Hello, and welcome to a review of a game I found by chance.
How did this happen? I was searching for an old sci-fi horror game (I still cannot remember the name!) with characters wearing spacesuits... and I arrived on this page. Seeing that this was going to be a short game, I said "why not? Let's try this one!". Oh, and the game isn't related to "Shadow of Ganymede", the old Ps2 game!

"In the shadow of Ganymede" is a game made one year ago by Icelord888 with RPG Maker MVin two weeks for a game-jam. The plot is simple: we play as a space miner that has gone to Ganymede together with some refugees that escaped war on Earth. Unfortunately their new home will soon turn out to be not the peaceful paradise they were hoping for. The game is a short horror sci-fi adventure that will take you about twenty-thirty minutes to complete, has one ending but two distinct path that will become available after a certain event occurs, followed by a choice that will determine how the second half of the game will be.

This is when the story splits into two parallel segments that lead to the same final part and ending, the problem is that one is quite short and requires using a particular item (that unfortunately becomes totally useless doing the other path) and solving a simple puzzle, the other... well it leads through some dark caves with hostiles and traps that will kill you instantly. Here there are two main problems: the first is that you have no indication of where you are supposed to go, not even the direction, the second is that the maze of caves is all dark and the torch only let you see what's in front of you. And being attacked and killed from behind is not a good experience, so the only way is to move slowly and with caution, paying attention to the holes and anything that moves in the darkness.


Whoa that's big and scary! Will I survive? Play and see...

Luckily, aside for this problematic section (that I hated with passion and I was happy to notice later that it was just one of the two paths available), the rest of the game is pretty good: from the stylish menu to the charsets and chipsets that are used pretty well (except maybe for the pickaxe and shovels that are a bit odd to be seen inside a hi-tech mine of a sci-fi adventure), and I also believe that the spacesuit and the relative facesets are also custom made (and luckily they conceal the hideous moustache of the protagonist!). There is a great atmosphere enforced by a great use of light (sometimes of different colors too, and do not forget the torch) and darkness, the only problem is that being a short game I really wished it was longer, this in fact could have been a nice prologue or even first chapter of a longer game, but I know that the time during jams is a cruel tyrant.

A problem with the shortness of the game is that the player will hardly sympathize with the various characters (not to mention that a couple of npcs that have just a couple of lines are really unpleasant, so why should I care if they die?). There are also some typos (infatile, saddly...) but no other errors I could notice.

Final Verdict
This is a difficult game to rate for me: I mean that I do not mind the shortness of the game or the single ending, but the two path were two totally different experiences for me: the cave path deserves a 2.5/5 and the elevator one gets a 3.5/5, then for this reason the final result is my rating of 3/5.
"In the shadow of Ganymede" is not a bad game at all, and as said before I won't mind the single ending (even if I hoped for a less abrupt final scene and maybe even a short cutscene with a final surprise... but no) and the shortness, but it just lack of that special *something* that can make it stand out and be a bit more memorable.