STARDROP Preview

There have been a fair few walking simulators in recent months -- games with a strong story and a lot of wandering around in first person. The team behind STARDROP seem to have taken a shine to one of the more prominent examples, Firewatch, when designing their spaceship-wandering sim.

You play the part of Aryn, who is partnered with John on board the Stardrop, a space station which acts as a kind of space search and space rescue. Spaceships go missing, and it’s up to these two to find out where they are, and what happened to them. That’s basically all there is to the concept, and it’s set in a semi-open ended world -- or galaxy rather. Although I only played the demo which is available from their site, it looks good so far.

I got the gist of things, exploring a little of the Star Docks station, as well as fixing a problem with the spaceship they use to find dead ships, named the Finix. That’s dead as in ones without power, not full of the undead. STARDROP touts itself as a family friendly affair, which means no undead things. Instead, you explore ships which may or may not have crew aboard -- the one in the demo has androids wandering about for instance -- and have to find out why they are floating out in the void.

I’ll be honest, the statement of being family friendly is what appeals to me most. I’ve been put off by Firewatch for that exact reason -- I can’t guarantee that it won’t scare me. I’ve written about how I don’t like scary games so much that even I’m getting sick of it.

As Aryn wanders around, your actions will unlock more sections of the ship, which will require you to do backtracking, in a metroidvania-lite style. Though you won’t get upgrades -- as far as I’m aware -- you will make use of what your containment suit has: a flashlight and a scanner which has a nightvision-style capability -- for if the room fills up with steam for instance. You can pick things up, and refer to your datapad for hints on your next objective, but apart from running and sneaking there isn’t very much you have to remember.

There is a bonus level in the demo which has one of the puzzle elements -- sneaking past android sentries. This proved to be quite a challenge, as they didn’t seem to be patrolling. They didn’t attack when they spotted me, but I had to reset the alarm they set off, which meant I was back to square one each and every time.

The only down point I experienced in this very early demo was something not everyone will even see. The subtitles need to have a proofread or two. You have to set the subtitles on, and I always do no matter the game, so if you don’t use them then you might not find anything wrong with it. Even if you do, it’s still just a free alpha demo.

The graphics are looking sharp and crisp, making great use of the Unreal engine. The voice acting is great, though I was confused why the guy in the log at the start has a Mississippi accent and a Japanese name… Aryn and John’s voices suit them well, and sometimes rare for a first-person perspective, you can actually look down and see her arms and legs. It’s a little touch, but a nice one nonetheless.

I honestly can’t wait for STARDROP, and hope it has a productive final two weeks on Kickstarter.