Mirthwood
Foreword
This review is based around final release, patch 1.0.41.p2. Overall, my thoughts – and Steam review – are negative, with the observation that I’m still playing and that Mirthwood is not a terrible game – just that I don’t think it’s not worth buying yet. Overall reviews at present are mixed, with only 55% being positive
For what it is, in the state it’s in, I reckon it’s overpriced at £20.99 on Steam
The game is by a small two-man indie (Badridge Games) and while I normally support indies, when the release version of the game is in this state and the roadmap talks about planned DLC, it raises a flag for me. Without the DLC, my thoughts and review take the stance that they released early and arguably unfinished because they run out of money – and or because of publisher pressure. But DLC, so…
Anyway, as a friend would say, it has legs, but I’d say leave it until at least mid 2025 or later and even then wait for it to be on sale!
Homestead – build a farm, plant and harvest crops, rear animals, and upgrade your facilities to craft items and gear.
Explore – explore an open world comprised of six diverse regions and three distinct towns, with much to discover.
Fight – take up a sword or ready your bow in real-time combat, Mirthwood will pit you against a variety of enemies.
Adventure – embark on quests, encounter dynamic events, and investigate mysteries across the world.
Socialize – meet and befriend (or insult) any NPC, and unlock new social interactions as your relationships grow.
The reality
That’s the speel anyway, but needs updating as there’s four towns, not three. Plus, they are at best hamlets, not towns.
The melee combat is often clumsy and the bow near useless except for deer and even then it’s not great. The bow gets better when you have a horse, but otherwise…
With the bow the arrows follow a fixed strategy. Upgrade to the most powerful bow in the game and the path, animation and range remain the same.
You can – sometimes but rarely – use tactics like climb a tower and rain arrow down… onto the tower ‘cos. Or, for enemies above you on a ridge, you can rain arrow up, which also do nothing ‘cos you can only hit things that are level to you and at a specific range. Plink, plink, plink.
Shoot a rat at point blank? Nope, but the animation says you have to fire up into the air in this path.
Funnily enough, the first time you use the bow it’s to shoot a hammer out of a tree. After that, meh.
I want to like this game and I’m still playing to see if it gets any better, but so far I’d say avoid it.
Initially I only had one crash and saw no other bugs, so it’s reasonably stable, so that’s a plus. That said a patch corrupted my inventory and the savegame so the game crashed on load. I had to uninstall the game and start a fresh play, losing 40 hours progress. You make allowances for new releases, but still, not a good look. Also, the game keeps getting jittery. It’s noticeable on a powerful system, on older PCs, according to comments in the community, it’s more of a problem, so there appears to be optimisation issues.
The chat system for friendship with NPCs is lacklustre, but that’s fine. Some people might like it and, at least according to the roadmap, they have great plans for it. But meh. Plus, you are to busy trying not to starve to death, so there’s that.
The tools!
The system and logic for crafting tools is just crap and their understanding of metallurgy and smithing is lamentable. Soft metals like silver and gold are considered tougher than steel!
Upgrading tools is a chore, to say the least. Iron is uncommon, with nodes giving meagre resources. Just upgrading a scythe or hoe from copper to iron takes 10 bars (50 ore) AND 750 gold (each). Iron to steel needs even more mats AND 2,000g – per item.
To make a ‘legendary axe‘ you need a copper axe (which you can’t craft), 10 iron bars and an iron toolkit (750g).
You take the iron axe, add 10 steel bars and a steel toolkit (2,000g). Then you take the steel axe and add 10 bars of silver and another toolit (3,000g). Finally, 10 bars of gold and another toolkit (4,000g).
The copper axe will only chop the smallest of saplings. Iron will chop some stumps, but not trees. Steel will still not chop trees other than saplings. So, you need 40 metal ingots and almost 10,000g to upgrade your axe so you – still can’t cut down trees! That’s bonkers! In real life even small gold bars are incredibly heavy and (in industry) 25Kg is typical for a metal ingot. Using that logic, your axe now weighs over 1,000Kg (a tonne).
10,000g is also the price of a unicorn mount (plus another 1,500g for the stable).
Besides the silly metallurgy, and the cost, the problem is you have to repeat this for all tools. Want to upgrade your pickaxe – which you have too – that’s another 10,000g. Your watering can, hoe, scythe…
If the system was to upgrade your forge to be able to craft better tools, sure. But a toolkit for each item? Nah! Yet arrms and armour are crafted with just mats. It’s like they come up with a system, maybe realised it’s crap, but they had to release the game – so left it a mess. Also, it doesn’t always work. The watering can upgrades have no effect, so they didn’t test that either!
Unsurprisingly, gold is not quick to earn, so it’s very tedious, But OK. I can take the grind. I like a challenge.
Hi ho, Hi ho, it’s off to work we go
Added to the above this, places where you can find ore are guarded by bandits, wolfs, bears, monsters… which is a problem ‘cos your gear is garbage and you need a tonne of ore and gold to upgrade.
Then there’s deciding between your hoe and your axe – or a keg, but that’s generally decided for you ‘cos the game keeps taking your gold and makes it hard to earn more, so affording the upgrade kits is a problem.
Oh, and the monsters will chase you across the map and plough through all the town guards to try to kill you. So there’s that.
You can at least use it to your advance by pulling and running to town.
Except sometimes the monsters get stuck (‘cos the pathing is questionable) – and you actually get to use that bow. Or you get stuck (and die).
Sometimes though, when I lure monsters and bandits to town, they just vanish mid battle. Poof. Gone..
OR NOT
‘Cos you can be returning to town to sell mead and they’ll reappear in the same position and state.
And sometimes, sometimes it gets REAL silly.
I went to mine a little ore and pulled a thief – and a troll thing (Siltlurker). No problem, I’ll lure them to town and…
Behind me is the thief and the troll. And in front another two trolls, a werewolf AND the lady of the mists wraith… Guards and townsfolk killed two, the rest vanished – presumably to return next time I go shopping.
But that’s not the worst of it.
Ouch?
Taking damage? That’s a problem. Damage also affects your stamina – your ability to fight, or do anything else.
Sleep and food restore barely any health and there’s no salves or bandages, just the odd healing potion. Also uncommon,
On the plus side, you can learn to make healing potions.
You just need herbs.
But you can’t have a herb garden as nobody sells herb seeds. Later, if you find her and if you complete her quest, you can unlock an alchemist that will sell you a meagre supply of herbs and one recipe.
So, herbs are rare, hard to find in the woods (which, as I said, are populated by bandits etc) and very slow to respawn.
So you are constantly at low health.
But that’s not the worst of it either!
Hunger pangs
You are constantly hungry (which also affects your health and stamina). Plus, you start with hardly any slots free for food and while you can buy more food slots (with feathers) it’s always a problem.
Hunted down a deer and got yourself a whole side of venison? Congrats. That’s first breakfast. It’ll tide you over to elevenses, while you farm and fish for your next meal. There are ‘taters, but (so far) only one recipe – and it needs herbs which you need for healing potions, so you can’t mash ’em, boil ’em etc, you have to eat them raw.
If you pass out from hunger you awaken in your home, still near starving and short about 18g. There’s little warning about this, no flashes, just a pastel bar that turns to a different shade of mud. Passing out for any reason has you awakening in your last save camp, in poor health, with a lighter purse.
So, it’s not a farming or mining or exploring or combat game – it’s hunger management. It is tedious!.
Seeds are expensive, crops are slow to grow and offer meage yields – not enough to feed you. Raising chickens sounds nice until you work out that buying the coop, rooster and a couple of hens would set you back close to 10,000g and you need that for your tools. Maybe next year.
To last then, to survive you need fishing. A LOT OF FISHING.
Guess what. Apart from a pokey stick – literally that – there are no upgrades for the fishing rod, no skills or skill cards or accessories to make it easier, to give better yields.
It’s like they got so far and went "**** it, **** fishing, we have to ship as is"
I want to like this game, but it’s completely unbalanced and arguably half done.
If you’ve ever played WoW it is like being dropped in a mid-level area as a starter character, with no food or bandages and everything here can one-shot you. You start to mine a copper node, hoping to work up through tin to iron and mithril – and every mob within a mile is suddenly like, ‘Meat’s back on the menu again, boys!’
That!
Oh, and you can’t rotate the view, so even fishing becomes more of a chore as you can hardly see the float for the trees sometimes.
It’s dark outside
There’s no carryable torches, lanterns, nothing like that – that’s to be added in the future, maybe, but no promises, according to a few update from last year. I’ve played with Unity, given characters torches. It’s about the easiest thing you can do. It’s nothing, like a few minutes work. And they don’t have torches!
Bad Ridge Games, 11 Jun, 2024: “We will likely have torches in [the final release]”
Final release is out, roadmap is out. Still no sign or torches!
Further cementing the early early access vibe – you can build a fancy fence around your land – as long as you build it INSIDE the existing fence, ‘cos they haven’t added removing, destroying or swapping the old rickety fence. Words fail me!
At this point, the devs really to stop pretending this is a full release. It’s early access. The Mirthwood roadmap looks to me like a ‘list of things that should be in the final release’.
Honestly, thing game is half-cooked. I’d give them another half year to finish it before you look at it again, if you are considering buying.
Early days, out and about
The map is a bit minimalist. You can mark points of interest, features are added once discovered, your position is marked and quest areas can (usually) be shown, but you can’t annotate, and there’s no fog or war or similar making systematic exploration hit and miss. You lso can’t access the entire Grimrock area, which I assume is for the planned DLC.
(DLC at this point is like: “We didn’t finish the game when we released it, but give us some more money for this area we also left out and maybe won’t finish on release either!”)
You are prompted at the start to get you going, but it’s not all clear and you can very easily get distracted.
Your first consideration though is whether you’d like gravestones on your farm, gibbets, a fancy sword design early on, so forth. You don’t know this, may never know it without guides and the forums are full of – wrong – ideas about how to achieve this. Basically there’s a merchant (Silas) that will only trade with you if your moral compass leans far enough left. So, murdering prisoners, stealing from peasants, usual rogue stuff. It really doesn’t take long to get your hands dirty! You can spent money in shrines to atone later if need be. The roguish start has the added advantage that stealing food and resources helps you through first few days.
Next, make sure you grab any fish you see hanging. You can take fish off the ship before it sets off and again when it arrives. You need to eat a ridiculous amount of food to survive in this game, so every bit helps. Note that some activities burns your hunger bar down faster than others, with mining and logging the worst. Which is a sod really as you start with no food, no tools, and a derelict house…
Day one pretty much forced on you, so don’t waste it. Just read the two messages and sleep!
Day two, visit the village, find the blacksmith and help him. This gets you a bow and unlocks this trader, which is important as he’ll sell you designs and small amounts of iron after a day.
Next head to the two pubs, first meeting the stranger in one, then finding and talking to the innkeeper in another (buying any and all food recipes). After talking to the innkeeper for guidance, head northeast to the farmer to buy seeds, a fishing rod, and a hint for ESSENTIAL free tools. These tools can be found along the road, north west of this point, east of your farm.
Suitably equipped, in this order, make a cooking pot, then a storage barrel, then a forge and then, when you have two iron bars, an anvil. The state of the house is mostly cosmetic so you can leave that as long as you want and should!
I buy extra seeds as some crops can be lucrative, plus you need some veggies for portal shrine donations – unless you want to play the game for an extra year ‘cos you didn’t know you had to plant say turnips… There are sections on crops and shrines
13g for a spud doesn’t sound a lot, but when you can harvest them every few days that adds up to 1,300g a stack. So, plant what you can afford, buy more seeds with first crop and so forth.
Unfortunately, the system for tilling the soil is the worst in any game I have ever played and upgrading the hoe (expensive) does nothing. Crops need watering regularly, but there’s no irrigation system, and while rains helps crops can dry out almost straight after the rain, so this part of the game is just a chore.
Worse, the watering can only covers at most 4 plants and upgrading it – like the hoe, like many other parts of the game – doesn’t seem to work or make any difference.
Harvesting crops is a real pain in the backside too, pulling one vegetable at a time, with a delay set between each one, Still, it’s the best, easiest way to make money in the game.
But you need to eat, so – fishing. There’s only one shitty fishing rod, no upgrades for it, and no skills to help you with fishing.
There’s another reason – you’ll need to fish a lot for the shrines as well. They are certain items like lobsters (which need a lobster pot), but the rest – cod, pike, pearls (rare) and sturgeon (less than 1%) can take a long time to acquire.
At this point we are still actually on day 2 and planning ahead. If you are feeling light-fingered and curious as to what Silas offer, a walk around town will get you extra food, some iron ore and other items.
From this point on, you should be thinking about what crops to plant, what to put to one side for shrines, and what to upgrade.
And you will learn to hate iron.
The amounts you need are absurd, as is the cost of upgrade kits. Iron nodes are uncommon, have tiny yields and are slow to respawn. Clearly a cave complex full of rats, monsters and a mini-boss of sort might get you 50 ore. That’s just enough to upgrade one tool from copper to iron! You can find a number of swords about of varying qualities, from wood to improved iron, so I recommend upgrading in this order:
1. Pickaxe to iron
2. Plate chest
3. Pickaxe to steel, then silver, then gold
4. Axe to iron
5. Best weapon you can make. If you find and complete the crossroads village quest (quite easy) that will lead you to the design for the best weapon in the game.
Honestly, mining iron is such a chore that you won’t want to mine 100+ ore for a sword you’ll need to replace even once!
6. Great Helm
7. (Mount and stables)
Farm animals
You can raise farm animals but this is no Stardew Valley. It is so expensive to buy animals and to buy designs for their shelters that you can easily reach end game in the first year and still not have enough money a pair of hens!
They look like they have put thought into it, but made it so expensive and so dreary that you are forced to wonder why they bothered. For me it reinforces the feeling that they have great plans for this game and ran out of time and money. If they’d released it as early access and worked on it for another year…
Fast travel
The game has a quirky fast travel system too.
Firstly, pressing F4 will take you straight to your farm, which is really handy to know.
Secondly, it doesn’t work how you might expect!
There are 8 jump points in all: your farm plus seven camps to discover. Finding them adds them to your map and to your fast travel list, right?
Half-right. It adds it to your map BUT you have to sleep or at least nap there to add it to the fast travel system!
Skills and skill cards
Just a brief word about skills. Like the fast travel systems it’s a bit quirky. As you’d expect, progressing a skill improves it…
However, the bonuses are not applied until you open the skill menu (K)!
So, you can have all sorts of bonuses – but they aren’t applied because you haven’t opened the menu. Bonkers!
Additionally, you can unlock skill cards for an array of other additional bonuses. However, to use any of them you have to buy skill slots – with feathers – from Fernfoot, a trader over the bridge east of the main town. For 8 feathers you can buy one card slot or 4 bag slots – in a specific category, e.g. food.
The limited slot system is frustrating and reminds me of having a starter character back in WoW classic. So, as a priority, you want to be looking out for feather and buying bag slots. I recommend the following order:
1. Food, then materials (repeat until you have 16 of each)
2. Potions (to 12)
3. Card slots 1 to 5
4. Whatever
Notes
Read all the notes!.
Some lead to quests, some tell you of nearby loot – like gold bars, some help develop the story. And some are just funny, if you have a dark sense of humour.
There are also areas I’ve not been able to access, such as a locked grate east of the farm, possibly leading to a dungeon ruin. Or just a planned area…
Merchants and traders
All the towns have inns, most of which sell recipes, while two of the towns have blacksmith’s that will also sell designs for weapons and armour. There’s also a trader for painting and trees (including apple and pear at 500g each), and an alchemist you can unlock. There’s also a thieve’s den which, once unlocked, will sell you the best weapon in the game.
Swamp merchant Silas
Near town, in the Murkwater Marsh, just off the road, you’ll encounter a shady trader – Silas – that wants you to get your hands dirty before he’ll trade with you. He offers some interesting cosmetics like a bandit table, stolen goods, gravestones, a skeleton in a gibbet, a dark steed with angry red eyes, and a great early weapon design.
Travelling merchant
From the community:
“Basically, when the event pops up you have to pull up the map immediately and see a blue area in the same manner as yellow area for tracked quests. Fast travel from a camp to the closest camp or ride a horses if you can because they don’t seem to last long.”
Trade ships
If you fix the rowing boat on the coast you can get to the Blackwater Isle and its lighthouse. You can also find sage, diamond nodes and plenty of fish pools in the area. Completing the quests here unlocks a trade ship to compliment the travelling merchant.
Yule merchant
Additional traders will pop up and maybe be added, such as yule, where you can buy seasonal decorations, a celestial stag (5,000g), fine red tights and a boar’s head recipe.
Shrines
Make sure you are trying to add the right item, and click it as many times as required. You can add to it over time, it doesn’t have to be completed in one turn. It doesn’t autofill, so if it asks for 5 barley, click the barley in your inventory 5 times. Once all the requested items have been added the portal will automatically appear.
Each portal has items you can farm – such as gems, a requisite item to collect, and a chest with loot that includes a design.
Forest shrine (Whisperyn, gold ring design)
5 barley
5 copper bars
5 red (fly amanita) mushroom
5 elderberry
3 pike
3 rabbit pelt
Mountain shrine (Silentium, (war bow design))
10 corn
5 iron bar
3 ruby
3 cod
1 wolf liver
1 boar tusk
Solitary shrine (Sirenia, Diamond ring design)
10 turnip
5 silver bar
5 amethyst
5 aged red wine
3 lobster
3 spriggan essence
Shadowed shrine (Everfrost, Winter’s bite design)
3 pearl
3 sturgeon
3 diamond
2 bear pelt
10 winterrroot berry
5 gold bar
Standing stones. HOW?
If you look at the sarcen stones you’ll notice three runes carved into them. If you search the area carefully you should find three rocks, each with one matching carving. When you strike these rocks with a bow or sword the corresponding rune will light up on the main standing stone. Light up all three and you can press your palm to it for a reward – a random skill.
(So far I’ve only managed to light up one standing stone, so either I need to look a lot harder, or it’s a one-time deal and you can’t trigger the rest).
Tools, arms, armour and accessories
You might want to note they have at least 28 swords, but only 4 bows – and no torches. A few pairs of trousers, but only one greaves, found on the end boss!
They could have added a miner’s helmet, lanterns, wieldable torches, even a glowing sword, but no.
Tools
Axe
Copper axe: saplings for wood
Iron axe: + stumps for hardwood
Steel axe: + logs for hardwood
Silver axe: more efficient
Gold axe: more efficient
Pickaxe
Copper pickaxe: small rocks
Iron pickaxe: + large rocks and limestone
Steel pickaxe: + silver ore and gems (ruby)
Silver pickaxe: + gold ore and gems (amethyst and emerald)
Gold pickaxe: + gems (diamond)
Hoe
Copper hoe: turn soil for one seed
Iron hoe: supposedly improved efficiency. No difference seen!
Steel hoe: supposedly improved efficiency. No difference seen!
Scythe
Copper scythe: clear a small area of grass, with a chance of hay.
Iron scythe: supposedly increased radius: no obvious difference. Increased chance of hay noted
Steel scythe: supposedly increased radius: no obvious difference. Increased chance of hay noted
Watering can
Copper watering can: water small area (up to 4 plants)
Iron watering can: supposedly improved radius. No difference seen
Steel watering can: supposedly improved radius. No difference seen
Fishing rod
Pokey fishing rod: no upgrades available, (nor skills for fishing)
Weapons
Melee weapon damage:
Wooden sword: 3
Rusty copper sword: 5
Rusty iron sword: 6
Copper sword: 7
Rusty steel sword: 7
Refined copper sword: 8
Cedric’s cane: 9
Iron sword: 10
Bastard’s blade: 12
Swamp stick: 13
Refined iron sword: 14
Boarbreaker: 16
Woodland Sword: 17
Steel sword: 18
Duelist’s blade: 19
Sword o’ the Plains: 20
Elven sword: 23
Varin sword: 24
Butcher’s cleaver: 25
Ranger’s sword: 25
Refined steel sword: 26
Bloodletter: 27 (from the swamp trader, Silas)
Silver sword: 28
Runeblade: 29
Winter’s bite: 30 (Shadowed shrine, Everfrost)
Golden sword: 31 (Travelling merchant)
Sword of Hearts: 33 (Merchant ship)
Steelsong: 35 (Thieve’s den, 1,000g, chest near end boss)
Ranged weapon damage:
Crude bow: 3
Hardwood bow: 7
Recurve bow: 13
War bow: 18
Armour and accessories
Helm armour
Bucket helmet: 2
Sharpshoter hat: 2
Rusted barbute helm: 4
Rusted bascinet: 5
Kettle helm: 8
Nasal helm: 10
Barbute helm: 13
Elven helm: 15
Bascinet: 16
Shadowbone armor: 20, +10% additional damage during day
Great helm: 22
Chest armour
Light leather armour: 7
Sturdy leather armour: 10
Bandit’s brigandine: 10
Kelsyrian / Turien / Osoron / Velorian / Seafarer’s brigandine: 20
Shadowbone armor: 22, 10% additional damage during day
Plate armour: 25
Leg armour
(Pants): 1
Rugged black trousers: 3 (chest just off main road)
Fine red tights: 4 (Yule market)
Shadowbone greaves: 10, +10% additional damage during day
Accessories
Cavewalker charm: +10% chance of extra ore from mining
Duncan’s rabbit foot: “may improve fortunes when kept in inventory”
Bramble’s pen: more effective conversations
Pearl necklace: improved success in social conversations
Loaded dice: chance of more gold from chests
Ruby ring: +5% movement speed while on foot
Markus’ tooth: +5% damage against wolves and werewolves
Spriggan charm: +10% defence against animals
Vampire pendant: +10% defence at night
Hag’s bells +5% defence against all enemies
Silver ring: +5% defence against all enemies (chest)
Gold ring: +10% defence against all enemies (forest shine)
Diamond ring: +10% defence against all enemies, -5% to all drain (solitary shrine)
Farming: plants, by season:
Crops have a small chance of also giving seeds. The (crop harvest) notes whether it can only be harvested once (typically with only one item) or several times over the season(s).
Nothing grows in winter.
Spring:
Artichoke (1)
Barley (1)
Flax (1)
Oat (1)
Onion (1)
Peas (repeat harvests. Good cash crop)
Potato (repeat harvests. Good cash crop)
Spinach (1)
Wheat (1)
Summer:
Barley (1)
Cabbage (1)
Carrot (1)
Corn (repeat harvests throughout summer and autumn. Great cash crop)
Grape (repeat harvests. Best cash crop if used for (aged) wine))
Strawberry
Wheat (1)
Autumn/Fall:
(Corn again/still)
Flax (1)
Garlic (1)
Leek (1)
Parsnip (1)
Turnip (1)
Wheat (1)
Alcohol values
(Card skills like Artisan will affect price. Some of the values below reflect this)
Mead:30
Aged Mead: 51
Brandy: 30
Aged Brandy: 51
Red wine: 54
Aged red wine: 76
