This is a game that could only work on the Wii U. It’s a cool experiment!

I’m always intrigued by a game that aims to make full use of a system’s features. In this case, the Gamepad takes the form of an in-game control panel for your little spacecraft, complete with boot-up sequences, visible damage, etc. You use it to adjust the parameters of your ship’s capabilities: electric and combustion engines, how much thrust, activating landing gear or heat shields. Constant tweaking is required to fly through the hazards and obstacles on the alien world you’ve crashed on, and to avoid detection by the native mechanicals. It’s often quite tense.

The Gamepad operator has to be vigilant with the heat/sound/electric output of the craft to sneak around without getting shot down. This is a great puzzle in itself, but there’s other puzzles on top of that to do with lasers and switches, etc. It’s all from a 2D side-on perspective where gravity is important, and keeping on top of all these factors requires highly developed multitasking skills… or communication.

The game probably works best in co-op, where duties are split between players. I was most often the pilot, who in 2-player moves the ship and activates the scanner/flare. Aiming this beam falls to the Gamepad user (my spouse), another duty on top of the sometimes frantic toggling taking place on the touch screen. In 3-player, which we were able to try once, the science officer commands the beam entirely which is useful to split out like that but can be underused in certain rooms.

We enjoyed working together to crack the puzzles, more so after changing the difficulty from “technical” to “tourist”. It was still hard, even frustrating at times, and we could have done better with relaying information between us… but it does get exhausting. There’s a lot to take in and manage! I think we did pretty well, and reached the end without killing each other. So that’s something.

The foreboding atmosphere of the mysterious planet Spectaculon keeps things tense, on top of the murderous robots. There’s heavy shadows and gloom, the soundscape an oppressive ambience. This purposefully clashes with the bombastic company propaganda videos and cheery ship mascot whose image graces the in-world ship manual on the loading screens. I’d complain about the length of time these screens stick around if not for the worldbuilding conveyed on them.

It all adds up to a grim and bleak picture of the world, especially by the ending. Quite a downer in fact! It’s perhaps not quite balanced out by the triumph of solving the tricky challenges throughout, but it comes close. It’s certainly a unique experience with its complex (but accessible) simulation aspects and heavy focus on asymmetric co-operation. Definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of multi-screen games… and there’s not too many that try something as interesting as this!