Moon Mystery

I feel like all this game's little bugs and quirks would be fondly remembered as a cult classic if it had just had a little more clarity of vision. This game has a lot of aspects, but none are polished. It feels a bit like "We paid for the whole game engine, so we''re going to use the whole game engine." Start with a basic shooter. Add a pile of weapons and a huge number of customizations that look interesting, but instead are ultimately shallow and barely affect game play. Add a skill tree, because why not? It made so little difference that I only used about half my skills - I was saving them for when I knew what would work on a final boss... which never came. So neither skills nor weapons nor the shooting make this game shine. But they were adequate, and wouldn't have held it back. There was _a_ great boss battle though - in the middle. Boss sized monster, cut scene, unique mechanics, the works. A real challenge. It's literally the only place in the game they did something like that; the only way I knew the "final boss" was supposed to be a boss was because after he glitched he took a lot of head shots to kill. So boss battles and enemies didn't' make this game shine. But if other aspects had been there, it might have been good enough. Next toss in some vehicle experiences. These are numerous and varied! Moon buggies. Alien jeeps. Probes. Missiles. Submarines. And in a wide variety of exciting and beautiful scenery! But... ultimately they added little, if anything to the game play. The driving mechanics ranged from bad to abysmal, and the team seems to have lost heart by the end - your penultimate vehicle is just your moon probe driving in a circle on a luggage rack, but is mandatory to progress. The last one is even less exciting than that. So ultimately, these didn't shine either. You mostly got some exciting views at the expense of slow and unpleasant game play. Well, a game ought to have puzzles too. Apparently. So a few of these were thrown in. They were... fine. Nothing anyone will complain about, nor write home about. But how about a story? It's got "Mystery" in the name, but you never feel part of a mystery. You just don't know enough about what your character should know to really get into it. The only reason you don't feel totally lost is the incredibly straight-forward mission objectives: turn off some pillars, and jump through the next wormhole. And, as pretext for a shooting game, I guess that's fine. But if you are looking for story you'll be disappointed. _Very_ disappointed. Especially when the "clues" you initially pick up - alien holographic post-it notes with details about their invasion plans - start to fizzle out. The last three I remember getting were things like "Remember those alien crate looking things you've been hiding behind while you get shot at? They're crates!" And the story is often hurt by the quirkiness of the game, in addition to the poor writing. Audio cues are positional, but often not positioned well. "Look Toby, there's the pillar!" but you won't see it until the end of the hallway. Or cues that are meant to be taken in a particular order, but on an open-world map. Those maps are another case of "close, but not quite." There are some spectacular views, and a couple of the locations are quite memorable, despite being cobbled together from generic assets. But the game seems to want to encourage you to explore the maps without giving you any real reason to. At most, you'll find 10x more "credits" than you could use, even if you wanted all the very similar guns and accessories. But finding anything at all is sporadic - sometimes there's a clever spot with something hidden; most times you'll just spend tens of minutes running around a vast junk-strewn field for no reason. Even when the mission objective is "explore the area." Those explore-able but empty maps are just one of the ways the game sets up expectations it won't meet. In your base you have all sorts of equipment you can interact with. Will you be using it to solve mysteries on the moon? No; in fact you won't' be able to interact with much of anything until the end of the game unless you drive it or shoot it. Cool boss monster in the middle level; will we be fighting more unique bad guys? There are so many great places for them! Like a huge alien industrial complex, where you it's easy to imagine fighting the head of their constantly-hyped engineering corporations. No; it's just a couple dozen more robots of the exact sort you shot already. One of the aliens turns and joins you; will you be learning exciting new information about their origins and society? No, but you will learn that despite having interplanetary ships they stole fireplace technology from humans. TL;DR is this: The game has a _lot_ of facets, and every one is a bit rough and slightly crooked. There's still enough here to sparkle, and if any had really shown the others wouldn't have held them back - at least in the indie game space. But... none quite steps up to shine. So, if you've got 5 hours and want to shoot some robots and laugh at bad driving, and occasionally boggle at scenery, you'll have a good time. I did. If you want story or polish or a game you'll keep coming back to, be it for variety of play style or unique mechanics, you''ll want something else.

I gave this a modest amount of thought and I did finish the whole game. I can't recommend it to be honest. There's too much that's lacking for that price. I really support indie developers but this game needed a significant amount more time in the oven. The biggest issue I have with is that it seems like the game doesn't know what it wants to be. RPG, Ego shooter, platformer, puzzle game. It has all the elements and it doesn't do any of them well. They are just less good or worse. Graphics: It's pretty to look at but you need a very powerful machine to run it, the optimization is awful. I had some insane frame drops in areas and even with a 9800x3d and a 4090 there were areas I only got 70fps on 1440p. The CPU load is insane. The worlds are actually very thoughtful and beautifully crafted but they are unnecessarily MASSIVE. I'm talking literal square KM of space with nothing in between. The driving around is cumbersome at best. Voice acting: The companion robot TOBI has the better voice acting. I personally found the main character not relatable at all. Wanna be badass biologist with advanced military training. Gameplay: Like I said in the intro, the game doesn't know what it wants to be. The mechanics are all there but not flushed out. I had some major gameplay breaking glitches and bugs with boxes getting stuck, vehicles levitating in mid air so I had to reload a checkpoint. MAJOR frame spikes and pop ins from bad optimization The gunplay is sluggish The puzzles are cumbersome and longwinded for no reason. The skill trees are meh The weapon customization is alright and actually has an effect The vehicle driving in general is .. I'm not even sure how to rate it Water level was most balanced Car driving was alright Ship flying was awful Story: this mysterious blue material .. I didn't get it. The aliens were all robots, just call em robots. The main character is cringe in my opinion, not relatable at all. His voice acting just didn't make it feel great. I just can't put my finger on it. All in all it was a nice change but this game is so riddled with issues that I can't recommend it. Watch a play through but I found it more of a chore than an enjoyment to be honest.

[b]TLDR:[/b] I think this game is the definition of a good "bad" game. Go into it with low expectations, and you may be pleasantly surprised. I would give this a neutral rating if that was possible. [h1]Full Review:[/h1] I originally received this game in a Humble Bundle a while back and I came into this without any previous knowledge, without looking at any reviews, and without really even watching any trailers. I went into this completely blind. Your opinion on this game will be HEAVILY dependent on how willing you are to deal with issues not only in the game's performance / fps, but also a few annoyances in the gameplay and story. [u]!!There are NO story spoilers in this review!![/u] [h2]The Good:[/h2] - The soundtrack is what I would consider this game's strongest suit. It's not an over the top soundtrack, but it fit the space theme of the game overall. I'm a snob for good music and I caught myself a few times just looking around at the world, listening. - If you have a beefy enough computer, this is a pretty good looking game. The world building and environment felt good enough to keep me engaged for the most part. It definitely didn't feel like a fully finished product, but it also didn't feel completely thrown together. There was a good variety of worlds and environments you travel through. - Gunplay was also good enough. It was basic and not incredibly satisfying, but I never noticed any issues or pet peeves with any of the guns. There was a decent amount of weapons to choose from, each with different various attachments as well. - The story was a little hard to follow due to the horrendous dialogue (will cover in the ugly), but it was at least interesting at times. - Some people may like this, others not; there are a bunch of random mechanics in this game that you come across for 1 level or even just 1 part of a level, and you never do it again in the whole game. One minute you're shooting robots, the next you're flying in space, the next your in a submarine underwater, the next you're solving Portal like puzzles, ect, ect... I enjoyed this part about it, it kept the game interesting for me, though others may not like all of the different variations. [h2]The bad:[/h2] - The difficulty curve in this game was very unbalanced. I played the game on "normal" difficulty. I died a few times, due to me just being more careless in some areas. The normal enemies are pretty easy to kill with any of the weapons, however there were a couple enemies and specifically a boss that is WAY harder than anything else in the game. Enemy difficulty definitely could've been balanced more. It's not a huge deal-breaker for me, but it did get frustrating when you would come across enemies that were way harder out of nowhere. - The game felt long at times. There would be situations where a certain mechanic would be stretched out way longer than it needed to be, especially when it didn't feel relevant at all the game or the story. [h2]The ugly:[/h2] - The number 1 thing that hurt this game the most was the amount of lag spikes and hitches. This game does not seem to be optimized much at all. You can tell when things are loading into the screen because your screen will freeze for a split second and you'll be facing a completely different way. I did notice that the more powerful of a GPU you have, the less issues you'll have. I will give warning that with some GPUs, THIS GAME MAY NOT BE BEATABLE. I originally started playing this on an Arc B380, which has 6GB of VRAM. There was a specific part in the game that I got to where I could not move forward due to immediately freezing and GPU usage spiking up to 100%. My current specs as of making this review are a Ryzen 7 7700X, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU. With these specs, the performance was a lot better, and I got fewer lag spikes compared to with the Arc A380. There was no part of the game that was "unplayable" with an RTX 3080. - The dialogue was atrocious. This is not a a dig at the voice actors, they were fine. It was the script writing that did not work at all. There would be times where the characters start talking about something story wise out of what seems like nowhere and it leaves you more confused than you already were. There would also be random remarks made that were pretty corny or dumb that would've been better had they not have been there in the first place. Overall, I would give this game a neutral rating if I could. I went into this game with low expectations, and they exceeded them, but only by a tiny bit. There are things that stand out, you can tell that this was a passion project made by a small group of people who were just having a good time making a game, and i have a lot of respect for that. With that being said, I personally would not buy this game standalone, had it not been in a Humble Bundle. If you happen to get this game on a website like Humble or Fanatical for only a couple bucks or part of a bundle you already want, I think it's a respectable addition to anyone's library.

[h2]Sinopsis[/h2] Moon Mystery es un shooter en 1ª persona, que nos sumerge en una historia de ciencia ficción espacial, donde tendremos que salvar a la raza humana de una amenaza alienígena. Samuel Walker es un astronauta estadounidense destinado en la base lunar. Hace 7 días que perdió las comunicaciones con la Tierra y su compañero parece sufrir extrañas alucinaciones. Todo parece estar relacionado con unos misteriosos cristales azules que fueron encontrados enterrados en la superficie de la Luna, los cuales emiten una poderosa energía capaz de alterar la mente humana. De pronto, la base es asaltada por autómatas, robots fuertemente armados que parecen estar relacionados con una antigua raza alienígena. Con la ayuda de TOBY, la IA de la estación lunar, Sam se lanzará de cabeza por un agujero de gusano que lo transportará a otro mundo, para intentar descubrir el origen del ataque y pararles los pies a sus misteriosos enemigos, sin saber que el futuro de la raza humana está en sus manos. [h2]Jugabilidad / Apartado técnico[/h2] Moon Mystery es un FPS de acción rápida, que se nutre de diversas mecánicas para diferenciarse del resto. Esta aventura nos transportará a diferentes mundos, saltando entre ellos espacio-temporalmente a través de agujeros de gusano. Visitaremos abrasadores desiertos, tundras heladas, estaciones espaciales o submarinas y diferentes complejos de investigación o militares. Nuestros enemigos robóticos nos plantarán cara por tierra y aire, pero afortunadamente contaremos con un nutrido arsenal de armas de fuego, granadas y ciertas habilidades. Repartidos por el escenario encontraremos informes, paquetes de munición y créditos. Estos últimos serán la “moneda” del juego y servirán para comprar nuevas armas o accesorios que podremos instalarles (mirillas, linternas, silenciadores, etc.). Matar enemigos nos hará ganar experiencia, con la que subiremos de nivel y nos permitirá desbloquear habilidades, como el doble salto, recarga rápida o mayor salud, entre otras. Algunos puntos interesantes en Moon Mystery será la conducción de vehículos y los rompecabezas. En ciertas zonas podremos conducir todoterrenos para salvar largas distancias y también encontraremos fases donde pilotaremos una nave de combate o un submarino. De vez en cuando tendremos que resolver algún puzle para seguir avanzando, activar mecanismos o desbloquear puertas, estos rompecabezas serán variados, como por ejemplo emplear cubos para dirigir rayos laser o conducir pequeños coches teledirigidos para recoger muestras. [h2]Valoración[/h2] Moon Mystery es una aventura con mucho potencial, desarrollado por un estudio pequeño que ha querido ser ambicioso en ciertos aspectos, pero también con muchos pequeños fallos que deben pulirse. La historia es entretenida, sin llegar a ser excelente, ya que acaba incurriendo en muchos tópicos del género, pero consigue un buen balance entre acción, sentido del humor y dramatismo. Visualmente hace una gran labor, dando forma a diferentes mundos que aportan variedad y frescura, saltando en gravedad cero por el espacio, deslizando por el hielo o conduciendo por el desierto, logrando que se sienta variado y entretenido. Los controles son fluidos y rápidos, transmiten buenas sensaciones a la hora de disparar o afrontar secciones de plataformas. Pero como he dicho, el juego apunta demasiado alto y está plagado de pequeños errores que enmascaran la experiencia. Algún que otro crasheo que te cierra el juego, físicas mal optimizadas que harán que nos quedemos atascados con algún vehículo o explotar sin razón aparente, ajustes que se restablecen cada vez que morimos o salimos del juego, textos que aparecen puntualmente en otro idioma, caídas drásticas de FPS al usar ciertas armas, etc. Ninguna de estas “pequeñas pegas” van a hacer que odiemos el juego, pero acaban haciéndote sentir que estas jugando algo sin terminar, que necesita pulir cositas aquí y allá, para terminar de ser una experiencia óptima. En resumen, Moon Mystery es un buen cóctel de acción, plataformas y puzles, que ha conseguido fusionar diferentes mecánicas con una historia decente, pero que requiere algo de trabajo para terminar de refinarse. ✔️ [b]Positivo[/b]:[list] [*]La historia, sin ser nada espectacular, va ganando forma conforme vamos jugando, dando algunos giros interesantes y apoyándose en el sentido del humor entre el protagonista y la IA que nos acompaña. [*]Visualmente llamativo. Cada mundo resulta diferente y variado, desde el oscuro y profundo espacio exterior hasta bastos desiertos, zonas glaciares, el fondo marino o complejos industriales. [*]Buena sensación y respuesta de sus controles, tanto a la hora de disparar como de desplazarnos por el entorno. Tendremos gran libertad para explorar, gracias al doble salto y la escasa gravedad en algunos planetas. Destacar el uso de distintas mecánicas, conducción de vehículos y rompecabezas ambientales. [/list] ❌ [b]Negativo[/b]:[list] [*]El juego necesita un buen lavado de cara, ya que presenta múltiples problemas, que sin ser catastróficos, empobrecen la experiencia: crasheos, problemas con las físicas, ajustes que se restablecen cada dos por tres, problemas en la traducción de algunos textos, etc. [*]La conducción es un buen añadido al juego, pero no se siente todo lo bien que debería. Los vehículos de tierra salen volando a la mínima curva y las naves se sienten demasiado lentas y pesadas de manejar. [*]Considero que le hace falta algo más de intensidad a los tiroteos, ya que en la mayoría de ocasiones nos enfrentaremos con 2 o 3 enemigos que podemos despachar sin problema, incluso en las dificultades más altas. [/list] 📢 [b]Idioma[/b]: Interfaz y subtítulos en español. ⌛ [b]Duración[/b]: 6-8 horas juego base/ 8-10 horas para 100%. 🎮 [b]Steam Deck[/b]: Puede jugarse de principio a fin, pero no está del todo optimizado. Necesita ajustar los gráficos y ciertos controles. Lo salvaría de las llamas! 👨‍🚒👍🔥 [h1]6’5/10[/h1] [quote]🚨 Si te ha gustado la reseña y quieres descubrir buenos juegos, sígueme en mi página de Mentor: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45092978/] Indies ON FIRE [/url]🚨[/quote]

Game is ok overall, but performance is terrible. I had laptop with 3070 and at some places FPS were at 5-10 even on minimal graphics. Now I got 5070ti laptop and on medium it's barely playable. I understand small studios can't spend too much resources on optimization, but come on... I think on 5090 it would still ask for more and stutter...

Very interesting game as far as its concept goes, but unfortunately the game is plagued by bugs, eventually making the final boss impossible (at least for me) to beat due to it repeatedly glitching all over the place and getting stuck to places where it can't take any damage at all but it can surely damage me despite the circumstance. Another bug is with its autosave feature. If it doesn't autosave after you get a new weapon and you die before it can autosave, if you hit continue, you'll lose both the weapon and the credits you used to buy it. There are more glitches, such as: getting stuck in places, the camera going into cinematic mode leading you to fall to your death in the spaceships level or the gravity not coming back to normal even if you hit those lasers, While I don't recommend it mostly due to the bugs, I should mention that the performance is hit or miss sometimes, but mostly runs very well on the highest settings (reaching 144 fps in most places, except notably the spaceship mission and most of the desert level, reaching about half of that or worse in combat scenarios). And the story does its job, nothing more, nothing less.

Buen juego fácil de buguear Pero el precio que vale no lo es

this game looks wonderful! the visual of the space, the music, breathtaking! Love that developers used some of the mechanics from other games (e.g. reloading while aiming down sights, or Portal puzzles) The overall mechanic and gameplay is really nice, but I have some drawbacks to mention...its the voicing of the main character... sounded without any emotion behind it and it was kind of an un-optimized mess here and there. But all in all, really loved the game! specially the music! (kudos to the composer! :) if there is some kind of an help that I could do to help you guys, feel free to let me know, I can do some QA for your upcoming games if needed. Keep up the good work!!

Can't recommend it. I think i would like this game & it is cool but, The Low FPS in 1-2 cutscenes in my 50min gameplay & the Aim snapping when ADS's or just Non ADS cause me to look in a different direction isn't fun, its annoying & can be frustrating. Saw some rocks intersecting with the stairs but that isn't a big deal. I hope they fix this but its been 1 year now since the last update but who knows. I can see that it has story but im not gonna continue with this game till it gets updated or more updates. This game does have potential & i understand it was made of a small team but i hope they come back to it oneday.

Moon Mystery essaie clairement de jouer dans la cour des grands avec une ambiance très Interstellar, entre mystère spatial, exploration et narration un peu contemplative. Sur le papier, ça donne envie… mais une fois manette en main, la réalité est plus nuancée. Visuellement, c’est beau mais sans plus : certains décors lunaires et spatiaux sont vraiment réussis, presque impressionnants par moments, mais ça manque de vie et de variété, avec des environnements souvent vides ou répétitifs . On sent l’ambition, mais aussi les limites du projet. Le problème, c’est que le jeu laisse souvent un goût de déçu. L’histoire est confuse, peine à captiver et manque de cohérence, ce qui casse l’immersion malgré une idée de départ intéressante . Le gameplay, lui, oscille entre des bonnes idées (gunplay correct, phases variées) et une exécution bancale, avec une IA limitée et des phases un peu brouillonnes . Ajoute à ça pas mal de bug ou de soucis techniques selon les versions (crashs, finitions approximatives, problèmes audio), et l’expérience devient inégale . Certains joueurs parlent même d’un jeu pas assez poli ou mal équilibré. Enfin, difficile de ne pas mentionner le ressenti sur le prix : pour une aventure d’environ 5–6 heures avec autant de défauts, beaucoup trouvent le jeu trop cher pour ce qu’il propose . 👉 En résumé : Moon Mystery, c’est un jeu pas mal, avec une vraie ambition et quelques bons moments, mais qui reste trop imparfait pour vraiment marquer. Une expérience intéressante si tu es fan de SF, mais clairement pas indispensable.