HRO: Adventures of a Humanoid Resources Officer

If you're a big fan of tongue-in-cheek sci-fis like Space Balls and Galaxy Quest and have an appreciation for choose-your-own-adventure books then this game might be the perfect match for you. Given a handful of resources (e-mails, documents, disgruntled peers) and a smarter-than-average (maybe even too smart) AI buddy, it's your job as the HRO to use your wits to influence your fellow shipmates and overcome crisis after crisis plaguing the Endeavor. Or not - sometimes picking the "bad" option is just as fun. ; ) And "by the Three Farmers' Markets of Hades," don't forget to wear your badge! Some key points: * The opening sequence is nicely done, setting up the atmosphere as well as the story, and the puzzle elements help to keep you immersed. * Fun music, excellent voice acting, and animations that shows hours of effort. Seriously with the graphic style, the devs could have gotten away with sock-puppet mouths, yet the animation is linked up to the words being said. A simplistic art style that's not simple at all to do. * For such a text heavy game, the use of bold font for key words really helps to keep things readable. Same with the simple interface - nice and clean! * Relatively bug-free, especially given the game just launched.

This sharp and funny send-up of trek contains a whole season of capsule episodes that would be right at home in [i]TOS[/i], built around choices with significant consequences. The highlight for me was getting to know the various crew members over the course of the season - they'll often reference past choices that affected them, or reveal a bit more backstory over time. Also, what clever choice design! You only get one action at each turning point, and it often won't be enough to resolve the situation on its own, so I had to think about how my limited actions might overlap with what the crew might do, and who I could trust to do their job in each situation - which actually felt like what a Humanoid Resources Officer should be good at. If you like choice games, definitely play HRO! Disclosure: I playtested an early version of the first episode, and received a free copy of this game. This review is after playing the full release.