Space!

"Space!" is a short dodging/puzzle game starring in space.
"You're a pilot with one problem: you're in space", and sure enough that is as charming as the game ever gets.

There is no introduction as to why you are here, what you are doing or why you are doing it. I realize story is not the strong point of any puzzler, but a space pilot in space seems legit to me. Trying to "survive" space as the only reason to be there seems rather odd when you went to space in the first place.
You get an explanation of how the game works, that is all.


Story complete.


In any case, with beautiful charsets you never see during gameplay you then set out to the game!
The graphics itself are solid, clear enough, although the color palette makes it a little bit tiring on your eyes after a while. Asteroids are grey, black holes are grey, even your save point is blackish grey.
Only ships have some color. And keys you later on have to find.

The music is .. exhausting. There is just a simple mixture of one line reminding you of thinking games and something bassy in the background to indicate the heavy burden of space. Atmosphere-wise, well enough, but the repetition in the 20 seconds of the track is hard enough. Enjoy it repeating all over.
There are a few more tracks, presumably for some sort of boss, which are much more enjoyable. Too bad you do not hear them for the largest portion of the game.

So what do you do?
You have to avoid asteroids blocking your way and get to the next stage until you finally greet the end of the game.
You have three hearts, which only replenish after dying, or are healed one after another by white ships. Why they are ships of all things I do not know.

If you hit an asteroid (except the ones used as walls, you cannot maneuver your ship into them) you lose one heart. If you hit a red enemy ship, you lose one heart.
If you hit a black hole, you are dead and are returned to the starting plattform of the stage. Checkpoints and scarce to nonexistant.


The first problem here is .. you will almost always automatically die if you hit anything. These asteroids are moving, if you are caught anywhere - dead. If you are hit from one moving down towards you - dead, if you are hit by a fast ship, dead.
If you take many hits before dying you sometimes even take hits to your grave and lose hearts on your respawn point. Healing items do not respawn, so best go kill yourself. I wonder why there are hearts at all, there are only rare occasions where a mistake will not instantly kill you.

The second problem is .. while most of these puzzles rely on timing, you sometimes have a hard time making out when to do it exactly and have to go by trial and error, with much room for error. For example, you once have to pass through a asteroid group moving in circles. You go to the middle, and then through the middle out again.
You have to move slightly before asteroids leave the tile below you, too early and you take damage. Slightly too late and you take damage. There is no way to know when exactly is a good time. You just get used to it and hope for the best.

The third problem is that the game does not handle all asteroid groups properly. Rows sometimes do not stay in lines when they move, but build stairs and whatnot.
You can often still pass through, but even then there is little to no point in replaying that part again and again.
In the worst case it results into impassable terrain. Impassable. Impossible.


No way in hell.

They should not move that way, and it blocks off your exit. I tried a couple of ten times and gave up, because the one time it was right I messed up myself, and I could not get the formation I am supposed to go through again.

It destroys the little fun you can have. The learning curve is too little to enjoy with too much randomness to properly feel your progress. There are too few checkpoints, the puzzle/dodging is not even much fun by itself in the best parts of it, and there is no charm to be seen anywhere. Not in the environments, not in the story, nowhere.


I do not see why anyone would want to play this game when they need to rely on luck to even beat it. It could be a frustrating good experience, but I cannot for the life of me see the good in it.
I can only hope some people get to hopefully better parts of the game.