Lightstep Chronicles

A solid game, but mainly it's a story that you read. An hour in, there has been no action to speak of, yet I find it enjoyable... I credit the authors with taking full advantage of the forced pacing of the dialogue system, which gives texture and rhythm by revealing dialogue at a carefully calibrated pace. The player's sense of certainty about their surroundings and their moral trust are also held in a careful balance, which is not a common achievement. It's good. If you're a patient person who's willing to do a lot of reading, you'll feel like it's sad there isn't more of this.

Lightstep Chronicles is a really stunning looking text-based adventure game. It is very well written and has a solid soundtrack to compliment the atmosphere. Thus far, it is extremely intriguing and I feel that there will be some serious twists and turns (there have definitely been a few thus far). I have read the comic books by Eipix (published by Dark Horse), and you don't need to read the comics to play the game (it is very much stand-alone, although it looks like it will expand on the universe's lore). I most definitely recommend this game!

Just started chapter 3 of this game. A fantastic Sci-Fi adventure / puzzler. Looks amazing, storyline is expertly penned ( give or take the rare grammatical error ) and the puzzles are well made, logical and give you that buzz of completion that you would find in games like Myst / Riven / Zork etc. A real gem 9\10

Don't be intimidated by "text based adventure". This is not a static game; you will interact with the environment on-board the ship and the AI entities as you dive into this very intriguing and immersive story. What do you trust? What consequences will that choice bring about? The good news is that the game offers you great replay value if you are not satisfied with your outcome. You will think as the subject matters may surprise you. We had no technical problems, it ran seamlessly. The graphics are on par with EPIX standards and above par when compared to many others. We really enjoyed this game and hope they will offer us more from the adventure genre.

Giving Lightstep Chronicles a "Not recommended" honestly hurts. The game showed so much promise, but it fell flat on its face at the first hurdle. And the second. And nearly every one. The details I mention are all revealed in the first 10 minutes, so I don't think marking them as spoilers would mean much. It's also just a lot easier to use examples to illustrate the issues. The AI mentioned in the description of the game has dissociative identities. You start talking to one named Aleph, who, after a short time, asks you to fiddle with some consoles to get used to the game controls (using wording that doesn't break the fourth wall). There is exactly one button which does anything, and Aleph thinks you're betraying him. You are given two dialogue options: one to say you were just futzing with the console, and one that describes the specific button you pushed. For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, the first one is labeled "[lie]", despite the fact that I can't think of any way it would not be the truth for a first-time player. Regardless of which option you choose, the conversation sooner-or-later leads to Aleph accusing you of betraying them. The only available options are to confirm the accusation! When I was just futzing with the console! Like they told me to! There's no way a first-time player was trying to betray Aleph. The description attached to the button gives no reason to think that it would be contrary to what you discussed with them. Later in the conversation, Aleph asks if you are going to help him over the other identities. The game pretends to give you the option to express uncertainty -- which to me seemed to be the only reasonable option. I want to hear everyone's side of the story before committing to something that favors one so much over the others. But when you select it, the only result is to have the question rephrased and the uncertainty option removed! The game is full of moments like this, where you can't express the sensible options. dialogue-tree games in general tend to have this issue a lot, but it's generally hard to forgive, and when it happens more than a few times, it obliterates the ability to connect with the decisions. It ceases to be a game and becomes an unwieldy movie. It's especially hard to forgive for Lightstep Chronicles. Even though the visuals are immaculate, they barely respond to the dialogue. There's very little barrier to adding to or adjusting the dialogue. The game is also full of fake choices. Lots of games in its genres do this, but they handle illusory choice in clever ways, such as having the narrative branch for a short while only to return to one branch. Lightstep Chronicles handles it by having the AI say wordy versions of "no" over and over until you are back on the "right" track, or by having one option just be a long-winded game-over. After the second or third instance of this, I was so disillusioned with the choices that I stopped looking for ways to send the story in interesting directions and always picked the "boring" option. If there were real choices after that point, I can't say they'd help. The only time I felt like I had a meaningful choice was at the very end. After I made my choice, I was given some flavortext consistent with my choice, then the credits. So much for a meaningful choice. I'm pretty sure that the flavortext is the only change, but I can't test it out since, after completing the game, your save is GONE. You can't go back and try the other options. If you want to see another "ending", you have to sit through the whole 3 hours of unwieldy movie again. There's no way I'm doing that. These issues don't just create a barrier to enjoying the story, they completely mute it. Very quickly, I was unable to connect with the story at all. I was that disillusioned by the issues above. At the end of the day, Lightstep Chronicles is a moderately-interesting story that you have claw your way through. This story and this game as a whole deserved better. It deserved more time in development.

Its a great looking game if your into text based adventures, but after the first cutscene i thought the rest of the game would be voiced as well....

Honestly there are very clear things to love and hate this game for. The story-telling aspects of this game are unpecable, including the marvelously written text as well as the music. What trully did disapoint was the fact that it did not realy feel like there were any type of branching story paths. There are multiple twists that caught me off guard throught the game, but in the few times it did not i felt stupid having to fall into a "trap" to progress the story. Despite that I definetely advice anyone to buy this game. The story is EXTREMELY compeling and the visuals are stunning. If you are willing to play something more akin to a interactive book, then this game is perfect for you, very similar to "The Ballad Singer" in terms of gameplay.

Just finished my first play through which I spaced out over a few days so I could enjoy this delicious and fresh adventure. I found it to be refreshing in it's exploration of some deeper topics of not just humanity but some psychology, world building, story telling, and character building. I kept finding my self again and again understanding where each character was coming from and connecting with them. The visuals are interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed this introduction into this world created by the developers. I'm ok with not understanding everything up front, as it's deep enough and well though out enough that it left me wanting more, and in that it showcases great taste in how they told their story. It's not perfect, and I'm glad I spaced it out over a few days so that I didn't zip through it and could savor it. Looking forward to my next play through and hope to see more from this developer :)

I love unique games and Lightstep Chronicles most definitely is that and so much more! DO NOT let the fact that it's a text based game scare you because this an Adventure, SCI-FI game that deals with subject matters of right and wrong in a thoughtful and inginious ways . It's gorgeous to look at and the text based reading feels very much in tune to how this game is set up. Except for a few tech issues in optimization which I'm sure is being addressed as I write this the game was a joy to play and replay because decisions matter in this game. This game held my attention wanting to know what would happen and kept me guessing till the end... Highly recommended !1

I really enjoyed the story of this game. The AIs personalities were all distinct and fascinating and the tension between them and the events that led to everything was palpable. I could comment on gameplay, graphics, and design (all of which I found very immersive) but the true star is the story. I've only played it once but I plan on doing a second playthrough to see if I missed any details in the dialogue choices. Definitely worth the price.