Gonna have to try Sable on game pass. Only game I’ve been playing regularly is slay the spire. Such an easy game to pick up and put down.
Started playing The Captain yesterday, and I hardly managed to quit and go to sleep.
There’s just so much that comes together in this game: a Star Trek vibe, amazing pixel art, exploration, turn based combat and not least the point & click segments. And it all blends together rather seamlessly, making for quite the unique experience. (Although I guess some of the actual Star Trek games of old might have been along those same lines.)
Basically you control the Captain and are tasked with delivering an all important gizmo back to Earth in a predetermined time limit. On the way you’re free to visit different planets or space stations, take on space pirates and other rabble, recruit crew members, trade, upgrade your ship and solve puzzles. Only traveling from A to B advancea time, of which there seems to be precious little. Hopefully I’ll make it, but it certainly means there’s no way to explore every location of interest in a single game.
Away missions and story events are implemented in traditional point & click fashion. The smaller ones are but a single puzzle chain, but I’ve also come across some that were more complex. They all seem to have multiple outcomes, based on which puzzle you solve or how you decide to solve it. There’s no manual saving, so I guess the intention is that you roll with whatever choice you made and make the best of it. Once unlocked, you can apparently chose an ending on subsequent runs instead of having to play the segment again.
All this means that especially the first playthrough is rather exciting, as there’s no knowing how the time limit will pan out, and what consequences certain decisions will have. I have no idea if it’s possible to die (it’s definitely not a Sierra-style experience), but I would not want to rule it out. Obviously, losing a space battle certainly must mean game over (or reload). Luckily, it’s possible to simulate each encounter to come up with a viable strategy for winning before committing to it. The hints shown during loading also indicate that it is possible to finish the game without a single fight, but I’m not averse to turn based combat. It’s actually a bit like a puzzle in its own right.
The overall tone of the game is rather serious, but it’s not entirely devoid of humor either. One particular character and the way he was introduced reminded me a bit of LeChuck from MI1. That was funny in its own right, but at the same time also quite sinister.
Anyway, from all I’ve seen so far, it’s a highly recommended game!
And for completeness sake: yes. I’d finished Sable some time ago. Had nothing more to add, though, other than a little sadness when it was finally over. But what a journey!
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@kaiman thank you! definitely playing it next (right now I’m splitting my time between the new Darkside Detective and Truberbrook)
Some observations after another session yesterday:
I noticed that the ship is able to tell the time it takes to reach Earth from the current location, giving a pretty good indication of the number of days available for exploration. Also, visits to planets do occasionally consume extra time.
Contrary to what I thought, each autosave goes to a different slot. So even though saving usually happens after weighty decisions, not all is lost should things not go according to plan.
Other than that, my initial assessment still holds.