Andromeda Apocalypse

Random Thought: "I can be the one that gets through to this Hyerotope and create peace throughout the universe."

This game was incredibly solid. It had robust puzzles, dialogue, backstory and dealt with questions of sentience and the importance of life, especially to creatures who are so vastly different from any sort of humanity. Do these creatures have the moral right to do what they want, lesser creatures be damned? Do they even care or recognize? What does this say about humans who do similar to other creatures? The antagonist was creepy in a mental way. Then there was the issue of the ship's humanity, if it had any. This game was just an enjoyable breath of fresh air: well-written and thought-provoking. The puzzles all made sense and followed an internal pattern that made sense. I enjoyed the innovation of offering unlocked achievements instead of just points - it made each point seem that much more rewarding, and gave that much more encouragement to replay. Aside from the achievements though, I felt that the game very much followed the adventure game formula, and I would have liked a little more variation.

The only thing I didn't really enjoy (and this is a small nitpick compared to how solid the rest of the game was) was the frozen monster - he must have been taking up a lot of power? Also, I am not ashamed to admit this, but I am horrible with directions, and I map each game I play. (SPOILER NEXT SENTENCE) I felt very proud of finding a solution to dealing with this monster who was always behind me - leading it in a loop that would put the monster at my back and the cart at my front. But the game did not recognize this solution, and I ended up wasting so many turns doing this that I died and had to restart from somewhere in the middle. In the end, the  monster chase didn't feel like it fit, and perhaps ruined what would have otherwise been a very high-level scifi game with a kind of scary that didn't really fit the pace of the rest of the game.

9/10