Pet Lands: First Steps

It's... cute, and an interesting concept.
But it feels very thrown together and I agree with other reviews that it feels like a Roblox or Fortnite game.

It's a clicker game, I never go into these with high expectations, so no, that's not why I don't recommend.
- The game doesn't tell you anything when you start. No preface, no tutorial, just go get coins and collect creature. yes, it's a straight forward game, but there were some things I'd have liked to know, such as what gems do (since you can get them right away but not use them until later on), and information on how creatures work? They have different stats, tell me about that.
- I can hatch like 300 of the same creature trying to get my mythic and they are all entirely useless to me. Let me grind them into powder to level up my good ones at least, a la pokemon go.
- The gifts feel entirely USELESS. They give minuscule amounts of coin and diamonds and i probably could have gotten more just mining in the seconds it took to open all these gifts. And the game will pop up at you if you don't open your gifts after a while, so I can't just ignore their existence.
- There's lots of pop up events and they ARE NOT EXPLAINED. While they are pretty easy to figure out yourself, I'd still like information on them?
- The idling aspect... doesn't always work. Even if the game is open and tabbed out, it's hit or miss if my creatures will mine anything? And closing my game, I got absolutely nothing while I was offline. I get not wanting to farm a ton being off, but there should be a few hours you can earn up to.
- Multiple things require you to stop using your hoverboard. Including opening those stupid gifts. Just let me stay on them.
- Just a critique but the pause menu is... ugly. Definetly feels 'babys first game' level skills there, and it just doesn't match the art of the game. I know you don't want a ton of detail in there, that'd be pointless, but it feels very much like it's the menu from a different game. Something more sleek maybe? I don't know.
- Creature designs are just... kind of boring? All the same base shape and just feels like palette changes and a few add on mutations.

There ARE pros to this game.
+ I really appreciate that you can hover over things to mine instead of actively click.
+ The Level Up progressions seem very steady, not too long or short
+ The changing environments are very cool and nice to look at!
+ Satisfactory 'number go up makes brain go brrrr' game
+ The CONCEPT of mega and gold creatures is cool but without much info on the creatures it feels like it falls short in the end.

I'll probably still be finishing the demo, and maybe it'll look up the longer I play - I'm only on area 11. If some of these issues are fixed, I'd even be willing to play the full game when it comes out. I really want to like it more than I do, but it is what it is.

EDIT: I finished it, still as disappointing. I feel no need to go back and get the mythicals I missed . The second type of gem seemed to NEVER be usable in the prologue so why have them? I don't know. Just felt like a waste of time.

its straight up PET SIMULATOR you can find on roblox , but there is no microtransactions so its nice ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My Playtime: 2.1h (finished the game)

Intro

Pet Lands: First Steps is a demo of Pet Lands (my review), a semi-idle game where you hatch pets and collect coins. It features the first 13 levels of the final product.

Pros:
- 13 areas
- A lot of pets to collect
- Save game carries to the original game

Cons:
- Coin magnet radius is too small
- Repetitive gameplay
- Requires a lot of active play for a semi-idle game

Specs
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 16GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT

Should you play this game?

The demo mainly covers the early areas of the game where more manual work is needed to finish.

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In-Depth Review

The Game

Pet Lands: First Steps is a demo in disguise. It covers the first 13 areas of Pet Lands (my review), a semi-idle game where you have to collect coins and hatch pets. Coins can be used to either hatch pets or unlock the next area, which will allow you to get more coins.

Each area has pets of different rarity: common, uncommon, rare, legendary, and mythic. Hatching the egg is done like a gacha pull, where higher rarity pets have a lower chance to drop. You need to spend coins—sometimes more than it needs to unlock the next level—to unlock them all.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3330115704

Since the demo only covers the first 13 areas, it doesn't show much of the "automation" side of the game. The full game will unlock more abilities, like more pet slots, a higher coin magnet radius, and more. Moreover, only basic events are available in the early areas. This means that the overall pace has become slower and requires more manual work than the full game. As a semi-idle game, leaving your screen without doing anything will sometimes yield results, although you'll get more money by playing the game more actively.

Clicking hitboxes sometimes is bugged. You might not be able to click on something unless you are in the right spot. When it happens, moving the camera and walking around until it works is needed, which will consume more of your time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3331888403

The low coin magnet radius means that you must periodically move around to get the coins. Again, active play is more incentivized here since idling will just lead to less coin per second, although the gameplay loop is already repetitive at this point. Clicking objects until their health runs out can take a long time to do, and you must do it infinitely until the demo ends.

Length and Difficulty
I finished the demo in 2.1h. The game is easy to beat since you just need to mindlessly grind, although the repetitiveness might make you die of boredom. If you are interested in playing the full game, the save file carries over to that game.

Conclusion

Pet Lands is a game full of repetitiveness. Its main selling point is the grind, and you'll get the basic gameplay done just by playing this demo. The full game has more options to slightly "automate" your playing, although the same repetitiveness will still be felt throughout the game. As a semi-idle game, it requires more active play than necessary, wasting your time if you decide to finish it.