But you're still hungry.

I was SUPER excited to play this when I read the manual. It's very clearly inspired by Star Trek and promises a massive galactic map, interstellar trade, lots of alien species who remember your interactions (ish), discovering new planets, and unfolding a broader story.

I did have fun playing the game, but as one can see from my own “captain's log” (the manual has one too! I didn't rip it off Star Trek!) I actually spent half my game time (2 months of in-game time) in the starting solar system mining various minerals to buy all the available ship upgrades before setting out. The mining is quite addicting. You first activate a scanner (which costs a small amount of fuel), then you drive around hitting a button on the places the scanner marks, and you hear distinct sounds depending on whether you've hit a mineral or not. Then you move over a screen and repeat. It's really the sounds that got me – as the manual says, there's up to 7 layers to dig, and not all of them have minerals, so it's pretty random and I felt very excited whenever I would hear a scattered “ping”. Near the end of the second month, the minerals and biomass of some of the planets in the first solar system vanished (I'm still not sure if this was intended or a bug), which finally pushed me to read my messages and look for ruins. The exploring process was also, at least for me, very methodical – I would fly either left or right in my spaceship and look for ruins overhead and land to check them out if needed, and when I had fully explored a specific longitude, I would then move down a screen and repeat.

I spent the rest of the time writing down an ever-expanding todo list of coordinates to visit, visiting them, and gaining items and more coordinates. Very little mining occurred after my initial spree. I did have alien encounters and followed the instructions in the manual, but (to both my relief and disappointment) I never entered combat. This is partially because the first time I tried, I still had the dodecahedron on me, which prevents you from arming your weapons while you have it in your inventory, so I just ran away and somehow never fought with anyone again. Simply by knocking off the coordinates on my todo list one by one, I managed to finish off the main quest. I enjoyed talking to all the aliens and reading the messages in your logs and the ruins; even if most of those were meant to point the player to another planet, they were still framed in a way of “learn more about this world/the history of these people”, especially the bard aliens that will tell you poetry about the ancients when you encounter them. I also really appreciate having fluxes automatically marked on the in-game star map once you go through them once.

Some minor complaints: – the font sucks. ahhh. – I spent a nontrivial amount of time thinking about my crew. In practice, because I never entered combat, I didn't need a medic, and after you spend money training everyone's skill to max, which happens pretty early on, you don't have to think about your crew. – the creatures are not worth the effort to catch. Much more profitable to mine. – I didn't understand at first that conversing with aliens involves making a choice, then just waiting for them to respond. I accidentally terminated a lot of my initial conversations. – after you buy the ship and terrain vehicle upgrades, there isn't any risk in ordinary traveling or exploration. I guess you do feel some kind of looming threat from the star flares though.

My captain's log

01-01 – Yay! Hired my crew, who bear a striking similarity to some stuffed animals, and outfitted my ship. Before I leave the system, I want to have bought all the possible upgrades, so I’m just going to mine and sell creatures for now. 10-02 – I’m not getting many more minerals from the innermost planet, but boy does the 3rd planet have way more minerals! I’ve logged it as habitable. It also has a storm that injured Miffy a little bit, but I’ll be more careful in the future. 13-02 – The upgraded mineral scanner is AMAZING! I’ll finish buying the ship weapons in no time. 20-02 – Finally read through my operator messages. This solar flare thing sounds worrying…I didn’t realize the logging was needed to relocate people from this system in case of disaster. Endurium prices have gone up? Darn it. 21-02 – for some reason, the biomass and mineral content of the 1st and 3rd planets in this system are all gone??? that really puts a damper in my plans to continue trading for endurium. It’s not because our sun has flared and killed everything, right?? 30-02 – after much exploration, I have found the ruin on the third planet with a message! It says something about a black egg? Time to strike out to another solar system??? Exciting!!! 01-03 – found the ruins of the old empire talking about an infestation of furry animals XD I am exploring this planet to see if there’s any other ruins. Have seen some pyramids! 08-03 – after coming back from (123, 101), I see a message about no life existing coreward of here?? is that why the planets in the home system have no life anymore?? 09-03 – my first alien encounter! the spemins are giving me lots of things to check out. I have to destroy a whole planet?? 10-03 – the veloxi keep demanding 3 endurium from me. on the bright side, i’ve learned some more things and am arriving at 118, 146. 18-03 – found the shimmering orb in a Gazurtoid system. Wow the Gazurtoids are really fanatical. Also found the cross constellation! How exciting. I’ve started entering some fluxes on my map. 21-03 – after finding Smenuluf’s (?) message, I made contact with the Mechans and found the heaven system. However after talking to a few of them they suddenly became hostile to me and IDK why! I answered their questions correctly :( But I guess I already got a lot of cool information from them so it’s whatever. They told me the vague location of earth! how exciting! 23-03 – got a black egg from the empire ruins at 143, 115. 31-03 – went to check out the “great egg”, but I can’t even land there! 01-04 – new scotland’s weather is NOT CALM. lightning SUCKS. But uh who is this harrison dude? also, the dodecahedron keeps me from arming my weapons??? that’s what passivist meant? am selling it next time i’m at arth… 02-04 – got the ellipsoid (the focusing stone?) and returned it to the veloxi. yay! 04-04 – encountered an orb that sends binary at me. looks like coordinates. Upon following them I got an artifact that identifies the location of other artifacts when you’re selecting where to land! 06-04 – I found earth! and mars! omg! sounds like their star flared a thousand years ago :( but there are some nifty artifacts aruond here. 08-04 – I followed Spemin advice to get to an uhlek system and found a crystal cone there. How interesting. 10-04 – I found spexi! looks like I can safely make it down to the crystal planet now 13-04 – wow! the crystals are alive! and also we’ve been eating them. oops. i gues…i will blow up the crystal planet? sad. hurrah for finishing my main quest!