A Martian Odyssey
Horatiu Romosan, music by Thom Brennan (2008)
A Martian Odyssey is supposed to be a game of space exploration and interpersonal
communication, but it falls sort of its mark. Poor coding and bad design are its downfall,
though there's a nice soundtrack going on in the background.
You play the pilot of a Mars exploration team that crash lands on the red planet and has
to find his way back. The writing is minimal, with needed scenery not even implemented.
Certain moveable objects aren't listed that are needed to solve puzzles, and they're not
described anywhere else. The game is pretty unplayable without the walkthrough.
It also doesn't recognize key events, like killing the Martian. He wasn't in the room
description but there were constant remarks about how he was still around. This was rather
confusing. Either don't allow him to be killed, or implement the game properly. The puzzle
design is just poor. I don't think this game has been beta tested, and as we've seen with
other games in this year competition, that can be disastrous. There's even a learn-by-death
puzzle in this game. Need I say more?
The game does have a lot of nice music running throughout it, several pieces have been put
together, but the author should have focused more on game play and structure than the music
that went into this.
It's a light-hearted game that really does try to make you feel something, but I think it
falls sort. The music is a nice touch, but the overall design needs to be reworked before
this can stand on its own. For me, it just felt like an hour and half wasted. Sorry, what
can I say?