The Rig: A Starmap to Murder Reviews

The game is very short, I took my sweet time looking at everything and finished it in 2 hours. I did enjoy playing detective and solving the basic puzzles. The voice acting was excellent and the world was full of things to examine. If you can get this game for 5 to 10 dollars on sale somehow, I would say purchase it. Otherwise, it's just too short for the money you pay.

Good space noire detective story. Lively world filled with small features and details. Feels a bit like old adventure games like Space Quest 5. cons: finished, without hurry in 90 minutes. Dialogue choices and some things use gaze controll, which feels weird.

I really liked this game. It's a narrative driven puzzler in line with a game like The Station, but the puzzles are easier. The game has multiple endings with a very nice pay off in the end scene. My only complaint is the game ends just as it's really taking off. You can probably get thru this game in a 1 hour play thru, maybe 2 if you really take your time. Game length is my only complaint. I'd really like to see some more from this developer.

Very nice story driven puzzle game. Took me ~2hrs to get all achievements and see all the endings, and hear all/most of the different dialogue so its a bit on the short side if you decide to not do all that. I got it on sale and i think it was a fair price. Voice acting is superb, graphics are really stylish and i liked how they looked. Puzzles are a bit on the simple side, but they are satisfying to solve, I feel like there could have been a few more puzzles. The story is easy to follow and its nice to have it as an incentive Performance was acceptable; 60fps on a 3600/1080 rig. The game crashed once when a fire broke out, after reloading it went fine but i got a dip in performance at that same part. Aside from that, an achievement didnt pop up when i think it should. But that was it. I found it interesting and worth my time, it could have been better of course, but it was a pleasant experience for the duration, i really appreciated that you can figure out whats happening before it comes to an end so its easy to choose the good ending. Recommended for anyone that wants a story based game with a few puzzles thrown in, that add to the story.

I have very mixed feelings about this game. On the whole, I recommend it, because it's entertaining enough and it's clear that a lot of effort was put into making this game. However, it does have some glaring issues that might be a deal-breaker for some people. [b]The good:[/b] [list] [*] The game is beautiful. Every environment you visit looks like something out of Blade Runner, and the low-poly art style works really well for this kind of game. You can interact with almost anything you find, often with amusing results. [*] Both the sound design and the voice acting are really well done, practically movie quality. It encouraged me to explore every corner and inspect every object, just to find out what the various characters would say about it. [*] Dialogue choices and multiple endings add some replayability, which is very welcome in a game as short as this (an average playthrough seems to last anywhere from 1 to 2 hours depending on how much you feel like exploring) [/list] [b]The mediocre:[/b] [list] [*] The story is just sort of... there. It's not bad, and it does its job getting you from one place to the next, but there's nothing particularly memorable about it. If you're a big fan of noire-style stories you might enjoy it anyway. I felt like there was a bit of wasted potential here. Every mention of [spoiler]the AI refugees[/spoiler] was like a glimpse into a much more interesting story that we never got to see. [*] Too much hand-holding. Most of the puzzles are laughably easy, and you're barely given any time to figure things out yourself before you get a voiceline telling you how to solve it. [/list] [b]The bad:[/b] [list] [*] Bugs: this game has them! Sometimes objects will get stuck inside other objects if you move them too fast. There's a point where [spoiler]something in your ship is on fire[/spoiler] and the screen flashes red, but in my case it would get stuck like that, making it impossible to see anything, until I restarted the game. It seems to be random whether it will get stuck or not. [*] The physics are very wonky, and something as simple as setting down an object on a flat surface might cause it to fling itself into the void, never to be seen again. Particularly annoying when it happens to anything you need to progress, as this will force you to reload from a previous checkpoint to be able to continue. Thankfully, checkpoints are plentiful, so you won't lose too much progress. [/list] [b]TL;DR:[/b] It's alright, if a little rough around the edges. Worth the price of admission if you like science-fiction, film noir, or you just want a casual adventure game with interesting environments.

I initially gave this a negative review because of terrible performance that made it unplayable. Since then I've upgraded my PC with a faster CPU, which seems to have resolved most of the issues, but I think the game has also been updated since I last tried playing, so maybe a combination of both has made it playable now. However, now that I've been able to play and finish the game, I'm giving it a negative review because it's just a very shallow and short experience with very little "mystery", almost zero puzzles that require any real thought, and a story that lacks anything unique. They do a great job of editing the promo video to make it look like there's so much to see and do, but it's mostly fluff. There are exactly 3 rooms in this game. Well, 4 if you count the hallway that leads to the 2nd room, which is your office. There's a couple of puzzles that basically just involve you looking around a little to find the answer. After that, you are on a ship and you have to follow a series of steps, none of which are terribly puzzling because they basically tell you what to do, in order to get to a mining base where your brother is hiding out. Most of the story is given to you through news articles you find laying around, so there's a lot of reading, or you can listen to them be narrated, if you have the patience for it. Then you end up on the 3rd room/area (okay, 4th, whatever) but the scene is all scripted and you can't move or interact with anything until a specific moment were you make a choice which gives you one of two possible endings, which I won't spoil (not like there's much TO spoil), and they're pretty anticlimactic... and that's it. The game ends. I finished it in less than 2 hours and I even wasted a fair amount of time just looking at objects (props) that had nothing to do with the story. If you want a GOOD VR mystery/puzzler, go get Call of The Starseed and then Heart of The Emberstone, or Red Matter and Red Matter 2... not this game.

Going to echo what other reviewers have said - this feels like the prelude to a game. It's short and the story is very thin, so unless you really take your time taking in the environment there's not much to get out of The Rig. I've played similar VR games that were cheaper, or free - and I've played similarly priced ones that had much more content.

Not keen. It is too short, and at times I had some really uncomfortable performance difficulties on my system, which is actually the most powerful consumer system available (3090 & 10900k 64gbram, HP Reverb G2). That means that you will have performance problems too. The script is great, along with the acting, but the story needed more time to get going.

A few years ago, the devs of Sunset Division must've asked themselves one rainy night "What would happen if we made a game that combined Blade Runner and The Big Sleep?" The answer to that question? "The Rig: A Starmap to Murder", a short but intriguing space-noir. The Good: 1. Art/Style -- The Rig positively oozes style. Holograms glitter like ethereal neon jewels in the misty half-light, while celestial bodies wheel in the distant starfields. Setting aside the ill-fated Blade Runner 9732 fan project, this is the closest I've seen a studio nail the Blade Runner aesthetic in VR. 2. Voice Acting -- The voicework is quite well-acted, and manages to deftly walk the line of to nodding to the traditonal film noir dialogue and acting styles, without falling over the edge into over-acted parody. I have a fondness for film noir and games that attempt the style, and I've noticed pulling this off is a rare achievement. A particular thumbs-up to the actor voicing the protagonist, Willard, as he does a stand-out job throughout the game. As an added bonus, you're usually able to choose among three different options in dialogue, varying in tone and intent -- I think this is the first native VR game I've run into that allows that. 3. Story -- The story itself is clearly the first part of a larger narrative, and the world and character building it established left me intrigued and looking forward to a (hopefully longer, much longer!) follow up -- especially as how the game has two endings, setting up significant differences in how a sequel would proceed. If you like any of the classic noir tales of betrayal and heartbreak, I think you'll feel much the same. The sci-fi setting opens up loads of interesting potential twists to this style of storytelling. (AI refugees? Tell me more...) More, please! 4. Puzzles -- The puzzles aren't overly difficult, but are still fun. They're all of a very practical, grounded nature, so if you're averse to oldschool "Sierra logic" puzzles, you can breathe easy. If you get stuck, take a moment to check around, there's almost always something in the environment that will give a clue, either in itself or by prompting a comment from Willard. 5. Telescreens -- Early in the game, I spotted a couple of telescreens with an interesting 3D image effect, that reminded me of the trideo sets described in "Shadowrun". First time I've ever seen anyone try to actually represent them in a game. Nice! 6. Music -- There's some nice scoring in this one, especially the opening theme. The Bad: 1. Length -- The Rig is pretty short. First playthrough was about 2 hours, give or take. I had the impression when I hit the break point at the end that this was originally going to have an additional investigative chapter, but ended up being cut down. A shame, as if my hunch was right, I would've enjoyed that deleted chapter quite a bit. The Ugly (UPDATED!): 1. Performance (UPDATED!) -- At launch, this one was a bit on the heavy side in terms of system demands at the moment, especially in scenes with more complex lighting. I initially was running it at 120hz, but switched to 90hz after catching the framerate slip at times. UPDATE! -- The developers have made some nice performance optimizations since my original review, and have added some additional graphical quality settings that should help most users fine-tune performance to better suit their hardware. 2. Locomotion (UPDATED!) -- At launch, the Rig used strictly teleport locomotion + snap turn, but has since been updated to add smooth locomotion. UPDATE! -- Smooth locomotion has been patched in since my original review! So if you aren't a fan of teleport, you're now all set. Nerd Stuff: Played on Valve Index + Knuckles at 90hz, driven by an Intel 9700K + RTX 2080 Ti. Final Thoughts: The Rig is a short but intriguing sci fi noir tale that I thoroughly enjoyed my time with, and my only regret was that it wasn't a longer visit. Overall, I'd say it's worth the price of admission if you're a fan of film noir and story driven games, especially if on sale.

"The Rig" feels as though it should be a free demo in anticipation of a full release. The game consists of 3 rooms with about 5 total puzzles (for which the game feeds you aggressive hints) and then a decision to be made at the end before an abrupt ending, 2-minute epilogue, and fade to credits. If you aren't messing about with every physics object, you could easily complete this without a guide in about 30 minutes. The visuals are decent and there is some neat tech on display, but the performance is awful in the presence of any hologram effects and the character models and world are woefully poorly detailed. The writing and voice acting is questionable quality, and the story only really begins right as the credits roll. Movement is teleport only and with a strange flashing effect every time you move that blocks vision, along with a wait period before you can teleport again. Can't recommend this game even at the budget price and with the current 15% discount. Maybe wait until it's part of a VR bundle or something.