Introduction

Myriad Cypher is another entry in the McBacon Jam #1 contest and like the last entry I reviewed the game is highly incomplete. While the game actually does have an ending and could be considered complete by some standards. The developers have been rather clear about further plans for this game down the road that include implementing a couple of additional systems such as combat and random missions. As such it's difficult for me to really offer a definitive opinion on this project since there isn't enough finished for me to truly form a concrete opinion on its worth.

Story

You play as a man that is desperately seeking to get back to his family. In order to do so he will need to complete a series of delivery missions at various outpost in order to unlock the gates he'll need to travel through. Eventually you'll receive the myriad cypher, the key, to unlocking the final gate you need to access in order to catch up to the family that you had sent ahead.

Gameplay

As I stated previously the game isn't complete in this area. In the current build the game lacks any sort of combat, but a bigger issue the developer's may need to consider is the cost of upgrading your equipment. It's rather easy to rack up in excess of 100,000 credits in less then 15 minutes in the current build. The idea of buying goods for less on one planet and then taking them to a planet that will pay more for them is a good idea, but without some sort of cargo limit the game has no way of preventing a player from acquiring massive amounts of capitol in a short period of time.

I do have to compliment the game on its controls though. While they do feel a bit simplistic and were obviously lifted from games like asteroid they are fun to play around with and allow for rather rapid turning. Though, I'm not sure the completed game will actually feature real-time dog fights in order to make use of this maneuverability.

Graphics

About the only gripe I have with the visuals in this game is that the planet designs could use a bit more variety. As it stands the current planet designs indicate what kind of goods any given planet specializes in and thus what kind of goods are also in demand. But it doesn't feel all that realistic for every planet controlled by pirates or specializing in refined goods to have the same appearance. Outside of that the game is alright in my opinion.

Sound

Sound wise the game utilizes music found in the RTP which doesn't really fit in well with a science fiction theme. Thankfully the development team does have some other pieces in mind and only felt that it was unfair to utilize music outside of the RTP for the contest build since it wouldn't have been an original composition by the development team. And, I can appreciate that sense of fairness from people.

Conclusion

It's obvious that Myriad Cypher draws its inspiration from games like Privateer, but the current build leaves a lot to be desired. Hopefully the game will be vastly improved with its next update, but in its current state I'm a bit wary of this title's future. And while I would recommend keeping an eye on this title. I'd also recommend keeping your expectations to a bare minimum since I'd hate for this game to suffer from people simply hating on it for not being as good as privateer or similar games.