Recent reviews by LuckNotSkill

It's a fun concept, but I've never played a game with more padding and handholding. The puzzles make Pokemon gym puzzles look difficult, and five seconds can't pass without your protagonist commenting on exactly what glowing interactable they have to touch. Your skill and success don't seem to advance the story meaningfully, and new mechanics seem to just be arbitrarily introduced on the calendar instead of upon surpassing any sort of milestone. I've spent at least an hour walking from one end of an area to the other with no hindrances on the way for the classic 'walk from A to B and back' fetch quests.

The fishing mechanics are pretty fun, but once again the pressures of oxygen or damage aren't the most pressing; the limiting factor in your advancement today is largely your carry weight. In short, just go play Subnautica again, and pick up a restaurant tycoon game on the side.

Did you end up memorizing half the manual to Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes?

You'll like this.

I was not prepared for the yes/no simulator to actually make me feel things.

Still a long way to go, but it's got excellent bones.

The combat is nothing you haven't seen in Slay the Spire or Into the Breach, but this game's dynamic (and plentiful) dialogue made me love its characters and universe more than any creation of Hollywood or any AAA studio. Also the soundtrack simply doesn't get old.

Unfortunately, I have to say this is closer to a walking simulator than a puzzle game. Few puzzles will take anyone more than a minute or two to get through, though this is discounting the many situations where the puzzle is to pan around wildly looking for interactable objects or mashing your face into every wall until one is revealed to be false. There's some good attention to detail with comical whiteboards and occasional voiceover injecting some levity here and there, but at a likely playtime of 1-3 hours it's certainly not worth the $20 price tag (admittedly, without expanding on the core mechanic there's not many more puzzles that could be squeezed out).

I did not expect this to be one of my four-digit hour counts.

Yes.

There's nothing to say about this game that hasn't been said already, but if you've ever liked a metroidvania you really can't miss this one.

The first half hour is great. You're getting your footing, figuring out how things work in your new home, and doing your best to survive falling apart and starving to death while living in a cargo crate. Space capitalism is a struggle and your chances don't look good.

But then they start to look good pretty quickly. You find sources of medicine and food that can be bought working odd jobs around the station, and past this point the game is essentially a visual novel. A fine one, sure, but not one focused on survival and sacrifice. Almost every timed 'doom counter' is initiated by you, so the only way to fail anyone's quest is to intentionally take on too many projects at once. The dominant strategy ends up being to focus on one person's story at a time, dumping all your actions on their project only to go home, sleep, and do it again the next day until their story beat is over.

When survival is no longer a struggle it becomes an annoyance. Buy this game if you want to experience its decent story and sympathetic characters, but don't be misled into believing you'll have to make hard choices or take dire risks.