Ambrosia Sky

Very interesting gem of a game. Sort of a mix of first person adventuring a la Metroid Prime, some light immersive sim style level design in the vein of System Shock, story telling reminiscent of Tacoma, and casual clean up similar to Power Wash Simulator. Weird mix, but one that never fails to impress. The only real problems are that the game is a bit glitchy, Act 2 especially, and the fact that the collectibles are absolutely pointless and feel like a late-development, tacked-on, decision. Some of them are pretty tedious to find and bring the pace of the game down quite a bit and IMO the game would've been better without them since, again, they do nothing and only serve to pad out the length of the game. But those are some pretty minor complaints. Overall I had a great time and appreciate the strange mix of genres and the excellent world-building. Can't wait to see what this developer comes up with next!

I completed the game (both acts 1 and 2) in a little over seven hours, most of which I enjoyed. The game looks like a story-driven science fiction power washing simulator and for the most part, that is accurate. There are some very basic enemies, which are not a challenge, some puzzles (especially in act 2, when the game introduces an annoying new fungus type) and a whole lot of cleaning. In between cleaning up the mess of the fungi, there are story expositions (lots of text, most of which ends up not very interesting and the presentation of the story is unfortunately a weak point overall) that tell a grisly tale of a dead colony that ended up being consumed by its own food. Oh what irony! There is also sort of a love story and family drama, all of which is clumped together with too many characters which mostly end up dead before you get a chance to actually care about them or their fate. I think if the story and characters had been presented in audio logs instead of email logs and the MC's reactions were less generic, then the story and characters possibly would have been a much bigger deal. The story isn't bad, the presentation is just antagonistic (and inferior) to the gameplay so one tends to skip reading to get "back to the good parts". The actual gameplay loop, a power washing simulator in space, is very enjoyable. It activates the right neurons, so I mostly ended up cleaning everything, even if it was unnecessary. Who knows who might want to use those ships and colonies in the future? They might be happy about a de-fungi-fied environment, even if it's full of dead people... Anyways, cleaning remains the game's strong point until the end and there is just enough variety in the missions, locations and tasks to keep it interesting. The highlights in either act are the respective missions where you are just basically in deep space, cleaning and puzzling your way around a broken down space ship or a giant satellite. Those missions were the most fun for me. In the end, I did enjoy my time and will recommend the game. I am also glad it was relatively short and did not overstay its welcome, as the gameplay loop might eventually become more of a shore and the story was not the driving factor. So good on the developers to respect the player's time and giving us a chance to finish their game.

I'm really enjoying this for the most part. I've always wondered what it would be like for a cleaning sim like Powerwash Simulator to be turned into a full fledged game. And as I suspected, a few missions in, it's pretty good. Story is interesting but maybe a little bit too focused on all the dead characters we've never met and know nothing about outside of a few 3 paragraph computer notes each. Which when we're talking about a dead(?) planetoid-sized creature that's rapidly growing crazy alien fungi, the characters are by far the least interesting part of this story. I think they're focusing on the wrong things. Maybe that'll change as the game goes on though. My one really major piece of feedback, the basic water limit/timer is just bad. On the powerful/electric/etc. fluid types, sure. But not the basic water. I get what the devs were going for. They were looking for reasons to give you to collect samples, and figured upgrading your water timer could be one. That works when you're upgrading your bullet time in a shooter, for instance. That doesn't interfere with the core loop, it's just an additive on top of the core loop. But this isn't it. In a game where the fun is literally in the cleaning, an arbitrary timer on your ability to clean is just the "time until I can have fun again" timer. So I do a lot of emptying my tank, and stopping and waiting for 20 seconds for it to refill, repeat. This timer is fluff, more cynically it's playtime padding, and it detracts from the experience and absolutely does interfere with the core loop.

I would recommend the game on a good discount. The gameplay is good (for a cleaner type game) and the setting is good (the idea that the rings of Saturn are actually the slowly decaying corpse of a space whale is interesting). My problem is that it feels like part 2 was rushed, and the story suffered for it. This is a game i wish there was a middle recommendation.

Achei um jogo legal! É bem relaxante, possui um estilo que chama a atenção e uma história maneira, que cumpre bem o papel (com destaque para o ato 2), além de uma gameplay divertida no estilo de Power Wash Simulator. Vale a pena conferir!

I found this game really interesting. The story is moving and I found the gameplay enjoyable. It is kind of like a sci-fi powerwash sim but also some interesting puzzle based aspects. I'm really hoping for further acts so the story can be expanded upon as it lays some interesting groundwork and I found the story in act one very touching.

for 2 dollars this gets the "Hold up! His writing is FIRE??" photo