Ambrosia Sky

"What if we told a story composed EXCLUSIVELY of dramatic emotional resolutions?" I'm very on the fence as to whether to label this review as Negative or Positive. Ambrosia Sky is not necessarily a "bad" game, but it is very disparate. The story strongly believes in "tell, don't show" and tries to have big dramatic and emotional payoffs without any buildup whatsoever. You're supposed to go from not knowing a character to "Why is the world so cruel that they're dead but I'm alive!" in a matter of four emails from unlocked terminals. The gameplay and the story don't mesh at all. Towards the end of Act Two the main character just won't stop talking about "ooooh I'm so emotionally conflicted and filled with angst and this means so much to me" while the player is just walking in a dark hallway powerwashing meat fungus. The nature of the gameplay also means you'll be moving through the levels erratically which completely ruins the little amount of pacing the devs did include. I can't help but feel that Ambrosia Sky would have been a better story if it was connected to a completely different game, something more like ULTROS. The game also feels like it is only loosely piled together, there is no cohesion between gameplay elements. Ambrosia Sky looks like it is about powerwashing an alien infection from a space colony, except it's really about traversing to the end of a mostly linear level to press a button and sometimes alien fungus blocks your way. There's a whole upgrade tree, except half of it is completely unnecessary. You can switch to wide nozzles while powerwashing, except they kill the spray power so much they're genuinely useless. There are alternate cleaning fluids you can use, except you have to replenish them with finite resources that are also used as your upgrade currency. The special movement ability, the spiderman-esque tether, does not feel good to use. Act Two demands you use it a lot more, but also has noticeably more physics jank. Lots of props getting launched around or jittering between G/zero-G areas. I feel that Ambrosia Sky never decided on what it was actually about and so the entire experience feels vague and incomplete.

Unfortunately, this game misses the mark in almost every way imaginable. The job sim element is basically meaningless and all you really have to do is clear a few patches of gunk to get to the end of the level. The game won't even keep track of how much fungus you clear unless you revisit the level later, and clearing a level of fungus does literally nothing anyway, even the mission select screen doesn't properly update to say you've cleared it. The immersive sim elements are present, you explore around through vents and do basic puzzles while harvesting some items. The upgrades you get are largely meaningless other than one or two that are needed for puzzles. There's a few collectibles too, but ultimately you're just running to the end of the level and there's barely enough mechanics in between to differentiate this from a walking simulator. The story is bizarre. Rather than focusing the plot on the imm sim or job sim elements (you know, the actual gameplay) the plot seems to focus on death and personal relationships in a game where there are no npc interactions. That is to say, the plot is entirely estranged from any of the main gameplay elements. The story is told through the melodramatic narration of the protagonist and audio logs. There seems to be a particular fixation on death, wherein you'll pass five corpses in a level but then you'll find a Corpse That Matters and be treated to some pretentious abstract cutscene that I suppose is trying to evoke the mystery of death but fails miserably. The premise of the game had potential I think but everything is so disconnected and pointless. Oh also it's still extremely buggy...

If Prey (2017) and Powerwash Simulator got together and contemplated mortality Really beautiful game

Having just finished the full game I'd definitely recommend it. Act Two really steps it up in all areas and brings things to a satisfying close. The story and exploration are superb. I loved delving into each level to learn about the cluster, what happened here and why it matters so much to Dalia. That said, don't go in expecting an actual immersive sim – there are elements of it in the mix, but I'd still say it's closer to Gone Home than Prey.

Boring, poorly optimized and constantly bumping into invisible things because either the hitboxes are way off or the game thinks that objects that are no longer there are still there.

+ Цікавий науково-фантастичний сетинг; незвичний мікс механік наративної історії та… симулятора прибирання; унікальний візуальний стиль; просторові головоломки; дуже демократична ціна; другий акт усі покупці першого отримають безплатно – Візуальний стиль може сподобатися не всім; це поки що лише половина гри ! Ambrosia Sky: Act One – маленький прихований інді-діамант, який точно заслуговує на увагу поціновувачів наукової фантастики та наративних ігор [url=https://mezha.ua/reviews/oglyad-gri-ambrosia-sky-act-one-309408/]Повний огляд на "Межі"[/url]

Blue/Purple/Pink box art is a hard NO every time, even if i like it (i don't). They even threw yellow in there for their FAVORITE identity! (MAPS) You designers are sick and AI will soon take your job.

This game was so utterly disappointing. The issues I have with this game actually began before it was released. I enjoyed the demo and felt that the full game held promise, given that it seemed to combine the zen gameplay of Powerwash Simulator with an intriguing sci-fi setting and rudimentary immersive sim elements (I love poking around interesting environments and reading people's emails!). However, the game was then released incomplete, as part one of an eventual trilogy. The developers were not clear on whether the second and third parts would be paid or free, and it appears that they themselves had not yet decided, which raised red flags. Evidently, the developers needed to get the game out of the door and secure additional funding for further development, which I think is poor form if you're not releasing a game into Early Access. Eventually, a second part was released as a free expansion and it was explained that this would complete the game, with the planned third part I presume being cancelled or integrated into the second part. The entire release schedule screams of a poorly managed project, and on purchasing and completing the game, I am even more confident that the "finished" product does not reflect what the developers had hoped to release. I'll start with the positives. The game has a great look. The developers have managed to realise a very striking art style, that uses colour and contrast to great effect. The gameplay is actually fun, in fits and starts, but doesn't really evolve beyond the early levels. The game combines the cleaning gameplay of Powerwash Simulator, but you are cleaning "exo-fungus" rather than dirt, and the exploration gameplay of Prey. I never found the cleaning gameplay particularly engaging, but it was mindless in a satisfying way, adding a little bit of friction to exploration. There are four types of exo-fungus, and although they look different, only one of them requires any type of strategy to remove. You can carve the exo-fungus carefully to extract "fruit", which acts as a currency for the skill tree and crafting different types of spray. I found that the basic spray was suitable for all challenges, and rarely used the other types of spray. There are hints of deeper systems at play, in that an electrical spray can be used to draw conductive lines of gel between power outlets and unpowered doors (to access secrets), but this was vastly underused as a system and I recall only doing this twice. I found the "corrupter" fungus introduced in the second part of the game tedious to deal with, and the only major frustrating roadblock I encountered during my playthrough. You explore a variety of locations, including living quarters, farms, labs, a spaceship and satellite. Only the two latter locations felt distinct, and I did feel throughout that the levels didn't feel "lived in" in any sense. I kept trying to visualise the people of the cluster milling about and living their lives, but I couldn't, feeling that the levels were more a collection of corridors and assets than feasible locations. The immersive sim "lite" exploration was enjoyable, but underutilised. The emails and personal logs of the cluster's inhabitants are readable at random terminals dispersed throughout the levels, which never made much sense to me. The story, however, is the most disappointing facet of this game. The writing is melodramatic. Interesting concepts and worldbuilding are introduced, but never really explained. Characters are introduced and dismissed in the period of one level, and thus never feel fully developed. The plot is primarily delivered via one-liners uttered by Dalia, the protagonist, and in the reading of the personal logs and emails of the other characters. Dalia is so utterly unlikeable as a protagonist due to the combination of poorly written dialogue and, I'm sorry to say, woeful voice acting. There's not a line in the game that Dalia's voice actress speaks without affecting the same overwrought, scenery-chewing delivery. The material she is given to work with is poor, but my god, every time she speaks it pulled me out of the game. Dalia is written to sound bored, overdramatic, and petulant all at once. Her relationship with her stepmother and other estranged loved ones are both under and over explained. In addition, all the characters suffer from same character disorder, in that they are all written to sound like the same person. I wasn't able to pick out an individual voice even once. This is typified in that there are no less than two non-binary characters and at least four lesbian (or at least WLW) characters. I'm gay, and love to see LGBTQI+ representation in video games, but even I was put off by the (ironic) lack of diversity in relationships across the cluster. The ending of the game is so sudden and devoid of any real resolution or explanation that I just immediately ALT+F4'd and uninstalled the game in frustration. Nevermind that I became stuck on level geometry after the second-to-last cutscene and had to replay a significant chunk of the final mission up to that point. Overall, I can't recommend Ambrosia Sky. Clearly, a lot of very talented people set out to make this game, and it's such a shame that it fell so short in the end. I would love to see what the development team could do with more time, budget and some serious killing of darlings

Outstanding art direction! The creative vision really came to fruition. I like that most of the voice acting is delivered through monologues. This amplifies the sense of isolation and gives you a lot of space to ruminate and absorb the atmosphere. The notes and environmental storytelling beautifully weave together the narrative. While the gameplay is simple, it feels complete, and each location provides some optional exploration. I recommend waiting for the Act 2 update in August, which will conclude the story. However, it's also worth buying now, since the price is set to increase with the update.