This is one of the most interesting indie games I've come across in my Steam adventures. It's very clearly a passion project that pushes some major boundaries, but also suffers for its ambition. Strap in 'cause I'm going over this one in meticulous detail. It deserves the attention.
Ghostship Aftermath is the story of a two-man crew that comes across a huge derelict spaceship in the middle of nowhere. You are the adventurous one, donning a bulky spacesuit and delving into the ship only to very quickly discover that things have gone terribly wrong. Your partner stays behind to guide you in his impossibly snarky way, but is soon cut off by the ship's AI who warns you that your partner may not be who you think they are. Your job, then, is to survive the perils of the derelict while siding with either the man or machine to bring an end to the deadly infestation aboard. It's an interesting premise, and feels heavily informed by 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The ship itself is a labyrinthine mess of halls and hatches. Much of it is locked down in the wake of the disaster that left it drifting, but it is so huge that the parts still open feel overwhelming. The ship is split into four sections, each with seven decks and plenty of elevators, stairs, and sublevels between them. Here the game feels like an open-world System Shock, with armories and medbays and cargo holds and engineering compartments to explore. Fortunately your allies provide you verbal guidance to your objectives, which you REALLY need to pay attention to because it is quite easy to get lost.
There's a remarkable level of detail in parts of the ship, as well. The halls and chambers can get a bit samey, but smaller elements like debris and signage are worth paying attention to. Of particular note are the computer displays around the ship, which ALWAYS feature readable information. I'm not sure how useful any of it is, but it's a fantastic addition. You also experience the entire game through your suit, which has a HUD reminiscent of the cockpit in Descent. It's a little distracting, but once you get used to the size and locations of useful info it's good for immersion.
Once you get the AI switched back on and the ship warms up, you find out this has roused the monsters that killed the crew as well. You're directed to a weapon which is effective but has VERY little ammo available. While combat is an option, you really need to run from what you can and save your shots for the things you CAN'T run from. I encountered three kinds of enemies as I played. One was slow but prevalent, easy to escape but I always had to be on the lookout for. Another was small and fast but easy to dispatch. And the third was quick and dangerous and had to be dealt with before it tore me apart. The creatures are scattered around the ship, just common enough to keep you on edge every time you turn a corner. I had a fantastic experience after I grabbed the weapon and was moving to another part of the ship. As I got to the airlock to the next section, I heard some kind of creature behind me. I ran and triggered the doors, and when I turned to look I saw the shadows of something lumbering down the hall. The airlock shut just as they were about to cross the threshold. The whole thing gave me shivers.
All of this combines into a package that should rival the likes of Alien: Isolation... A huge open ship, a variety of monsters roaming the decks, NPCs you can't fully trust, and an atmospheric, immersive environment. And maybe if it was made by a AAA studio it would have been. But as I said, this was very clearly a passion project, and in this case that sadly takes more from the game than it adds.
The game's engine is terrible. There's really no getting around this one, I'm afraid. It looks good to be sure, but everything outside the graphical polish is clunky to the point of being unworkable. The first warning sign was the options. Instead of a menu, it is a QUESTIONNAIRE, to be completed one option at a time. You can only pick one of two resolutions, neither of which were optimal for my display (1680x1050). Furthermore, the controls cannot be rebound. If you want to change something that isn't on the quiz, you're out of luck, and anytime you want to change one of those options you have to go back through and make all your choices again.
Within the game, movement is the biggest problem. I know you're supposed to be in a clunky space suit and all, but this ship is HUGE and you tromp around at less than human walking speed. There is a sprint but you run out of stamina quickly and the view shakes so much that I literally got motion sick and had to stop playing. It's surprisingly easy to get hung up on geometry, and walking over debris on the floor can make you pop into the air or wiggle up and down like the game doesn't know where to settle you. The worst part is that this can affect the monsters as well, killing any sort of horror or tension they impart. Remember I mentioned a quick, deadly enemy that attacked me? The first time it pounced at me, it got stuck in the wall and stayed there for a whole 30 seconds, swinging at me impotently until it dislodged itself. All the terror I felt when it first attacked evaporated instantly.
There are other annoyances, like strangely sticky mouse controls that slow way down as you move the view across eye level. Your weapon has a fixed aim at a point that is NOT the center of the screen and that you have to hold RMB to display the actual reticule for. There's no indication of what items can be picked up and interacted with, which can lead to some serious DOOM-style-secret-door-hunting wall humping. The writing is extremely amateurish and the voiceovers do it no favors, taking a lot of wind out of the interesting setup between your partner and the AI (the AI isn't bad though, having a cold, mechanical delivery to very clinical lines).
But perhaps most damning of all is how the huge, open-world nature of the game actually works against itself. For as huge and detailed as the ship is, you're stuck traipsing through it at a snail's pace, struggling to remember where you're going or figuring out how to get there, and desperately looking for things to interact with because they are few and far between. Your first task for the AI is to get one of the ship's reactors online. If you take the most direct route, you discover that the stairs in the Engineering section are blocked and you have to backtrack to another section to get into the sublevel access. This is after walking the length of the ship and waiting through 3-4 loading screens as you traverse each section. There are entirely too many loading screens as you play, having to sit through one every time you move between sections, decks, or key areas. I think there's something like 4 load screens just getting from your ship to the derelict in the intro, where all you do is put on your suit and exit the airlock.
I honestly wish this was a better game. I think there's a good game in here, buried under a bad engine and suspect design choices. But this goes beyond something like The Witcher 1 or the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R., where a little patience will reward you with a deep and fascinating game. I just can't imagine putting the time in to learn the lay of the ship and how to deal with all the janky creatures. Not when Alien: Isolation hits all the same notes and does them so much better.
