Alien Video Game Scientist

Alright. [i]Alien Video Game Scientist[/i] is done and dusted. I'm not a speedrunner, which this game is really made for, but for a casual video game fan, or someone like me who just enjoys a wide variety of gaming genres and likes trying new things out, this game still holds value irrespective of a lack of speedrunner status, lol. I played through this about a week ago and then revisited it yesterday when it officially released into early access. With that in mind, let's dive in. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3378649816 This is a platformer with a bit of puzzle solving mixed in, leaderboards to compare your times in levels, and a quirky story wherein you are a video game scientist tasked with unearthing the secrets of an alien video game cartridge found. Accompanying you will be the voice of an AI who guides you through what it needs to really decipher what is found within. Most gamers will immediately recognize this AI as a play on GLADOS, with maybe a bit less psychosis, but an equal amount of smack talking, lol. There can be no doubt that the two person dev team loves Portal. As do I. I thought that provided a fun bit of interaction and motivation throughout the game. The game is also thick with dry humor and video game/gamer meta, which I also appreciated. Add another layer of fun to the experience. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3378649979 The gameplay itself doesn't require precision, and so you don't really need to be a platformer ace to play through this. Although to speedrun it and unlock more stuff, you will need some skills. Which I lack, lol. And things are locked behind speedrunning, so it will not be possible to unlock everything as the game currently stands without completing speedrunning challenges. I don't love this decision, but then again, I also am not the target demographic, so there is that. The game is also made with gamepads in mind, although k/m does function perfectly. And k/m is how I played through the game. There are some cool wrinkles. Your primary goal is to collect as many blue blocks scattered about the levels as possible. There are some red triangles that also can be collected. These move obstacles and platforms. It is possible to collect too many, so you will want to pay attention to what they move and how much they move them. There are also some mazes in the game. They have a quick bypass baked into, although I never used one while I was playing. The end goal of each level, after collecting what you are going to collect, is to reach a red circular pillar. Touching the pillar transports you to the next level. The level designs themselves also embrace a bit of MC Escher-ism, which was really cool IMO. There is also a hub area where you can check out leaderboards and engage in speedrunning specific activities. The hub is currently (at the time of this review) not feature complete, but I have no doubt that will all happen quickly enough. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3378650412 The soundtrack is fun in my opinion. Darker songs with a lot of distorted guitars and such featured prominently for me. I would like to see a few more songs added, but what is presently in the game is all nicely done. The graphics have a bit of a Tron meets other old school arcade games vibe to them. But with a more modern touch. Neon-ish stuff is represented here of course. It all looks really cool. Really drives home the point that you are exploring an older era of video game, albeit one made by aliens. At this point in time, everything the game offers works perfectly, and I had fun playing through it. The $4.99 price tag seems more than fair. There is already enough content to justify the price as is. I do think this game targets a fairly niche audience, but if you enjoy speedrunning, this is a game you should definitely check out. And the video game meta prevalent in the game is more inclusive and can be fun for a wider audience. [b]This game came across my desk via my Robilar's Reviews curator program.[/b] [code]If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/]Robilar's Reviews[/url], it would be appreciated. Cheers.[/code]

Gotta level with ya, I was not expecting to enjoy Alien Video Game Scientist to be as good as it is. But I got to the end (so far), in a single session and had a decent time doing so as well. The gameplay is exactly how the developer advertises it; 3D platformer with mazes and speedrunning. And overall, it does it pretty well. I found navigation to be engaging, only one level really got me frustrated (but it was still a good challenge), the controls are decently tight, and though it does feel like the size of the model is just not right (for some reason it sometimes feels too small or too big) I am pretty sure that is just in my head. The roughness that the edges of connecting blocks can be annoying and some are turned in really odd ways, but it was never enough to create any massive issues. Overall, I think it plays well and once the last of the levels are added in, I think that there will be a reasonable amount of content. Believe it or not, the writing for this game is really good. It has a bit of dry humor, a simple though interesting plot, and quite a bit of charm. What is crazy though is that the simple plot really got me interested about halfway in as I started to put pieces together about the story. I wanted to see the end, and that is pretty neat for a game like this. I won’t spoil anything about it, but it was a pretty cool concept so if you are not a huge fan of the game at first it may be worth pushing a bit further to see if the story grabs your attention for a second. As for the sound design, it is pretty rough at times. The game sounds for jumps, resets, bounces, and setting a spawn position really are odd, and don’t really feel fitting. The music on the other hand bounces between good music with a matching vibe to something that is completely off base and feels out of place. The voice acting in this is clearly an AI voice and some may be bothered by that, but it goes with the vibe in my opinion, so I didn’t mind at all. As for the graphics, I think that you can see from the screenshots that they are pretty much garbage. However, it works well with the theme and it is quite surreal in a neat way. Colors are limited but the contrast is decent, the skyboxes on occasion have images that are noticeably low resolution, and your character is a bean from what your shadow shows (though it may be acting like a box which may be why I had a few issues). It is thematically fitting, but it is definitely not an achievement of art. In summary, I think that this game is pretty good. It knows what it wants to be, it does it well, it is priced fairly, and has an interesting enough concept and level design to keep me entertained. For the first project from this developer, I think this is pretty decent. I don’t plan on speed running the game as it seems like a pain in the ass since most of the ones that unlock things require you to 100% the levels at the same time, but I may come back when the game releases the rest of its content. As it stands in the end, I think it is a decent little 3D platformer and I am glad the developer gave me the chance to give it a try.

I had fun playing the first few levels, then my kids saw and took over. They are into minecraft parkour type stuff, and like solving puzzles, and then spent the next few hours playing it until I kicked them off. It was entertaining to watch and listen to them figure it out.

A 3D platformer where you explore surreal landscapes. The level design is very abstract, which matches the story (analyzing a video game created by aliens) very well -- it does feel alien. If you want to explore something else than quasi-realisitc areas typical in video games, you will get it here. The Steam store description says "it is not a precision platformer" but I would say that you need a bit of precision to play quite often.

Eigentlich sollte "Alien Video Game Scientist" keinen Spass machen. Das Konzept ist absurd, die Grafik hässlich und das Spielprinzip simpel und manchmal nervig zugleich. Und doch hat mich das Spiel irgendwie mit seiner absurden Story und dem am Ende eben doch fesselnden Gameplay gepackt. Aber worum dreht sich dieses Spiel denn überhaupt? Die Story ist hahnebüchend: Aliens haben einen Datenträger in unser Sonnensystem gesendet und alles, was darauf zu finden war, ist ein Computerspiel. Dieses sollen wir nun (als eben "Alien Video Game Scientiest") spielen, um mehr über den Zweck dieses Vorgehens und die Aliens an und für sich herauszufinden. Und ja, das ist so absurd, wie es klingt. Und trotzdem ist sie irgendwie sympathisch. Das liegt v.a. an zwei Punkten: Zum einen der Erzählweise. Die Story wird nämlich von einer unsichtbaren Begleitperson erzählt, die einen auch durch die Levels führt und ich muss sagen, diese Erzählweise funktioniert erstaunlich gut. Zum anderen wird deutlich, dass das Spiel sich selber alles andere als bierernst nimmt. Besonders hahnebüchend wird die Story in Verbindung mit der absolut hässlichen Grafik. Man kann es PS2-Minimalismus nennen, so viel man will, es bleibt hässlich. Und du willst mir erzählen, da gibt es Aliens, die Datenträger durch den Weltraum senden können, aber nur solche Absurdgrafik hinbekommen? Was wesentlich besser ist, ist der Soundtrack. Der rockt tatsächlich ordentlich und sorgt für gute Stimmung. Weniger genial sind die Soundeffekte, die man als zweckmässig aber teilweise auch arg nervig bezeichnen muss. Das Entscheidendste ist aber das Gameplay. Und auch da gilt: Das sollte eigentlich nicht so viel Spass machen, wie es mir gemacht hat. Das Ziel ist realtiv simpel: Komm durch den Level und sammle eine Mindestanzahl blauer Teiler ein. Die meisten Level sind dabei kurz und kurzweilig und v.a. abwechslungsreich. Von Plattforming zu Labyrinth zu Kombinationen mit kleinen Rätselelementen ist immer wieder mal was Neues dabei. Ja, da gibt es auch echt nervige Levels, v.a. wenn man zum x'ten mal einfach von einem Weg herunterrutscht (da täte etwas mehr Toleranz Wunder). Dabei hilft aber, dass man in jedem Level mind. 1 (je nachdem auch mehr) Checkpoints selber setzen kann. Das braucht zwar etwas kluge Planung, wann man das am besten einsetzt, aber unterm Strich ist es eine Funktion, die dem Spielspass sehr viel hilft. Das Ende (das ich aus Spoilergründen nicht verrate) ist noch doofer als die Ausgangslage, wobei damit auch irgendwie passend. Nur enttäuschend finde ich, dass einiges offensichtlich hinter speziellen Errungenschaften steckt, für die man die Levels besonders gut und besonders schnell absolvieren muss und nö, das finde ich nur Quälerei. Was also bleibt? Es muss jedem klar sein, dass dieses Erstlingswerk eines Einzelentwicklers kein Meisterwerk ist, das man gespielt haben muss. Tatsächlich hat es ziemlich viele Nervigkeiten und wird für viele wahrscheinlich unerträglich sein. Und doch hat es mir irgendwie Spass gemacht. Das solide Gameplay kombiniert mit der absurden Story, irgendwie hat es bei mir Spass gemacht. Das heisst nicht, dass ich es bedingungslos weiterempfehlen kann. Aber mit Vorbehalten kann ich es, denn ja, mir ganz persönlich hat es Spass gemacht. Fazit: Ein grafisch grässliches Spiel mit interessantem, manchmal aber auch nervigem Gameplay und völliger absurder Story, dass eigentlich nicht wirklich Spass machen sollte, aber erstaunlich unterhaltsam sein kann. Aus rein subjektiver Erfahrung darum eine vorsichtige Weiterempfehlung.

This game does an interesting take on the 3D platformer collectathon genre. The levels take place on an abstract series of blocks, where the player can either choose to head straight for the goal, or take the more challenging route to grab all of the pickups throughout the level first before completing it. Has some nice aesthetics overall, and a funny voiceover. If you are into first person 3D platformers then this game might interest you. But I personally had some issues with motion sickness while playing, so keep that in mind if you are sensitive to that.

You play as a tic tac tasked with collecting "data" inside a corrupted alien game cartridge. The movement is simple, but fun once you get into the flow of it and figure out some "advanced" techniques.

Spend now 8 hours to play through the game, had some fun speedrunning a few levels for the achivements. Even when one is still missing to achive everything.

Very fun game. Helps develop your skills for other 3D games in regards to jumping and timing.

playing this game for 2 hours had lead me to completing the game normally - This meaning not doing speedrun nor all the achievements In this perspective the game was very entertaining with it's puzzles. Main goal being to collect all the blue panes aka data ( in the story ) to get the full gameplay. These being placed in places that people would need to think as they get closer to collecting them all. The game feels very speedrun friendly and allows players to try new ways to complete the game under small amount of time! I love the idea of the story and feel like more work to it would make it perfect but for now the art shall rest! - Do know that everything in the trailer and pictures in the steam page is what the game is like!