Observation

Has a greet, creepy story, and I love the atmosphere of the game, but it is ultimately marred by its difficulty in finding where to go next, how to get there, and the sphere controls of the camera. Overall enjoyable, but could have been so much better if it played better.

Bought this game based on a Twitter recommendation, mainly due to the fact that the game has a very cool UI. I liked the screenshots of the game visually, and the idea of the game itself is quite original, and since my specialization at work is mainly the User Interface, I could not pass it by. Unfortunately, in reality, everything turned out to be not so rosy. But first, everything is in order.

In the game, you play as a SAM (System Administration and Maintenance) - an AI that helps astronauts on a station, like the ISS, maintain it and help in scientific and research work. In fact, you are the station itself, because you control all its technical stuffing. The direct inspiration of the developers here is, of course, "A Space Odyssey" and the HAL 9000 computer itself. The game begins with the station being in an incomprehensible way in the orbit of Saturn. All SAM's data has been corrupted, so nothing is known about the reasons, and the only crew member with whom there is visual and audio contact is the girl Emma. Under the leadership of Emma, who will give you various commands, and you execute them, you must figure out this devilry and find other astronauts on the station.

The game can be praised for a good atmosphere of mystical horror in space, for a fresh gameplay idea (the game has an award for creativity). The whole UI here, from a visual point of view, is drawn really cool (the design was done by the same person as in the game Alien: Isolation). The game also has a good sound design and soundtrack, I especially liked the one that plays in the credits. By the way, in some places the ambient is very similar to that in Half-Life 2.

What can you scold? The first and most commonplace is save points. The game cannot be saved manually, and when you exit it, and then start again and continue the plot, you have to repeat for 15-20 minutes what you have already done (thanks for saving my time). The second is interface blur, special styling to make the UI look like retro-computer interfaces on CRT monitors or like a picture from VHS video tapes with constant ripples. Since in the game your main vision is the cameras, this effect is quite appropriate and looks cool, but in the internal software interfaces themselves, I do not understand why it is needed, why the UI cannot be without it. On the station map, this blur leads to a complete failure of the UX, since the names of the sectors are indicated there that help you navigate the station, but they are written in very small and thin font - with blur it's absolutely impossible to read them. Third - vague game goals, misunderstanding of what needs to be done in some cases, bad tips and UX of some interfaces. Each interface of some system in the game is, in fact, a mini-puzzle that you need to understand, and it is made as if it was made by a programmer for a programmer, i.e. absolutely not intuitive. And the trick of this is clear here, astronauts understand everything perfectly, and you even more should, you are a computer at all. Unfortunately, this does not work as expected. Sometimes you are given a special diagram or instructions for a particular interface, but even with it you sometimes do not understand anything. Example: at the end of the game, you need to enter codes to bypass the security protocol and you are given instructions with an explanation, in the interface itself there is a diagram of a printed circuit board, in which you need to understand something. I sat for a very long time, trying to delve into the logic, but I could not figure it out, I had to select codes simply by sorting out combinations. This is very bad. Although the game is actually very simple. Another example: in one interface it is written that the gateway doors must be “Closed” before ventilation. Ok, I close the doors, but I can't start the ventilation (the reason why I can't do this is not written). It turns out that the doors should not be “Closed”, but “Locked”. What is it? Localization bug (I beat the game not at English language) or something else? And there are a lot of such moments in the game, where you either just sit stupid for a very long time or do not understand at all what to do. A number of small factors overlap each other, which creates problems during gameplay, although they could have been avoided by adding additional minor polish to the game. Other uncomfortable moments: sometimes you are allowed to control the sphere, but moving around the station with it is painful, since many sections of the station visually look almost identical, and there is no such ceiling and floor. As a result, you constantly get confused in these labyrinths, slightly twisting the sphere in different directions. Facial animation here is very average although Emma's face is shown in close-up very often, but this moment can be forgiven, because the game was made by a small indie studio, although in 2020 (the year of the game's release) it can be safely called a flaw.

Despite numerous flaws, I recommend the game, it is still quite unique in its kind: for fans of the space setting and those who like short story-driven games in which there is an element of understatement in the product.