Out There (2014)

I felt like the game is random, I made choices hoping those are the right choices because I had no idea what was going on.

Random alien says something Disapprove - Approve I have 50% chance of getting this right.

Random thing happens. What to do? I have no idea, I have no knowledge nor information. I just pick an option and hope for the best.

I jump from solar system to solar system, I run out of this or that because none of the planets have what I wanted. Sh!t happens, my equipment is broke, I can't fix it.

I tried a few times, never got to the end. I did not enjoy the gameplay, it felt random. I deleted it.

If you enjoy the game, and do it over and over again, I am sure you will remember the good choices, this is just not fun for me.

A space-traveling rogue-like sound like a treat, but I have to admit than in about 10-15 play-throughs at Normal difficulty, I've had fewer interesting (and sometimes agonizing) decisions to make than dead-end deaths where my fuel ran out, or my Oxygen. The basic gameplay loop is jump to a star system, move around the planets and try to collect resources (with a minimal UI), rinse and repeat. the occasional discoveries are what prevents it from being utterly boring and the alien race encounters intrigue. However, I found that I was the victim (or fortunate recipient) of luck most times, and that strategizing was not really an option.

Lo and behold, on my first play-through on Easy I managed to get much farther into the game and finding advanced technologies (and especially bigger ships) allowed me some control over my fate. Even the random events were getting familiar. Surprisingly, in this play-through I also got to the/an end, which was semi-satisfying.

I found the lack of explanation on how things work in the game (certain technologies, outcome probabilities, alien languages) leaned too far into "explore the unknown", requiring repeated boring attempts at the game in order to figure out.