Lifeless Moon Review (euqil)
I have to go with NO for this one. I would be fine with maybe 7EUR and I would be way more lenient. For 17 I don't feel like the game is worth it. Let's go with the negatives first, that is why you are reading this.
It is under 2 hours long and it feels incredibly padded. This game emphasizes the walking in the "walking sim". It's hard to combine vast areas where you should get a sense of loneliness and scale while not giving the player anything to do besides commute. The only way to break the monotony is bunnyhopping and jetpacking everywhere which makes the game kind of ridiculous.
The beginning was promising - sure, a bit tropy but hey - tropes exist for a reason. But then it kind of did not go anywhere. The whole story is basically a carnival ride of a Twilight Zone episode where there is very little exposition shown but the moral in the end should make up for it somehow? There is a weird plot with a second character that is there since the beginning. That character was completely unnecessary for the plot and did not do anything useful past getting you out of the tutorial area.
Exposition is mostly dumped in logs. If I wanted to read a book, I would read a book. I wanted to play a game and instead my finger hurts from holding W for 2 hours.
The game is strangely put together. It has all the components that could make it great but misses the mark on every single one:
Writing - promising ideas but because the game is so short, they can't really flesh it out. Adding bunch of text to logs can't really save it. Ultimately the journey falls completely flat because nothing we went through felt meaningful. It's very straightforward and lacks depth.
Music - the tracks are great but they seem to be playing in wrong places. For instance in the beginning you get big dramatic tracks but there is nothing that dramatic happening. At the beach area you get dramatic music but there is never any danger, you just do a jetpack jump two times in a row. You've done it like 100 times at that point.
Level design/graphics - sure, I don't expect an AAA visuals and I like the environments but if you have to signpost everything with a green glowing area or a thread, it is odd. I don't get how it was supposed to work narratively. The surreal nature of the environments is probably the best part of this game. I feel like they could achieve so much more.
If you spend the money on a bottle of rum instead of this game the experience will last much longer. Or you can buy 2 bottles of cheap vodka and you will remember nothing, which coincidentially is the same amount I will remember about this game in a week.