• Gameplay: ⠀⠀⠀6/10
  
• Story: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ??/10
  
• Design: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀8/10

But this has been a great two hours, none the less.

This game definitely has a mood about it, and I'm not sure what the backstory is telling me or wants to convey - both a sense of greatness in accomplishments and yet a devastation of some cataclysmic event?

What the backstory leaves open to interpretation, the gameplay definitely picks up on - and the story of your adventure across the lands takes the front stage to the implied background art and the scale of devastation.

You manage a car ..boat - thing.
There are a couple of things to do in the boat.
The core mechanic - push the engine button to make the boat move forward.

You quickly learn that this has a cascading effect in several ways - managing fuel? Easy.
Then quickly it becomes apparent that there's added steps beyond that, steps that are introduced over time to an ever more complicated set of inputs to maintain.

To avoid too many spoilers, I'll leave the gameplay at that, but there are times where having so many things to manage and maintain become overwhelming even for the most comfortable of pilots.

The core game explores your method of interacting with the world as the basis of telling its story.
As you keep moving, you stop at places to pick up fuel, you drive past factories and buildings and ruins, occasionally stopped by certain obstacles that interrupt your progression, usually marked by a simple puzzle or exploration of the world in some way.

On my first playthrough, I got stuck in two places - once for simply not understanding what the game was asking, the second because I was being introduced to a mechanic I didn't know existed.
Besides those incidents, this game can be beat from start to credits in about two hours, although achievement hunting will take up to 10 total.

I don't often see many games that give you such a complete package in such a compact form these days, and especially without feeling like the gameplay has been watered down for the presentation.
This gives you both a challenging set of mechanics, with the beautiful adventure to boot.

[H1]Review at a Glance[/H1] [list] [*] [b]Gameplay:[/b] ⠀⠀⠀6/10 [*] [b]Story:[/b] ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ??/10 [*] [b]Design:[/b] ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀8/10 [/list] [H1]I Have No Idea What's Going On[/H1] [i]But this has been a great two hours, none the less.[/i] This game definitely has a mood about it, and I'm not sure what the backstory is telling me or wants to convey - both a sense of greatness in accomplishments and yet a devastation of some cataclysmic event? What the backstory leaves open to interpretation, the gameplay definitely picks up on - [i]and the story of [b]your[/b] adventure[/i] across the lands takes the front stage to the implied background art and the scale of devastation. [b]You manage a car ..boat - thing.[/b] There are a couple of things to do in the boat. The core mechanic - push the engine button to make the boat move forward. You quickly learn that this has a cascading effect in several ways - managing fuel? Easy. Then quickly it becomes apparent that there's added steps beyond that, steps that are introduced over time to an ever more complicated set of inputs to maintain. To avoid too many spoilers, I'll leave the gameplay at that, but there are times where having so many things to manage and maintain become overwhelming even for the most comfortable of pilots. The core game explores your method of interacting with the world as the basis of telling its story. As you keep moving, you stop at places to pick up fuel, you drive past factories and buildings and ruins, occasionally stopped by certain obstacles that interrupt your progression, usually marked by a simple puzzle or exploration of the world in some way. On my first playthrough, I got stuck in two places - once for simply not understanding what the game was asking, the second because I was being introduced to a mechanic I didn't know existed. Besides those incidents, this game can be beat from start to credits in about two hours, although achievement hunting will take up to 10 total. [H1]In The End[/H1] I don't often see many games that give you such a complete package in such a compact form these days, and especially without feeling like the gameplay has been watered down for the presentation. This gives you both a challenging set of mechanics, with the beautiful adventure to boot.