Earth Analog
I’ve completed the game. I’m not sure how long it took, maybe 30 hours, although I made some planets more difficult than they needed to be.
You play this game for the bizzare worlds that you visit. Some really are spectacular including a giant torus, a pulsating neutron star, an asteroid that is repeatedly expanding and contracting and a spherical fractal generated landscape.
I saw many people complaining about the control system and yes it did take a bit of time to be used to. But once I got my head round it, it was fine. Although I still found landing a bit awkward. A better tutorial would certainly help which I read is on the way (Q2 2021). I also see that the same update will include mod support so I’m looking forward to seeing what crazyness people come up with.
– Real player with 51.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Space Exploration Games.
About 13 hours in I finished the main story and I gotta say this game is definitely more about the journey than the destination, but man the journey is pretty. Game play mainly consists of exploration, resource gathering, and simple puzzle solving. The main attraction here are the worlds you’ll be visiting, you’ll see everything from mars like rocky barren worlds to endless fields of cubes to things straight of a psychadelic fever dream. On your journey through the story you’ll find upgrades for your ship (HIGHLY recommended you do these), strange artifacts, and the occasional planetary anomaly (think of the ocean planet from interstellar). Movement is newtonian physics based but with the latest patches it’s incredibly forgiving if you misjudge your distance to an object or speed since retro thrusters are so powerful. All in all it’s an ambitious little indie game that offers a bevy of strange new worlds to explore, if you’re into that sort of thing then this game might just be for you.
– Real player with 16.2 hrs in game
Outer Wilds
This is my favourite game now. It’s difficult to describe to people because it really is the less you know about it the better, but I’ll give it a go while staying spoiler free:
The absolutely gorgeous soundtrack is so immersive, from the moment I heard the menu music I was immediately in love. It’s so versatile and yet consistent in theme and quality throughout, I listen to the soundtrack outside of the game. The puzzles manage to balance the line perfectly between being difficult enough to stump you for a while but also having a simple straightforward solution that you can find hints for readily if you just explore enough. The moment of breakthrough each time you figure out something significant is also incredibly satisfying. Having watched a few other people play this game, I can say that everyone’s play through is completely unique because everyone will try different potential solutions and discover things in different orders. The story is really beautifully told and combined with the soundtrack really hits hard emotionally, the most I’ve ever felt from any game.
– Real player with 57.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Space Exploration Games.
Even though it’s been several several months since I’ve beat it. This game’s soundtrack still gives me chills. Opening the game’s page to write this review still had me reliving the emotions I had throughout the journey months after my initial playthrough. I recently played it again to give its expansion a shot, which is also awesome and I am pleasantly surprised to say that it also lives up to the vanilla game.
I’ve played a lot of games, but this is one of the only ones that I’d consider a masterpiece. It mixes music, story, characters, time-looping, and mechanics in a way that is both engaging and so very endearing.
– Real player with 35.7 hrs in game
Murders in Space
“Urgent. This is orbital station PEGASUS. Presence of unidentified criminal on board. Demand immediate intervention. Situation of crew intolerable. I repeat, demand immediate intervention.” Use observational, analytical, and interrogative abilities to track down a murderer on a space station before they claim their next victim.
-
Save the lives of crew members by staying one step ahead of the killer – or witness their demise if you fall behind.
-
Timing is key: 24 hours remain to solve the mystery, with crew members changing their positions and activities every hour of in-game time. Set the pace with the ability to speed up, slow down, and stop time.
-
Ask the right questions: Interrogate crew members to get at their individual secrets and true intentions.
-
Run biological tests and use specialized gadgets for clue detection and analysis.
-
Dock a space shuttle, conduct a space walk, and explore a fully crewed space station in zero gravity – as imagined by the game’s designers 8 years before the launch of the International Space Station.
Read More: Best Space Detective Games.
The Station: Escape Room
I don’t even know where to start, so let’s go with more technical stuff. Controls are bearable, definitely not enjoyable, but bearable. Glitches here and there, as a lot of people noted, the fastest way to escape is to fall through something, because falling into starry sky is more fun than this. You also can’t save your progress so you have to replay it all over again, but don’t worry, most of the time you spend will be on running the infinite corridors and not solving puzzles.
The worst part is that your partner won’t see things the way you do. And if you get to the last puzzle you won’t be able to finish it properly because of that since even if you do complete it, your partner doesn’t and vice versa. Oh well, the ending consists of “The End.” so either of you won’t be missing much.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Puzzles weren’t awful but the game is terrible. Multiplayer doesn’t work, and some of the functionality is too difficult for use. Don’t buy this game. Sorry.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Krystopia: A Puzzle Journey
In short, Krystopia may primarily be a puzzle game at its core. What makes the journey worthwhile, though, is its awe-inspiring ambience, and other-worldly atmospherics. Both of which propels the player forward, injecting the game with deeply immersive properties. It never feels a chore to invest time in Krystopia, and that perhaps, is its grandest achievement.
One element that hits home, almost instantly when playing Krystopia, is the sound design. On that rather musical note, the ambient score is surreal, yet serene. Setting the scene to a significant degree, the in-game OST paints the perfect picture of an unexplored planet, steeped in magic and mysticism. While at the same time, supplementing each exotic biome, and the plethora of puzzles they produce.
– Real player with 5.9 hrs in game
Krystopia is a nice, short puzzle adventure with an immersive story and relaxing soundtrack.
Puzzles mostly involve directing rays to an end point with an assortment of mirrors, sliders, switches that need to be charged by a ray, and “batteries” that can buffer a small amount of energy and release it later. They start very easy in the first chapter, get increasingly more complex towards the end, but remain fair and manageable with a modicum of logical thinking. You’ll also need to inspect the environments closely from different camera angles to find hidden items or collectibles.
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
Lifeless Planet Premier Edition
EDIT: There is a Premium Edition FREE upgrade for current owners in 2015 so buy now!
TL;DR at the bottom.
Lifeless Planet is an incredible game filled with atmospheric joy and a story that only gives you just enough to figure out what is going on. You play as an American astronaut that is sent to explore a planet that your readings suggest is brimming with life. Upon arrival you find that this planet is nothing like you expected. It houses strange secrets of past explorers and a nation trying to find the perfect life away from Earth only to find that meddling with things they don’t understand almost never ends happily. An interesting mix of casual exploration and platforming, it keeps things relatively fresh most of the time. You should feel the want to get to the end to see how everything pans out and what the mysteries of this Lifeless Planet are, but at the same time your feeling of eerie isolation and the ambient sounds of the world make you want to take your time looking at the planet and chilling out as well. I became lost in the isolationist atmosphere and didn’t want it to end.
– Real player with 21.8 hrs in game
81 / 100
Lifeless Planet is a beautifully atomspheric adventure game, throwing you in the space suit of an astronaut who, after a long journey through space, reaches a mysterious planet in search of life & potentially a new home for humanity. On arrival, you discover you are alone, isolated on a planet seemingly devoid of life, yet strangely there is a Soviet town abandoned long ago. How can this be & what has happened here? As the story unfolds, & you explore more of this intriguing alien world, you soon realise there is a much more going on than meets the eye. The planet is not as lifeless as it seems…
– Real player with 14.3 hrs in game
The Fall of Lazarus
The Fall of Lazarus was somewhat immersive in it’s attempt to drag you into it’s story but even from the off, it has issues. First of all, i had to spend some serious time reconfiguring the settings as it the controls seemed very clunky. A small while I had to do this again as the user interface needed the lowest possible setting of sensitivity to work the keypads. Straight afterwards I had to do it again as the game is unplayable in any texture quality under epic as any notes are just seen as a lump of pixels.
– Real player with 26.0 hrs in game
Now I know what you’re thinking
Jon stop.. Jon listen to me dammit. It’s been a while since me and you sat down and talked. I’m worried about you. You’ve been playing games that, would make someone believe you’re no longer a gamer. Tell me what’s happening?
Well Jacob, its just that, I want more of a challenge, and some rich story. I feel like I’m finally being burned out on video games. With the reviews and the artwork and the videos [@UCBJnzqEwlwmSc1_WCepZvQA] on youtube and 100%ing any game that I start…. I’m getting worn out Jacob.
– Real player with 18.2 hrs in game
K37-D
Need a puzzling game to play, but you don’t have time for a large scale, AAA title? This game is for you. The puzzles in this title will get your brain working, requiring you to sift through clues in emails and files as well as deciphering codes left by the inhabitants of this abandoned station. You’ll have to carefully manage your time and resources between crafting items to keep your life support stable, and fending off alien intruders.
Pros:
-
Good, satisfying puzzles
-
Pixelated visuals and simple geometry are a nice change from the realism of today’s games
– Real player with 3.2 hrs in game
This is an interesting game. It started off a bit flat, seemed like straight out time/resource management. You split your time between telling drones to go auto-gather resources, rushing around to build stuff, and then occasionally going outside to shoot bugs before they get inside and cause problems.
But there’s a surprising amount of logs and emails and info you can look through, and the offscreen support character makes her own little comments on what you’re reading.
All while mutant alien bugs eat through the walls to come get you.
– Real player with 2.7 hrs in game
Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality
A great Doctor Who game brought down by the second level!
This game is honestly a really fun mini adventure for any Doctor Who fan, with 6 fun and genre diverse levels. Remembering this is an indie game on a BBC budget, it really does show there is a chance Doctor Who can be adapted a a AAA experience on console. This isn’t a AAA experience, but is the bones of what could be.
It doesn’t need to be a AAA experience to be fun, and that’s exactly what this is, however the quality of the game falls to a dramatic low during the second level.
– Real player with 16.4 hrs in game
TL;DR - Very little actual gameplay, lots of fan service. Wait for sale.
Edit from my original Review.
First time I played one of the first major puzzles, a needed item never spawned.
After several failed attempts at solving the puzzle without it, another needed item stopped re-spawning.
Reloaded the game the next day, got through that puzzle without issue because it randomly decided to spawn properly, only to find a very glitchy elevator that left me needing to jump down an elevator shaft to progress.
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
![Event[0]](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/470260/header.jpg)
Event[0]
I’ll admit it: I fully bought the hype for Event[0]. It ticked off so many boxes for me: a (potentially) malevolent AI, a derelict spacecraft, beautiful graphics and design, a well written, alternate-history plot, and the ship AI responds coherently to things that you ask of it? By typing things to it? Does this game really have a semi-unscripted dialogue tree? I was sold.
In the end I did get all of these things with my purchase, but each to a lesser degree than I was hoping for. Things started off really well: the opening sequence of the game sets the stage, hinting at the world you’re about to enter and infusing your character with a bit of backstory. I was excited to start, and my first interaction with the AI was amazing: I typed something out into a terminal, and the world responded accordingly! Wonderful.
– Real player with 7.7 hrs in game
I have won a giveaway contest with US$ 20 in steam credits, so I chose this game which was on my wishlist. Original idea with an AI interface, gorgeous graphics, and it had a Linux version! Bottom line though, it disappointed me on all these points.
Before I explain it, the summary:
PROS:
-
Gorgeous graphics
-
Good soundtrack
-
Original idea
-
Spacewalking is quite good
-
Comfortable typing interface
-
Moderately interesting puzzles
-
Good time-saving feature where the game writes down the passwords and important strings for you.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game