Forever Space

Wow. Great little game. I watched Pinhead Games grow up on AGS so many years ago and they've come a long way, baby! :) This short little free game is an excellent display of their talent. Despite some lightly long load times ( I've seen longer in AAA games) I can think of no other negatives. The story was great with a wonderful ending. The voice acting was very good. The graphics, while not intense, were pleasant. The puzzles were light and logical. I can't say enough about this title. Congratulations, Pinheads!

There are a lot of problems with [i]Forever Space[/i] - and even as I point out it's flaws, please remember that this is a small, short and [u]FREE[/u] game. With that in mind, it's very hard to say that it's not worth your time seeing as it's both functional and somewhat interesting. [i]Forever Space[/i]'s biggest fault is in existing as a game at all. The gameplay is crude but functional. There's nothing glaringly wrong with the game, and since there's not really much to the gameplay aspect anyways, what is here is "good enough". Which also goes for the graphics on display here. The game isn't beautiful to look at; the pre-rendered scenes are low-res, the animations are janky and the character models as basic as they come. That said, it has a cohesive style and a clean look that never feels cluttered. The absolute worst part of the whole experience is the voice acting though. Some of the actors put on decent enough performances ([i]while others still are absolutely terrible[/i]) and these are obviously amateurs who very likely paid very little ([i]if at all[/i]), so that is as expected. [b]However[/b], the audio quality is garbage across the line! Almost every bit of dialogue reeks of cheap, low-quality "bedroom" microphones and terrible processing. Static, mic-overload, white noise, pops'n hisses, dry echo, etc, etc, etc. If you can think of an audio problem, this game has it. I really wish [i]Pinhead Games[/i] had left an option in to turn the voices off because this is not only distracting but directly harmful to the entire experience. So then, why bother? Well, because the story is okay. I say "okay" because the script is nothing stellar - but the actual plot is solid. I have no idea if Catalina Leon only wrote the story itself or if she also did the script for the game, but I did enjoy watching it all unfold. It may not be wholly original ([i]I can think of a dozen films with a similar premise just off the top of my head[/i]) but the story is told in a lean and effective way with very little unnecessary fluff. While I still maintain that [i]Forever Space[/i] is not a great game - it could have been a very solid episode of [i]Black Mirror[/i]! [i]That[/i] is, ultimately, why you should give it a try.

This 2017 freeware release is "more of an interactive experience than a game" as the description on the store page correctly states. In classic point&click adventure fashion Forever Space is controlled entirely with the mouse, with left-click used for both movement and interactions. A minor difference to most adventure games is the lack of an inventory, collected items appear as menu options for interactions with particular hotspots instead. Forever Space has realistically rendered 3D environments and cel-shaded looking character models. Character animations also appear largely realistic. The graphics are somewhat minimalist without much detail. It is fully voiced and while the audio quality is not on a professional level and the voice acting is not always great it is, like the graphics, at least serviceable, especially for freeware. The background music is unobtrusive but fitting the atmosphere nicely. Forever Space has minmal gameplay elements at best and I would classify it as an interactive short story, told through dialogues with NPCs and inner monologues of the player character. As such I don't really want to compare it to games. I recommend Forever Space as an alternative to reading a short story or watching a movie (or rather an episode of a tv show, because it is really short). I enjoyed the story and consider the experience an hour well spent. Since it doesn't cost any money and not much time... why not give it a try? ;)

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Interactive fiction adventure with a bit of point'n'clicking mixed in but is really all about the story. It could technically be placed under sci-fi thriller category, but the sort where the tension slowly builds up to a shocking resolution, the slow-burning kind. Although it has a "violent" tag, it's more of plot device (with just a few seconds depicted graphically) and has a much deeper meaning to it but does not mean you get to kill people left and right, or stumble through blood-smeared hallways looking for action. It's primarily an exploration of the theme, so the game is pretty tame comparatively speaking. There's a bit of p'n'c involved, but there is no inventory (you pick up items and use them automatically), and all the steps are predetermined and serve to progress the story. You can't fail here - there is only one way forward. Dialogue is simple, but well-written. No flowery prose, no long unnecessary forays sideways - just people trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It's also well-voiced, especially considering that it's a free indie. Nice ambient "space" music keeps up the tension yet is mellow enough to allow for exploring at your own pace. "Forever Space" would be a great fit for those looking for a thought-provoking title. There is enough interaction with an environment and NPCs here to make it "feel" like a game, but it still would be better described as an IF/adventure mix. This story, however, is worth exploring, as at leaves the player pondering on some interesting topics and concepts. This is probably the most unique title of Pinhead Games, and (if you familiar with some of them) is ways away from their usual fare, but the quality they are known for is there. It could be finished under an hour, and it's FREE. Go for it if sci-fi meta-horror is your jam.

Жена сказала, что если на этом обзоре наберётся 10 лайков и 5 наград, то она подарит ящик пива. Мужики, выручайте!

"Forever Space" is a very poorly made point and click adventure, visual novel heavy, with a sci-fi theme. It's thankfully short, and when the only good thing you can say about a game is that it's short, that's a real problem. Another problem is the way the developer sells this as "This experimental short story is more of an interactive experience than a "game"."... and if they don't themselves think this qualifies as a game, [i]why would they do the wrong thing and publish a non-game in the "Games" section of Steam???[/i] Graphicswise, this has some fairly mediocre looking graphics that will understandably be a turn off for a lot of gamers, and it's a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers despite having no up-front cost. Some of the art looks like it's created using generic "character generator" software or something... it looks bad. The voice acting is worse... yes, awesome games need awesome voice acting (just look at games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Baldur's Gate 3). But bad voice acting doesn't improve anything, it makes thing even worse! Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game. Nothing demonstrates a developers belief in themselves and their work than giving it away without any remuneration. This is a service to themselves, and the gaming industry, and should be applauded. Of course, just because something is free, doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable. Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 4 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? Not this time. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough.

Not bad for a free game. A simple point and click adventure. I didn’t like the ending, but apart from that, the game is okay. I was able to play straight through without the need for a walkthrough.