Finally started this in September 2022, mostly unspoiled. I can already see that it's a fantastic puzzle-box, but I'm also glad I didn't try to get Alleson to play it with me; the friction of movement challenges and waiting (including missing important events in a loop) would probably make the game frustrating for her.

I've been playing partially with sound off in a distraction-ful environment, so that's probably not doing the game any favors - it seems like it would benefit from deep focus, maybe a flow state, where you play many loops in a row and are really listening to the characters. This month just isn't going to allow that. The saving grace here is the automated rumor-map, which is capturing the key bits of those conversations (and character names) that I miss and always giving me something to chase! This is such a good format for a quest log that I'm shocked more games don't do it and I'm definitely stealing it for a future work. Note to self: Find a devlog specifically about building this feature.

Anyway, not done yet but really impressed by how the game seems to be throwing so many sci-fi and astrophysics ideas together into what is essentially one big Super Mario 64 level. The space-warping of Dark Bramble and its system-wide effect on radio signals is especially impressive. Looking forward to wrapping this up by the end of the year.