And it was while I was stumbling across a field, trying to figure out what I’d need to get some big, sexy muscles, that I had my first brush with death.Ī silhouette appeared in front of me, partly obscured by the metabolism screen. This is easily the most effort I’ve put into my diet. Not all food is the same, either, and if you really want to have a healthy diet, you’ll want to start cooking. There’s protein, fat, carbs - you can just keep going down the rabbit hole. Worrying about calories is just the beginning. It’s not enough to just eat a slab of meat when you’re peckish, you’ve got to find a balance between how many calories you’re consuming and how many you’re burning. That’s because you’re constantly burning calories. Very quickly, however, you’ll get hungry again.

When you find some food, that solves the immediate problem, and you can get on with robbing other players or dancing around zombies. Like any other survival game, your stomach will inevitably start grumbling. Instead of worrying about the minutiae, you can react only to the HUD, eating when you’re starving, drinking when you’re dehydrated, just trying to fulfill your basic needs as you search for better equipment. Like DayZ, it’s a survival sandbox where you can hunt wildlife, ignore impotent zombies and compete or cooperate with other survivors. Diet, fitness, an injured ankle - they’re all simulated and tracked, affecting your odds of survival. The basic HUD might tell you that your health is low or that you’re running out of energy, but it’s only by poring over your chart that you’ll be able to understand why you’re sluggish and sickly. The metabolism screen is a window into Scum’s obsessively detailed simulation. It’s immensely convenient, but like so many human advancements, from ploughing fields to social media, it can take over your life. The readings and statistics told me everything I needed to know about my body, from how many teeth I had left to when I should squeeze out a big poo. From the moment I arrived on the island, every spare second, and even seconds I couldn’t spare, was dedicated to staring at it. This week, Fraser’s trying to lead a healthier, happier life in Scum, the multiplayer survival sim. Premature Evaluation is the weekly column in which we explore the wilds of early access.

Scum early access impressions