Ice Caves of Europa Reviews

Surprisingly fun game....I try to only leave negative reviews but I really like this one...1200+ games this one is only the 7th game I've enjoyed enough to play thru twice....and the only game I've played a third go around....

Mesmerising. The ice caves are spooky, enjoying this game, and can't wait to see what happens next...

You can die but you can't save. Basic UI feature missing; your classic incompetent design. I expected a smart and peaceful game, not some irritating 3rd rate arcade.

I saw this game at PAX AUS 2018 and wanted to give it a try since I like fine-control vehicular gameplay and aircraft. I stood there for a while and didn't get the chance, I had more to see so I grabbed a card and left. Had I played it there I might have been able to tell the developers a few things, but I digress. Straight away, there are no ambient sounds or general sound effects except for some menuing sounds and using the laser. No sounds for impacts, no sounds for the thrusters, no environmental sounds. Sure, okay, sound doesn't travel through a vaccum. But you would still get *something* coming through the hull of the vehicle from the engines and impacts. Metal is not a vaccum... But maybe the robotic vehicle doesn't have a microphone because why would it need one? Well, I can hear the laser for some reason. That's probably the only sound that is coming from the environment. Not to mention the robots already have full AI personalities, so why wouldn't they be able to hear a bit? In terms of design, no sound makes the world feel empty and it's difficult to get immersed. Not to mention a soundtrack that isn't bad on its own, but just doesn't fit with the game half the time. You're flying for your life to get out of the caves and there's just some serene spacey music playing. But what about the caves? They're kind of icy, linear, short, and they all look the same. Maybe Europa isn't the most exciting setting for a game. For what is a feature that is the focus of even the game's title. It's a pretty dull afare. Story. I'm not a huge story nerd. But even I can tell this was bad. There was some recicoulous twists and triple-crossing going on by the end that were just awful. The flow of it was bad, a lot of the motives of the characters were pretty shallow. One of my stream viewers even described it as a "bad fanfiction". I didn't enjoy the characters, the humour (or lackthereof), or well, that's it. It's just characters talking to eachother. I swear, a quarter to a third of the game is just written dialogue that goes on and on. My viewers complained that they were bored. Believe me, you guys hit a new record for how unsatisfied my viewers were with a game I've played. Here's a tip. Try not to tell 100% of your story through dialogue, otherwise I'll just go read a book. Now that I think about it, this game felt a lot like a visual novel... Now let's talk about the gameplay. If there's anything to take away from this, it's that controlling the ship is good. I would prefer a bit more thrust, maybe through an upgrade system. But I didn't have anywhere interesting to go. Just dark tunnels. However that's it. The tutorial part of the game was way too long and held the player's hand too much. Good games will show the player what to do through the gameplay. Do not underestimate a human's ability to problem-solve. Not only that, but the tutorial never ended. Every few seconds the game wrenches control from the player to give them more boring, uninspired dialogue about some random thing, and every mission or two when a new mechanic needs to be introduced (don't get your hopes up, there's only about three), the game breaks from the actual events to run the player through a no-risk "simulation" filled with, yep, you guessed it. More dialogue between the characters. Just tell the player they have a new trick they can use and let them loose. It's just a game, a death or two never hurt anyone. In the end it boiled down to just; go through cave, shoot the laser at static objects, and hover in a spot. That's it. That is the entireity of the gameplay. The game is not in Early Access even though it clearly feels unfinished. Just the lack of sound alone is enough to tell you that. So don't bother with this game unless you like throwing money away. If anything you can finish it in under two hours and then get a refund.

The gameplay is you controlling a drone flying through narrow passages (specifically, the ice caves of Europa) gathering mineral samples, melting ice barriers and watching cutscenes. It's short (just over 2 hours for me for the story mode). The biggest challenge is that the drone is very difficult to control with keyboard, especially on "unstable mode" that is required for one of the tutorials and one of the trickier narrow passages. The negative review is due to an underwhelming story and difficult/ borderline impossible drone control if you don't use a dedicated controller.

Wow! The most athmospheric and challeging simulation I have played in a long time. Really makes you feel like being on that ice moon, exploring anomalies under the ice. Great graphics and a dry sense of humour. But navigating the probe is very very challenging at times (I recomment using the X-Box controller): Disengage auto leveling, so you can point the laser up- or downwards at a steep angle to vaporize and anylyze samples... but disengaging auto leveling also means that you are then applying thrust which moves you sideways and thus away from the target above or beyond you. Same thing for fighting against the currents of vents in tight spots. Normal thrust in auto leveling mode may be too weak, but manoevering manually at the required high speed easily crashes you into the next cave wall. Took me 8h to complete the game story. A bit abrupt ending and some wheels with a wheel are still turning in my head. Hope there will be some future DLC or follow-on story. But I will surely replay this episode from time to time. Very good value for the price!