(I don't normally post full reviews from the website I write for, but I just realized that I didn't rate the game on here and didn't feel like writing about it again)

8.5/10

We see Earth as a marvelous and elegant place, floating around in space, full of life and invention, intrigue and discovery. Relationships blossom, memories are made, and people are hard at work producing things for our own consumption. A couple give birth to their first child, which is a monumental event in their lives. We never actually see these things happen but we can assume that they are since it’s all in a regular day on our beloved planet. So then what would happen if a giant asteroid suddenly struck it and obliterated everything, conjuring up an unusual explosion that would make Michael Bay proud? In RymdResa, we are a nameless astronaut who seems to think he’s Edgar Allan Poe (not literally), and we are lost in space. The tugging and pestering of solitude is constant, and we must investigate the vast and unforgiving galaxy in order to maybe form a new community.

This is one of the more interesting roguelikes to come out in recent years, and that’s refreshing because it’s a genre that the indie community has begun to play out. It’s bound to happen with any genre, and AAA companies have a history of milking genres like first-person shooters, but it’s nice when something a little unique can rise to the surface. What separates RymdResa from the pack is its emphasis on providing a calm experience at the expense of any real combat.

It is split into three chapters, but the gameplay remains the same for most of it. In the first, you simply travel to the mission objectives while avoiding obstacles like asteroids and other dangers. You don’t necessarily have to move from point A to point B in a linear line, which opens it up a little bit. In the second chapter you drive around trying to find materials to build onto a world, but the actual way in which you do this is very similar to the first chapter… minus the game actually telling you where the destination is. The third chapter is best to just experience yourself blind because it opens up a new universe.

On your travels, you can pick up rare items to equip onto your ship or use while you’re flying around, such as something that destroys everything around you. You collect experience points which allows you to level up the pilot and add points into four different categories, which will aid you on your quest. You can also find other planets and wrecked space ships, or merely stay in space for a year, and these things can give you Spacepoints (a sort of currency that makes it possible to launch a game with different ships), and in some cases resources. There are minor choices that you can make throughout like investigating a ship that may actually detract from your resources, Spacepoints or both, but it’s not real damaging since these things are plentiful.

Resources are your lifeblood: there’s a bar at the bottom of the screen that acts as both your fuel and your life. You can speed up your ship at the expense of your life, and when the bar goes empty you die. This makes you have to manage and think about your actions, such as maybe not using that speed boost, but to be honest it’s really easy not to do something stupid to get yourself killed. It’s more important to keep your eyes open for anything hazardous that may be drifting about. Don’t keep your foot on the pedal and you will be fine.

This is integral to the game because it’s not about rushing. It has a mostly soft, soothing soundtrack that tries to put you at ease as you voyage through the great unknown, and not allowing you to speed up constantly makes you sit there patiently as you coast through the stars. This is a double-edged sword, however, because I found that during the second chapter things that get incredibly tedious if you aren’t lucky enough to stumble across the materials you need. I felt bored on occasion, during certain runs, but on others I was considerably more fortunate. That’s the unfortunate aspect of a procedurally generated game, especially when so much focus is put on the expedition.

In case you aren’t familiar with roguelikes, here is a crash course: when you die, you die. Some are nastier about this and make you start over from scratch, but a lot of them offer some kind of progression system in which you may lose certain things but you retain other valuables. In RymdResa, you keep Spacepoints, and there are checkpoints throughout the game. There are certain rewards that you can build up to, and you maintain your level. In this way it’s a much more forgiving example of the genre, which is a plus because I never got the impression that the couple that developed it wanted me to get stressed out or angry; I never felt like they were trying to truly challenge me.

I would call the game reassuring if it wasn’t for the subject matter. It’s at odds with itself because it wants to relax you but at the same time you are a lonely pilot trying to find and cultivate life. His own emotions and well-being are documented with the usage of diary entries, and his own bible. Littered throughout space, for some reason that breaks immersion a little, are sentences that tell you things like “don’t judge.” I’m not entirely sure why these were placed there when the rest of the game is rather inclusive, but they are. I mean, you can even hit a key to get rid of the hub so you can better submerge yourself so the random lines don’t make much sense in that regard. I understand that it’s trying to push a message onto us but that wasn’t required.

Truth be told, it’s not much to look at. Most of the models are very simplistic in nature, and the ships don’t look that appealing. They do change depending on what you add to them, which is a nice touch, but they never astounded me. Yet there is a certain allure in its aesthetic, the way it recalls an older time, when computers were less colourful, and the various objects that you come across are decently detailed. There is also a degree of variety in the places you visit that prevent it from feeling stale. It definitely has a nostalgic feel to it which will entice a certain audience.

I enjoyed my time with RymdResa. It’s not exciting but there’s a certain charm to it even if it gets boring on occasion. There was obviously a lot of care put into it, a lot of time thinking about what they wanted to accomplish, and that seeps through. There are other, bigger releases this week, but it’s still worth checking out.