The Red Lantern
Summary
You're a beginner musher who sets out into the wilderness to adopt four dogs and become a dog sled racer, but first u gotta get to your new home through the snow and the night to prove yourself.The Red Lantern on Steam
So what do you do
First you are introduced to dogs up for adoption to add to your pack. You need four (alongside your own dog Chomper who will lead them) but there are more dogs than that, so you will have to choose based on their temperaments.
After you've chosen four dogs you will set out to go to your new home, the titular Red Lantern. Along the way you will get to know your dogs better and have to make choices to develop their personalities to be the best they can be. You will run into wildlife, hunt for food, and make choices to investigate the vast and dangerous landscape around you.
The Red Lantern is a survival game and I can pretty much guarantee you'll not make it on your first run. Thankfully the musher will remember different helpful things on subsequent runs and will bring extra items along, making each new run slightly easier. I found the initial few runs a little frustrating since I kept running out of food or dying from cold, but the runs are pretty short and after three or so I got enough to get me by at least to get quite far along. Plus you feel pretty accomplished the further you get! So it's definitely worth the initial pain I think.
When should I play this game?
Spend some time on The Red Lantern if:- You love dogs
- You are not afraid of games with themes of death. You will be shooting cute wildlife. You might lose a dog (though there's a setting in the menu to turn the latter off if it really bothers you)
- You like roguelites in general. but this one also has dogs which makes it better