Little spaceship adventures: Mysterious Space

There's this weird feeling I get sometimes when I wonder about how children growing up nowadays interact with video games and imagining what they'd want. Not in the sense of them imagining the games they want to play, since the hype pumping media handles that, but what they imagine when and if they imagine some hypothetical game. What spills from their imaginations, now that gaming is pretty unrestricted in what it can do.

As a child, I imagined a lot of the things that are now common place. Open world, overworld maps, exploration and procedurally generated, these concepts all seemed "the future" and they slowly came to pass. Now that we're here, well...

They're pretty great. Anyway, Mysterious Space is, I think sort of the game I imagined as a child. Admittedly this is a very budget little indie title, nothing exotic or exciting about it, but it does have that sense of wonder to it. It is basically a game about a little spaceship, adventuring across the stars, or more in particular flying down to planets and exploring them for precious fuel.

Oh, and yeah, Mysterious Space is essentially a roguelike or roguelite or whatever I'm supposed to call this basic set of mechanics. They are grafted onto a simple space shooter, but the combination actually works really well, as opposed to my general feeling toward rogueLs.

This game doesn't have the brutal fatigue that sets in, nor the unexplained mechanics you just try to figure out desperately that the game maker assumed you'd read a wiki on. It's very easy to figure out what you're doing in this game, which is a plus and a minus at once.


Anyway basic premise is: You're an explorer ship sent to an unknown sector to determine what an unusual signal coming from the centre of the sector is. The game's story is, at times, told from the background with logs and other little references - but it is mostly about being an explorer craft. You need to acquire fuel from the surface of plates, which looks like delicious space pie, to make it to the middle of the sector then back again.

The game is a side-scroller that goes through relatively small generated worlds, which does kinda come to my first real complaint about the game - planets are too small and a bit too simple, and could use a little more stuff - and enemies spawn in over time. There's no timer on the game, and I'm not entirely sure if the enemy spawn timer is per game or per world, as stuff does tend to get pretty vicious in the late game.

There are several different kinds of planets, and they each play differently. Ocean worlds are filled with water, which most ships move through slower, while desolate worlds are pretty barren, mining worlds have mining shafts you have to descend down, and haunted planets are all misty spooky. Each planet has its own music track very suited to it, and the game's music works really well. Besides this and the system map, there are also planets with vendors and a little hyperspeed mini games where you dodge debris and pick up loot.

The game's loot system is its main roguelike element, and it's pretty good. It's not great, but it's good. You can pick up four basic kinds of loot. Plans and logs, which either have flavor text or some form of upgrade you can either start the game with or build. Equipment, which you can install on your ship in slots between missions, or to replace damaged equipment. "upgrade points", which allow you to buy upgrades... And this is what I kinda don't like ... And then on use items, which come in a variety of forms and do all sorts of random stuff. Using on use items effectively is the key to surviving the game, as they are randomized in the roguelike way but very beneficial in the mid to late game. Examples include a "temporary shield" that doubles your shield points, invulnerability, reversing your controls or "sensor malfunction".

Sensor malfunction is probably my favorite little element of the game. Basically, a small part of the screen goes black during a minor malfunction, which can be tricked by various enemies or damage, but a full malfunction blackens the entire screen slowly. It's lo-fi and simple but it really works. Oh, there's also a tracker beam, and you can carry stuff around. This is usually for little block puzzles - put a block on a switch - or for taking rovers back to outposts. Outposts give you little quests.

Anyway I found the upgrade system a little more lacking than I'd like. They're all useful, but you get the first couple, then you're done. The game takes a bit too long to unlock new ships, as well, as they're either A) random plan drops B) random plans that require multiple drops. Some ships have extra slots for upgrades, but you have to buy the upgrade then find something to install, and not everything installs together - you can't have two on use accessories though I guess that makes sense.

Visually the game is... Well, you can see the screenshots, it looks like a game from my childhood... But it does have some nice details, like trees blowing in the wind or little animals tromping around the surface of the planets. As with most of this game, it is simple on the surface, but detailed where it counts. All the planets look very, very different and the color palettes are well selected

Anyway, it's a simple little game. It's pretty relaxing, and oddly, one of the few games I've reviewed I think would be excellent for younger kids as well while still being fun for adults. It's nothing amazing, but it's a little indie title, so I wouldn't expect much more than what it is. I got a good number of hours out of it, and I'm pleased with it.