and have to make it to a point where you escape or are rescued  (I think). I survived my first year, including a rather brutal winter. Luckily I just managed to get the warm weather clothes in the nick of time.

The game is also about resource and people management. You can build shelters, chop down trees and kill the local fauna to provide food (not to mention use the flora too). The tree you chop down may have other useful properties and the animals you shoot in the head may give more than just meat. Therefore an important task is to take time to observe things first.

You can simply choose random survivors or hand pick the four yourself. Each has a skill score rating. These being combat, construction, cooking, crafting, farming, healing, intellect and physical. Intellect affects research and observation speed.

I chose mine, taking ages to try and get a balanced team. My original four were Ken, Naras, Rita and  Ember. During the course of the first year I also rescued  Melody and Edmund. Ember arrived in an update and was a spec ops commander.

Each of them can  have a positve perk and a negative downside.

As an example Rita has natural curiosity, which means she can field observe unknown species. She will randomly say she has seen and named something, which saves me doing it. I send her out on the long range expeditions for this reason. She is also cheerful and has a permanent increase in happiness.

Edmund on the other hand is a glutton, but writes inspirational stories and is a quick sleeper so can get out to work earlier.

Naras cannot experience a meltdown, but he is a pacifist and will not fight or hunt in any circumstance.

I will let you know a bit more about my survivors sometime soon.