A Collection Aside
MEGHANN O’NEILL curated the 20 videogames showing at Sydney’s Play Fare recently, and we decided these games were too good to keep to ourselves. As well as Objects in Space, now fully released and ready to be featured, we discovered games from a range of genres, many of which are delightfully artistic and experimental. Sydney-based titles like Projection, by Shadowplay Studios, were also in attendance, but we have chosen to introduce you to some of the ones that we haven’t covered.
Objects in Space could not be further from an idle game, yet that’s the way I most often play it now. I’ve roadtested it at conventions, and it certainly attracted attention at Play Fare, but I love it even more, as a simple part of my everyday. Typically, I’ll be enroute to a new station, with cargo pods full of components, computers, or other gear that I’ve been contracted to haul across the galaxy. Autopilot is handling my ship’s systems, pirates are unlikely, so I’ll switch to the scene that is my space bedroom and I’ll start doing (in real life) household chores. If I hear the ship taking damage, or that I’m being hailed, I’ll quickly return to the game’s window.
It is basically like having another life to lead, one in which I arrived to a new frontier 45 years late, after a jump went wrong. They were planning to build a gate back to Earth. The planets here were supposed to have been inhabitable. This was intended to be the best of humanity, starting anew. Although my arrival caused a little stir of excitement among those still interested in history, I have no choice but to freelance as a pilot. There’s no other role for me. I feel shocked and disenfranchised, yet determined to survive in this curious, unexpected future.
It wasn’t until I met a fellow pilot, who had been tricked into undertaking a terrorist act, that I began to grasp the political complexity of this place. Could I take them to safety? It would be dangerous but I was only otherwise occupied by ferrying explosives to Leo. Why hadn’t I considered that my regular explosives run to Leo might be fueling the very terrorism I was now bearing witness to? I was just taking their money. This contract is no accident, however. It’s the first of many chances I’ll have to decide how to exist here, as I explore and learn. I even saved this pilot’s life, when a biological wire they were carrying started to kill them.
They also paid me 10,000c, which allowed me to purchase a jump drive. My previous contracts had been worth a couple of hundred each. I couldn’t go back through Maru, until local authorities had forgotten our daring escape, so I began taking ‘the long way around’, through uninhabited star systems. Next I learned why the game is called, “Objects in Space.” When there’s no safety nearby, like space stations or the law, an unknown object on your radar can be terrifying. The waveform it’s emitting might provide a clue to what it is, but only if you can successfully interpret it.
I suffered my first death at the hands of pirates, while trying to quietly maneuver to the jump quadrant of an unnamed star. Thankfully, the game loads back to the last place you docked. Too many hours are invested to make any kind of real death fair. I’ve never bought weapons for my ship, because there’s enough violence in this new frontier, as I see it. This is a valid, if risky, approach. It would be equally as valid to become a pirate, or a bounty hunter, but I increasingly see myself as a misplaced anarchist, clinging to some other version of how things were meant to be.
Obviously, in dangerous places, or with less peaceful playstyles, the Objects in Space experience then demands your full attention. Either as an idle game or not, it requires
Why hadn’t I considered that my regular explosives run to Leo might be fueling the very terrorism I was now bearing witness to?
We approached the design wanting a naturalistic world, so there’s never any repeated dialogue.
commitment. It’s impressive at shows like Play Fare, but I didn’t understand how detailed, evocative and truly awe-inspiring this local creation was until I took it home. I don’t feel I’ve adequately explained it on this page. It’s really something you have to discover for yourself and in your own way. Just know, for starters, that there’s a whole other life waiting for you across the stars.
I should mention that I’ve become friends with designers, Elissa and Leigh Harris, at game events held in Sydney over the years, which is why these pages comprise an “impression” of Objects in Space, more than a formal review. Also, with the game’s complexity in mind, I asked them to share some friendly advice for new players, so that (if you decide to buy the game) you can get a jump on finding the content which may interest you.
PCPP: Objects in Space requires you to pilot your own spaceship. Any tips for learning the ropes?
Leigh: Play with everything. Spend time seeing what things do. Watch what uses power, increases your emissions and makes you more visible. Scroll through the different monitors on different screens. Just trust that we’ve designed things so you don’t get punished for every wrong button press. Learning by failure is part of the fabric of the game.
PCPP: What is the best way to get rich quick?
Leigh: Well, there are missions which let you rob powerful people and make some serious cash early on. But you may find yourself unwelcome in certain systems if you do this. Otherwise, keep completing contracts for the same company. At the start, they pay very little, but quickly become profitable.
PCPP: What happens when we anger the law?
Leigh: This is a game about choices. You can absolutely make yourself a persona non grata in some systems if you anger the wrong people. But most mistakes in front of authorities will net you fines or incoming torpedoes, rather than a pragmatic reason to self-exile. That said, things can be grey. The game doesn’t judge you for choosing to be selfish every now and then. And the best ways to really get under the skin of the law is embedded in the game’s quests and stories.
PCPP: How can pirates be tricked and avoided?
Elissa: I often carry a basic cargo pod with me, filled with a piece of scrap metal. That way if a pirate threatens me, I can dump that one bit of cargo and jump away, head for the nearest nebula or dock at a nearby starbase. If I’m lucky, by the time he realises he’s been given a load of scrap, I’m either undetected or far away. If that’s not an option? I often shadow authority vessels. Most (but not all) pirates will avoid attacking you if you’re right near a police cutter.
PCPP: Where should players search for story and lore?
Leigh: There are plenty of small stories to engage with near where you start, but the most interesting stuff is deeper into the game, in both time and space. Unlike contemporary RPGs, quest-giver NPCs are only around to start missions when it makes narrative sense for them to be there, so they’ll only be there for a limited time, and many won’t appear until the mid or late game. If you check out new places and play for longer, you’ll get to the less common and more unique and interesting stories.
PCPP: What is your favourite thing about the game and how do we find it?
Leigh: It’s the intersection of the game’s complicated systems and its narratives which make it shine. There are dramatically tense moments, sure, and there are moral choices which ask a lot of you, but they’re made more interesting by your other predicaments. A choice to screw someone over is more interesting if you’ve been making mistakes and getting into lots of debt. The narratives don’t assume your situation, so there are heaps of pleasant surprises in there when the two interact in interesting ways.
We approached the design wanting a naturalistic world, so there’s never any repeated dialogue, you’re seldom the galaxy-saving hero, you occupy a space between other people’s lives rather than living in a world which feels awkwardly made for you.You’ll miss opportunities, fail and mess things up, you’ll be unsure if you made the right choices and that’s fine; it’s all part of living in this game world. You exist here, but it’s not yours.