Universe 25

[h1]Tentative thumbs-up[/h1] [b]I was initially unimpressed by Universe 25, but it sort of won me over by the end[/b]. I discovered this game in the Hitcents Big Adventure Event of 2022, and was absolutely mystified by the store page. When I discovered this game, Universe 25 had NO AUDIO on the store page trailer. It had no guides. It had only 2 reviews (both positive). Despite following the adventure genre pretty closely, I had never heard of the game or its developer, and some google searching turned up close to 0 results - nothing about its release, no reviews, no dev website, no twitter chatter, nothing except a youtube video from 2019 showing a short demo playthrough of an early build. Even the steam forums only had one or two posts, and these were mostly just musings on the strangely small internet presence of the game. With a super reasonable $2 price tag, I did what anyone would do in that situation, [b]I took a gamble[/b]. [b]Right out of the gate, I hit some technical issues[/b]. Currently, the game does not properly launch via the Steam client after a clean install. Fortunately, this can be permanently fixed with a 3-second tweak in the game directory. The game also launches with no audio - however, while there is no voice, [b]the game does in fact have both music and sound effects[/b], you just need to raise the sliders up from the default 0. While playing, I did also encounter a handful of bugs, most non-gamebreaking, and a few spelling errors or typos in the dialogues. [b]The game itself is an offbeat comedy[/b] that unfolds over four chapters, and is about 4 hours long on a first playthrough. The game appears to be named after a famous controversial experiment from the early 1970s, in which rats placed into a utopian environment devolved into a dysfunctional hellscape society despite the overabundance of top-quality resources available to them. We play as nondescript government worker John Smith 58008 (lol, boobs), who has amnesia for some reason and spends his days toiling away in the equally nondescript Ministry of Licences. One day, John learns of a villain named Karlov who has developed an experimental drug that causes creatures to grow inside people's stomachs, Alien-style. We spend the remaining three chapters tracking Karlov through a metropolitan commercial district, a rural village, and finally, an old insane asylum. A game mechanic grants us access to a government teleportation device, which allows us to solve puzzles by revisiting older areas. [b]While a good portion of the humor falls flat, the game held my interest[/b] with the strange setting and interesting locations. Not to say I didn't chuckle once or twice, but the slightly surreal bits in this game were much better than the outright gags. Why does the bad guy run a greasy spoon diner? Why does the shopkeeper sell radioactive candy in exchange for inflatable parrots or shrunken heads? Why does everyone in the game wear a gas mask? I could only roll my eyes at some of the lame references and truly awful out-of-place puns, but once I got past the first chapter, I genuinely enjoyed the construction of the game's strange puzzles, which definitely follow the wacky type of adventure-game-logic the genre is famous for - but in Universe 25, everything is signposted pretty darn well, with the game doing a good job at leading you to the correct solutions via item descriptions and context clues. I also really wanted to push through to the credits to learn more about the team behind this game, because, again, there's ZERO online. Spoiler: it was a solo dev named Martyn Norman. [b]There are certainly worse ways to spend $2[/b], so if you're willing to roll the dice and gamble a few bucks on a four-hour point-and-click, there's certainly a reasonably good time to be had here, despite admittedly a fair bit of rough patches. If you do decide to buy the game, I have posted a full walkthrough over in the Steam guides tab that includes instructions for correcting the .exe error and on avoiding a few of the other bugs. Ultimately, I am glad I took the plunge on this one, because I felt sort of like a pioneer, completing a game that maybe only like 3 people had ever completed before me? By posting this review, I am increasing the library of written material about Universe 25 on the internet by like a full 50%. That's pretty cool.

I don't usually write reviews, but I feel like this game is getting no attention. Its been okay to play so far. I have only had to two glitches where I had to click multiple times on an object for it to work. Other than that I would give the game a try. The price isn't bad either.

This is simply a nice and cheap game. It's quite enjoyable and it has some kinda difficult puzzles that don't always make sense. The game is small, but with a decent story. It has a few bugs here and there, but nothing too important. It doesn't get much attention, so buy it and see for yourself how much fun it is. Till next time, don't forget to point & click!

Now that was fun! Interesting, and bizarre story, fairly tough puzzles, and pythonesque shenanigans ensure a pleasant couple of hours. Do yourself a favor and get this mini adventure. At its current price it's really a steal. There are a couple of small bugs, none ending in deadend, but make sure you save often if you don't want to be redoing things. Especially, make sure you save every time you are about to talk to Cassandra. Also, there's this problem with launching the game. You can launch it from the game folder, but I recommend checking out the Steam guide on how to fix the problem and launch the game properly from Steam, as this will also update it.

I loved it. Unfortunately, a bug that prevents launching the game from Steam means the recorded playtime is inaccurate, but the game itself is roughly two hours long. The humor is excellent, the conclusion is somewhat eerie, and it clearly ends with a sequel in mind—sadly, one that will likely never happen. The game is highly recommended if you enjoy The Curse of Monkey Island–style puzzles and humor. [quote]Follow us for more [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45113328-Awesome-Adventure-Friends/] Awesome Adventure[/url] [/quote]

After 3 years, finally a new review! This surreal game is wonderful and should get way more attention. Before this I played 'Elroy and the Aliens' and I was very disappointed. Luckily, this game lifted my point-and-click spirits again. BUY and PLAY this game now! If you're getting stuck, there's a guide in the Community Hub. It's probably about 5-6 hours.