Flux Empyrean

This game is awesome, it has such a wealth of content and care put into it. [h2]Gameplay: 4/5[/h2] Actually moving through the world is excellent. Navigation by stars is super engaging, moving around at the locations on your hoverboard feels dope, and general exploration stays super interesting for hours. You'll find yourself heading to a location, then see something off in the distance and think "ah, just a short detour" just to find yourself 3 hours into said detour, still pushing through new content in a completely new direction, and lost on the polar opposite side of the world*. [h2]Lore: 6/5[/h2] This is the focus of Flux Empyrean, so is appropriately where it shines. Outer Wilds level depth meets a DM's creativity and story-telling meets a game designer's sense of progression and flow in the best way possible. You'll end up deep into the thoughts and emotions of like 8 different characters at a time, examining what they left behind and doing your absolute best to piece together what happened, who did it, where it was done, and why! Then, using what you've found, you can push further into one of the many series of multi-dimensional puzzles that might lead you to an answer - or just deeper in... I helped playtest this, so have probably a dozen more hours than are shown here and still haven't completed it. Though, I was not the most focused on driving ahead, there is a broad array of paths to take. [h2]Graphics: 3/5 (5/5)[/h2] Don't get me wrong, its a 5/5 on pretty, but it's an indie game so you won't be blown away by AAA graphics, duh. Still, there is so much work done with the shaders and model design to make the experience super visually appealing. The cycle through day and night heavily influences the ambiance as the world fades from darkness into a shining twilight, then to a bright and cheery midday, into a dramatic dusk, then darkness. All of that while changing depending on the area of the world you're in. [h2]Sound design: 3/5[/h2] This game sounds amazing! You will feel care-free and jolly sailing the open seas, then the mood will shift and you'll feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise up in anticipation... Dope set of a bunch of different songs, don't think I've even heard them all! Two points taken off to scale this all to a AAA game, but again it's a single dev, so it doesn't make sense to expect an entire team of composers and musicians, and nothing at all is subtracted from the experience.

Imagine if Outer Wilds hated you. It is obtuse to the point of hostility. The sound design is 90% howling wind and 10% getting jump-scared by ambient synth music. Your only means of transportation is a manually operated sailboat. Your only means of navigation are constellations. Reading comprehension is the primary gameplay mechanic. You collect disconcertingly esoteric and ominous text logs with often beautiful prose while banging your head against a wall trying to figure out what to do. You can fish. You can kill a god. It has a brazenly unique art style, and the general vibe of desolation is immaculate. There is a non-insignificant amount of jank, but it's offset by all the love and care that was put into crafting the world you will explore. The discord, despite having an incredibly small player base, is very active. It's an incredibly fun community that's worth the price of admission on its own. The developer frequently responds to questions and seems like a lovely person. This game ruined my life ten out of ten.

Although I'm really conflicted about this game, I can't help but concede that this is probably the closest a game has come to Outer Wilds, and a lot of my conflict really comes down to things this game attempts that Outer Wilds has succeeded much better in. However, given this is a one-man project and that even coming close to Outer Wilds is a near-impossible task, at the end of the day I've come out really appreciative of this package, even with its faults, and would recommend it despite any number of caveats. It's a game where you are aimlessly wandering around a world with little context, and you must build your understanding of your purpose here and the circumstances of where you are as you explore. It carries much of the same DNA that has made Outer Wilds such a standout experience, with the ludo-narrative synergy of having your gameplay understanding of the systems and your story understanding of the world come hand in hand and the jaw-dropping aha moments that hit you out of nowhere as you try to solve a puzzle that completely recontextualizes both the story and mechanics of what you're looking at. This game has a boatload of goosebumps-inducing revelations and masterfully imagined concepts brought to life, making this journey alone worth it for those who are obsessed with this rare niche of cerebral sci-fi contemplative investigation games like I am. If you are at all interested in investing yourself into strange abstract cultures and concepts and piecing together stories relying on your understanding of obfuscated systems at play in this world, you will probably end up coming out of this having enjoyed it for the most part. I say for the most part, because there are definitely some major gripes I have here with this game (2 or 3 to be specific). However, given the nature of this genre, it's really hard to talk about them without spoiling expectations. I will not divulge story beats, lore, puzzles, or mechanics, but know that the below section may alter your expectations in a way that changes how you experience this game. First, it's the puzzles. I am mostly in love with the level of puzzles at play. They are incredibly challenging and reward your experimentation using the clues you've gathered about how things work, often requiring really creative out-of-the-box thinking to interpret what you've been shown, and the rewarding feeling of confirming your hypothesis about how something works is like heroin. However, there are some things to note here. Firstly, this is a much more obtuse game than Outer Wilds, the puzzles and connections made here are in general much more challenging in my experience than with Outer Wilds. This isn't a negative per se, because I enjoyed having to think more deeply about all the details I've uncovered and having to find connections in ways Outer Wilds wouldn't push me to due to the tighter reign it's had on the clues to solving its mysteries, but it definitely leads to hitting a lot more walls. Secondly, not all of them are consistent. There are definitely some where I've immediately known what they were expecting of me and didn't need to think that deeply, and a good amount where I've had to bang my head against a wall and make several leaps in logic to arrive at the answer, and some of them have been unsatisfying as a result. There are also some puzzles, due to the design of the mechanics, that I have accidentally solved using the bang-my-head-against-the-wall method and I don't think I ended up learning the necessary lessons from those until wayyy later (and, for some, probably never). I think some guardrails around some solutions would've gone a long way in cementing lessons, but at the same time this is a game that thrives on the lack of guardrails and invitation to experiment, so it was always going to be a really tough balancing act and why I've ultimately appreciated all the puzzles in hindsight even if I still think some are wildly unbalanced with the train of thought they expected from me. Secondly, it's the plot progression and pacing (NOT the story/lore). I need to be clear, the actual story itself has been incredible to uncover and is a big part of why I loved this game. However, the pacing could've definitely used some work and alterations. Again, a really tough balancing act given the nature of this game. There were definitely points in my uncovering of the story where it felt like things weren't going anywhere or pointing me towards forming new ideas about where the plot threads could've come from or gone next, and some threads felt a little more disconnected from others in a storyline that is intended to be holistic of all these threads. These issues were exacerbated during the later parts of each of these threads as they required increasingly obtuse connections to be made, which isn't bad in principle but sometimes felt like I shouldn't have been expected to make this connection at this point in time. There were also points at the ends of many of these threads where they didn't feel like ends. I understand that this game is intentionally more open-ended and abstract in its contemplation than its peer but there were many points during the completion of a thread where I expected it to go at least a few steps further or offer a thematically/tonally satisfying moment or idea for me to take in. This is probably my biggest gripe with the game, and I will elaborate below in a slightly more spoilery end-game section without giving away specific details. [spoiler]It's the endings. My biggest gripe with the game is its endings. For a game filled with so much magic in its storytelling and mechanics and world, many of the endings felt incredibly abrupt and lackluster compared to the threads I've been following to get there. I have not felt truly satisfied with any of them save for a few as they didn't feel thematically or cathartically rewarding at all, and only really served as a signifier that I've reached the end of a plot thread. There definitely needs to be something greater offered during the ending segments themselves, because many of them you would've never even expected to be endings if it not were for the titles showing up. Ironically, the ones that felt most like proper endings were the ones that took the least amount of threads to get there. It almost feels unfinished in a way, and I understand that this is partly by thematic design, but I feel like the scale is tipped too far in that direction and ends up detracting from my enjoyment and quality of reflection on these threads. There could've definitely been more done to give the satisfaction of an ending (both gameplay- and story-wise) without detracting from the open-ended nature of it.[/spoiler] With all that said, the journey this game took me through does end up outweighing all of my gripes, and I've come out of it thoroughly enjoying my experience in it and reflections on it. This is the closest a game has come to Outer Wilds, and if you're a fan of this niche then you know no matter how many caveats there are, this is worth experiencing.

Maybe I'm not the target audience for this game, but I really tried to enjoy it and just found it incomprehensible. I spent almost two hours exploring random nearby locations, noticing that I wasn't finding all the lore items at each locations but having no idea how to get the missing ones. I figured there must be more information out there so I kept moving on to the next locations until I reached the "Perchysm", which seemed to be the first location the game gave you instructions to go to. Once I reached this first area of interest, I looked everywhere, used all the tools I could to see if I was missing something, and I found nothing. So after exploring 10 locations and finding 25 texts, I was stuck with no idea what to do; no frequency to follow, no point of interest to aim for, and no real puzzle to try and figure out. On top of that, before I even started the actual game the "tutorial" did nothing to teach me anything about how to navigate or play the game so I felt lost and incompetent the entire time I was playing. I assume there's some people that would enjoy this game, but it's too clunky, too confusing, and too open-ended for me. I don't want to explore boring location after boring location, spending large swathes of time if I'm not even sure I'm doing things right.

Absolutely recommend to anyone chasing that Outer Wilds feeling. It feels like if OW was set on just a singular planet, but packs that one planet with so much to do and learn. The boat is super cool but occasionally has some frustarating moments with the auto crash prevention mechanic. Otherwise great game.

Holy peak. It's a lot of puzzles. Puzzles that will make you feel like the dumbest guy on the block. Then you solve the puzzle, and you feel like the smartest guy on the block.

Played the demo a bunch and really cool to get my hands on the full game. I love sailing and exploring and this hits that very well, I also cannot get enough of riding on the surfboard!

I by no means feel as if ive made any i guess true progress in this game yet but it is so beautiful. the notes i have found has left me desperate searching for more. seeing some spire or structure far out in the distance, charting the stars as you go it is ethereal i cannot leave an awe inspiring review right now but i want to say give this game a try

If you've ever wanted a game to scratch that Outer Wilds itch, Flux Empyrean does it. You get a world to explore and figure out all on your own. If you're a big fan of deep lore and sci-fi, this one is for you. It's also good to remember that this is a solo developer project, and for that, it's amazing. This is a passion project done right. My biggest bit of feedback is about the feedback you as the player get from the game itself. When you solve a puzzle or type something into a text field, there's almost no response telling you if you got it right. You could add more of this through the world too. Right now things like doors opening have no sound, for example. Getting more of a response from the game when you do things would improve it a lot. We need more games like this one. Well worth your time!