Anoxia Station Reviews

lovely

Now I know why mining is a stressful job.

Something original finally.

I liked it, its spookey but a bit repetitive.

Normally whenever I play a game that has wonderful aesthetic but plays like sh*t, I toss it into the trash so fast I often can't even write a review - less than 5 minutes. Here I ran into issues within the very beginnings of the tutorial; and yet, I kept playing until I beat the game. I even had fun. Why, you ask? It became immediately clear that the devs seem to barely understand software development, much less game design - all the while delivering expertly on the vibe. So I treated this game as a lovecraftian descent to hell, and accepted the awful, seemingly illogical design as a fitting part of the experience and attempted to adapt. [h1]The Awful[/h1] Let me explain what I mean by awful. - "press any key" doesn't include mouse clicking - "skip" is apparently synonymous with "just move forward after reading" - after beating a level, everything seemingly freezes, unless you remember that you're supposed to press space to skip a text scene (it's not written) - you think the pumpjack will only pump out petroleum when there's any petroleum in the reservoir next to it? Wrong! It has its own passive production too, generating petroleum out of thin air. - do you think the hydrogenerator will only produce electricity when you have water? No! It will simply lower your water level to zero, even if it is zero, and keep working. - do you think the base will stay upgraded once you upgrade it? Yes. Unless you do it before the game tells you to do it, then it will be reverted by the start of the next mission (only one time thing luckily). - they recommend you play on a timer, but if you do, you won't be able to pay any attention to anything, since the timer is so short - even if you play without a timer, some game events will still happen as if there was a timer, and you can even miss events like that, as they're timed and don't come back, and it's possible you'll miss a few without even knowing they were there since there's no indication - whenever you unearth a monster, you get what's essentially a weak jumpscare (annoying rather than scary), with the camera centering on it. But if there's something else that the game decides is worth centering on (such as unearthing a reservoir) you'll get the camera there instead. And you might not even notice you unearthed a bug. - the ability mechanics are strange, unbalanced and not very well explained - visual glitches everywhere: you see the monster twice as it moves, and the slime trail of a snail is perpendicular to its movement rather than following it That's pretty awful, isn't it. There's probably more but I think I've made my point. And yet - [i]and yet![/i] - there's a strange internal logic to it all. It's lovecraftian in the sense that you need to abandon conventions and common sense, and then it somehow... [i]clicks. [/i] Your mind filled with mercury-laden vapour, your eyes used to the strange shapes in the darkness, your ears ringing from the screeches of whatever incomprehensible monstrosity you uncovered last... delirium finally sets in, and there you are. Welcome home, Captain. We have a job to do. Grab the vodka bottle, put on your hat to hide the tumor on your head and let's go. [h1]The Sublime[/h1] The first thing I need to mention is the sound design. Whenever you have a monster around, you'll hear its... [i]vocalisations[/i]. I'll be honest with you chief, I haven't heard sh*t this f*cked up since... well, you get the idea. Even with the more banal monstrosities like snails and spiders the soundscape increases the eldritch factor to highly suitable levels; and that's before you see more interesting denizens of the deep, oh God, kill it fast, make it STOP making these SOUNDS, they're ECHOING in my BRAIN PLEASE SHUT IT UP ... thanks, Cap. Gimme that bottle. No, keep the glass. They way it looks - that's pretty obvious from the screenshots, but you need to see it in action to appreciate its full glory. The way the colours shift, the monsters move, the steam covers your view; the way the abominations falter and decompose as your attacks bring them closer and closer to their righteous demise. Don't look too closely, Cap. Petr is still screaming after he looked [i]that[/i] one into where its eye socket should be. Interestingly, this is where the lovecraftian lack of common sense strikes pretty hard, and in a good way. There were a few enemies that I saw only once, and fittingly that was towards the end - and their descriptions seemingly underlined just how nonsensical they were. One of them was outright stated to be "probably a hallucination"... Was it, though? This goes hand in hand with the story. Things will happen. Might or might not be related to what's coming next. Missable events, bizarre things that you'd love to know more about but the game says no. The arbitrary way the game decides you're allowed to progress to the next level. All of it delivered with the side helping of meaty, delicious writing, which shares this psychotic attitude. Combine it all with top-notch music, and what you have is an [i]experience[/i]. Even the abysmal game design comes together here; and when the game will start pushing back - and it will - whether you succeed or not depends on how well you can adapt to this strange, eldritch universe that you've been sucked into. Learn everything anew. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] To back up my seemingly nonsensical argument, let's take a look at the achievement data. A huge chunk of people bounce off immediately: only 70% of players have the achievement for one of the first things you do in the story, and a tiny 45% beat the first chapter. After that, you have a relatively linear dropoff rate, and the number finally settles at 15% for beating the game. A pretty average number, but I think the fact that more than half of players bounce off in the first mission - no doubt chased off by the bizarre design and bugs - paints this number in a slightly more favourable light. So, ready to drill deep into the Mountains of Madness? Are you willing to descend into blackness so impenetrable, the very fabric of reality becomes stretched thin? Tough sell, perhaps; but if you let the vapours take you, Captain, the things you'll see will make their mark on you. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42922988-Garlic-Bear%2527s-Library/]The ravings of a madman I call my Curator Page[/url]