Out of Space Review

Out of Space review by Gañan

Score 7/10

Intro:

Have you ever wanted to move out of home, leave your annoying parents behind with their rules and their constant “clean your room” ‘s? If someone offered you a free apartment with the catch of it being in space, would you take the offer? If after agreeing to said offer the salesman laughed and ran away with his copy of the contract yelling “NO REFUNDS!” above his shoulder, only for you to realize that you didn’t read the small print and the house is to be cleaned of aliens by its new owner, would you still invite up to 3 more friends to be your roommates? If you answered yes to those questions: a) i wouldn’t want to be your friend, and b) there’s a big chance you’ll enjoy this cute little game.

Gameplay:

The goal of the game is to clean and “dispose” of all the aliens (aka grind them into dust or mix them into a new battery for your cozy apartment), and restore power to all rooms in the house. There are 3 “difficulty levels” regarding the size of the apartment you will be moving into: small, medium and large.

To achieve this independence you will have to rely on your most trusted friends… the broom and water bucket! Plus some other gadgets that will ease your move into the alien-occupied apartment. The mechanics consist on you having to wipe with your broom the alien goo from the ground, making trash bags from it in the process, which will reward you with coin for grinding them in the grinder; once you have wiped the floor from the room you are in and destroyed any evidence from its previous inhabitants, you will have to throw some water on the doors to be able to get them open without getting dirty with that sticky, smelly alien goo; if you manage to clean a new un-powered room, you’ll need to buy or craft a new battery to power it up and prevent the doors from closing over time. Sounds easy so far, doesn’t it? well that’s because it is, at the beginning at least, once the game lasts for around 20+ minutes, the alien respawn rates will skyrocket and you will be rushing feverly from the water tap to the alien eggs back and forth nonstop.

If this doesn’t sound hard enough for you yet, don’t worry because the game has two constantly increasing bars that you must keep under control if you don’t want to fall asleep on the ground or pass out of hunger, you have to keep yourself fed and rested in order to be efficient on the later stages of the game, or you will keep fainting and the aliens will munch on your helpless body.

Above all this the game has a weekly mutator that will keep the mechanics fresh for the hardcore players that feel like large rooms aren’t tough enough. And to top it all off there are challenges that will award the player blueprints for more items to build and gadgets that will make it easier for you and your roommates to move into the alien-inn.

The game supports both local and online coop, you can even mix them up, up until 4 players, making the game way easier the more people that join in.

Music and graphics:

The graphics resemble the ones from similar couch coop games such as Overcooked or Catastronauts, cute looking but nothing to write home about.

The music is nice and chilled, until you get to the last room to power up, where it changes to a more rushing theme, urging you to make the last push for your new alien-free home.

DLC:

The game just came out and there has been no word of DLC so far from the devs, and they seem to be content with the current state of the game, save from bugfixing and patches they keep pumping out.

Summary:

The game doesn’t have that many players online, so I’d mainly recommend it if you have friends to play it either on locally or online, but with an already made team, not expecting too much help from outside. If you enjoy games like Overcooked or Catastronauts, you will surely enjoy this one as much.

It may not have much content, but it will surely keep you hooked for some good 8 hours or so to complete all the achievements and challenges the game offers, plus the main selling point is the arcade-y feel of the game with friends, yelling at each other to get some water or to feed your passed out character before some aliens eat your toes.

Pros:

-Huge focus on coop.
-Online and local.
-Easy to play and understand, no weird or hidden mechanics.
-Chill gameplay, both good for a relaxing evening or a frantic rush with friends, play as you wish.
-Appropriate for all audiences, no gore or violence involved.

Cons:

-Easy to learn, not hard to master.
-Simple mechanics turn into tedious ones once you play several games.
-Can’t join during a game either online nor coop, you have to get back to the menu losing all progress.
-Low playerbase even at its release.
-There are some annoying glitches that make you lose items every now and then under specific circumstances, having to buy or craft them again.

Written by Gañan