Another decent horror adventure from the SpoocleMacBoogle who is probably best known for the [i]I Live Under Your House[/i], usually making short but creative games. Unlike the previous releases this one is mostly a visual novel with a couple of forks in the narrative, about 5 to 15 minutes for each of the 8 endings, so roughly 80 minutes for full exploration, actually a bit longer in total compared to his other games. You don't have to restart for each ending, there are a couple of checkpoints before the major choices.
At first I thought the story would be too generic, at least the first half feels like your average space horror, but between all of the different endings, I think you managed to create a lot of interesting conclusions for the character, I enjoyed doing the 100% completion, with the "cow" ending probably being my favorite. Overall I got the MacBoogle vibes I was looking for, very much why I buy your games, just some weird and grotesque imagery, as well as a little mystery to keep you going. Some of the writing probably could have been handled better, sometimes I feel like you forgetting that you should be describing the events from the perspective of the character, but sometimes it almost feels like a third person, you have a habit of trying to describe some events for the shock value, but it does not always match or has the priority in terms of what the character is experiencing in the moment. I also feel like you could have done something a bit more interesting with a couple of the endings, given how much he cared about her, I think you could have gone deeper with the dialogue with the head, instead of just repeating the same thing. On that note, I think you could have given more reasons for the character to ____ the head, maybe a glimpse of hope by providing more lines from her, or at least the head doing a better job pretending.
While I am not 100% against AI imagery, to me it will always be secondary, I don't know where your effort stops, and AI help begins, so even though you making these cool looking pictures, at the back of my head, it's difficult for me to accept it as your work, I would rather you draw junk than use AI, personally. That being said, the images still worked well for the narrative, and I liked the overall aesthetic. Not sure why you decided to put the game into the box, is that resolution of the images or you just wanted the claustrophobic effect in space perhaps.
Strangely the game didn't have some of your signature gimmicks, I was 100% expecting some first person segment or some hole I had to crawl into, I suppose it would be too predictable given your record, but hey, it's kind of your brand at this point, I enjoy those parts, I feel like we needed some ventilation exploration or a space walk repair XF, or perhaps a walk on the planet. There were some minor issues with the hotspots, you made them too small and easy to overlook, also it's not clear that you have to tag every part before going to sleep.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) The story has a nice variety of weird endings that are completely different, not all of them are great, but it almost feels like you get a couple of MacBoogle adventures in one package, the character ends up in a completely different situations, so I would very much encourage to explore the game completely.
(+) Again, not a huge fan of anything AI, but I still liked the design for the grotesque images and they worked well for the endings.
(+) I think the game had good atmosphere, I didn't notice soundtrack that much, but sometimes it's a good thing, it works for what you were going for.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
- The hotspots on the planet were too small I think. It may be confusing on why you can't go to sleep, maybe a hint that you want to explore every part of the station first.
- Sometimes I feel like you overriding the perspective of the character with the writing, like sometimes you feel the need to explain exactly what is happening to the player, make sure they know something weird is happening, but I think you could keep it more subtle and just keep it ambiguous. I also felt like you didn't fully explore some of the endings, I wish the ending with the head had more dialogue from her so maybe her transformation was more convincing in his eyes.
- I felt like we needed some of the signature MacBoogle elements, maybe first person exploration on the planet, some ventilation segments, but oh well.
[b] Overall Thoughts: 7/10 [/b]
I enjoyed it enough for the low price, as far as graphic adventure games go it's not super impressive, but it had enough variety and mystery to keep me going, I liked that character would end up in so many weird situations. Like with most of your games I wanted just a little bit more. But overall I think this is not all that bad, just a little abrupt with some of the endings, and sometimes you drop the writing consistency, probably needed some MacBoogle touch with gameplay changes.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
