Personal Rocket

[h1]Under the Radar[/h1] Personal Rocket is a blend of the classic and the experimental - It's a feverish, crunchy story illustrated with a surreal art style, but is presented with a classic Sierra-style point+click interface and many hallmarks of modern Adventure Game Studio-created hits. The key art of this game kind of sucks me in - I find it very evocative, the dead-eyed stares, the clinical purple-pink shade of background, and the faceless man with a missile sticking out of his head. You know that this game is going to be a little different when there's not even a main menu - just a blank screen and a blinking cursor, where you need to work out how to start a new game on your own. Personal Rocket is a postmodern game about that blends the line between reality and fiction - one that tackles themes like capitalism, paranoia, and feeling misunderstood. Our character seems to be an ex-employee of a large Tesla/Spacex-esque tech company. He lives in a giant, near-vacant apartment complex, and spends his days as a shut-in, investigating his former employer, never going outside. One day, he stumbles on what he feels is A Big Conspiracy that will take this company down (no one believes him), but who also starts experiencing wild visions that threaten to derail his mental state. It's Strangeland-meets-Void and Meddler. The game's puzzles aren't exactly easy, and I haven't quite finished the game yet as of writing this review. I am making steady progress. In the game's first major puzzle, for instance, you cobble together a Linux PC from broken parts, and need to enter the correct commands to navigate through the text directories to mount a CD drive, connect to the internet, and send an email. In-game instructions are provided, but some logic is needed on the player's part as well. This section is very similar to the popular game Hacknet. I am really enjoying the soundtrack in Personal Rocket as well, but the music has a tendency to forget to loop, resulting in long, very quiet sections. If you're an adventure fan, you don't hate the idea of a super avant-garde indie title, then there's a lot to like about Personal Rocket. Pick it up.

This is clearly a labor of love and a very unique piece. A weird, often very funny, poignant and kind of eerie depiction of seclusion and paranoia. The puzzles could be a little bit more user friendly at times, but overall highly recommended.

I highly recommend this game! I'm a little over 3 hours in, and loving the odd dialogue, humor, and solid puzzles. Game play is done entirely with the mouse and easy to dive into. WARNING Potential spoilers ahead: Cole, the protagonist, seeks to bring down an evil corporation known as Cosmic X. Though in a fresh turn, he may potentially be an unreliable narrator. He expresses absolute contempt for the corporation, which includes hatching a plan that reads like the nonsensical ramblings of one suffering from some sort of paranoid psychosis. This "is this real" trope appears often in games, but here the lack of clarity on Cole's mental state really pulls you into the story and elicits a profound sympathy. You want to see him succeed, but are also concerned for his well-being. His friends express a similar sentiment by trying to placate him and nudge him toward professional help. I'm currently stuck on the punch card puzzle, and unsure where it's headed or what will become clear, [spoiler] i.e. : is Cole simply mentally ill, or is he actually in touch with another dimension? [/spoiler] but I'm eager to see it through! Nice work, guys!

Normally I don't like games with puzzles based on operating arcane machinery and deciphering cryptic instructions. Personal Rocket is not a solitary exploration game though. It has interactions with NPCs and inventory-based puzzles, and the twist is that the arcane machinery is old computers. It's quite amusing that things like a command-line interface (with some typing required), SATA cables, leetspeak and non-decimal numeral systems can be used in place of alien technology. If you don't want to figure out how to write numbers in different numeral systems or which axis and direction are chosen for the polar angle, you still might not like the puzzles. But none of the puzzles are difficult, and, in fact, all of them except for encoding numbers and typing can be easily brute-forced. The design is quite good in that aspect: a puzzle can be solved by going around knocking on every door or by realizing there may be a clue indicating the correct door. The dialogs with NPCs are quite short, but the writing is good, and there are some funny moments. There is no voice acting. The interface is fine, although it took some time for me to get used to the left/right mouse buttons being Look/Use instead of the more common Use/Look.

Don't know why the good reviews. Game is boring and you need to understand programming / hacking / all this PC focused stuff to progress in the game. Background music is annoying too, personally couldn't find a single selling point.

Very cool short (took me three hours) indie point and click, with a lot of personality. The puzzles require a good amount of reflexion and understanding the systems you operate in the game, sometimes some side internet research. Perfect for an evening of head scratching and feeling smart! By the people behind Imaginaria, which you should also play if you like original games that live at the edges of the industry.

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