Space Hole 2016 Reviews

Space Hole 2016 is a bizarre, goofy, and sometimes scary experience. From the moment you launch the game it sets the tone pretty well - I don't even really want to describe it just because it made me laugh so hard realizing how I'd be controlling the "character", and since the game is literally about a dollar at full price, I'd say just buy it if the screenshots intrigue you at all. That being said, I will give some broad pros and cons just to give a bit more of an idea what you're getting into. PROS + As you probably saw in the screenshots, many of the levels nail the feeling that you're in a playable Bryce 3D render. If not that, they feel surreal in their own right even if they boil down to "a bunch of shapes put together" due to the lighting and scale they tend to have. A handful of levels are just outright unnerving - like you're having a bad trip, as cliched as it sound (though this is largely due to these levels [spoiler]having the lighting make it hard to see where you're going at points [i]plus[/i] the music being replaced by eerie droning ambiance.[/spoiler]) + The music system in the game is equally odd. The hub levels are nice ambient tracks (minus a couple late-game hubs...), while the main levels usually consist of select songs from a couple Beverly Crusher albums... which diegetically play from the levels' goal. So the further away you are from it, the quieter it will be until you get too far to even hear it at all. I liked the songs themselves though, and they fit the game in a weird way. + The game is already kind of janky (in a fun way), and after completing enough levels you get two upgrades that make it even jankier (particularly the [spoiler]landmine upgrade, which has pretty inconsistent launch power due to it more creating an aura of force that the landmine itself can be affected by for a second, rather than being a straight explosion).[/spoiler] Depending on your disposition, the jank could be a pro or con (and sometimes it does dip into being a con, even for me). But given the nature of what the game is, I do think this jank adds to it rather than hinders. + There's over 100 levels, so you're definitely getting your bang for your (roughly) one buck. CONS - Some levels in the later half of the game are just not fun at all. One of my least favorites involved [spoiler]literally just brute force exploding my way through a bunch of balls in a tight corridor. The balls were flying all over the place, and I hated it.[/spoiler] The level difficulty can also be inconsistent at times, but that's a classic issue games with a lot of short levels tend to have. - The diagetic music makes it a bit grating on the ears when you can't have the goal centered on your screen. - When you beat the game [spoiler]you gain access to M Mode. Do not turn on M Mode. Or at least back up your save before doing so. M Mode is effectively New Game +, but your ship also constantly grows and shrinks and the landmine button now produces 3 mines. It makes some levels outright impossible to beat, and one level kept bugging out and making my screen black forcing me to back out. You have to delete your save to turn this mode off. So at least I have the memories of this game...[/spoiler] CONCLUSION It's a dollar. You can say that about many games on Steam to be fair, but I do feel this is one of the better games you can spend a dollar on. So if you saw the screenshots and even vaguely thought it looks interesting, I'd say just go for it. I look forward to getting to the other Space Holes at some point too.