Building the Right Thing

It takes patience, but there is an interesting story in there. I wish there were a proper savegame feature. I don't like having to tediously go through everything just to see how something works.

So. It appears that I am alone in a spaceship with nothing but an AI for company. In order to maintain sanity, according to the spacecraft's manual, I should communicate with that AI frequently. I do have access to a help desk, to report technical difficulties, however; calling up this line and picking through the appropriate options eventually leads to a suggestion that the mission is not all that it seems. Meanwhile, the AI seems to be developing an unhealthy obsession for my safety....

You can play through to a point where you are terminated. Or you can use the escape pod just prior to that. I had thought that perhaps my interaction with the AI and the help desk might have some effect on the storyline, but the only effect I noted was a difference in the "escape" ending, depending on what I told the help desk. Without a save game feature, it soon became far too tedious to explore my options, to poke around and try to discover alternatives.

The presentation is certainly attractive. Everything is managed through a menu system. My main issue with the menu is this: so much of what I want to do is located under one particular heading that I wish that the menu were reorganised with that as the root menu instead. Also, occasionally the "yes" and "no" options did not appear on the screen, even though their hotspots could still be clicked.

I guess the game is like a breakfast of cold hard-boiled eggs the day after Easter. The shells are nicely decorated, but you'll have to laboriously peel them off to get anywhere. At least you get a choice of black coffee or Tang to wash it all down.