Odysseus is the engineer on board the spaceship San
Francisco, currently on a retro-style graphic outing to a strange part
of the Universe. There is a crew, but they are planet-side, a planet on
which time passes so much more slowly than on the ship. They have been
gone but a moment, yet years have gone by for Odysseus, years in which
his only companion, apart from the lab rats, is his service robot Barton
Quest. Years in which things can break, and get lost, and rats can
escape. There is much repairing that needs tending to.
Repairing that will get done by pointing and clicking at things,
looking at them and then using them in interesting ways. Nothing is
simple, so be prepared to try almost anything. Barton might help, but if
he can’t, hit the question mark for a hint (which may be less helpful
than Barton).
Or just keep trying stuff.
Being able to highlight hotspots can assist, but you still have to
work out what to do there. I generally had an idea of what to do, but at
times had absolutely none. Which is the nature of these types of
inventory based games.
Looking at things is important, as some triggers won’t occur until
you do. Look at inventory items as well, as many need to be dismantled
and have their bits used for rigging up other contraptions. You can
combine things in the inventory, in some interesting ways indeed.
Somewhat annoyingly, I found at least one where you had to use item A on
item B for it to work; do it the other way round and nothing happens. I
did the latter first, so assumed I was wrong, and was stuck for some
time. I resorted to a walkthrough, and had some choice words to say when
the solve was revealed.
The banter between Odysseus and Barton can be witty, and Odysseus
says some amusing things to himself as he goes. Doughnuts feature, as do
wry observations about the genre. The San Francisco isn’t a big place,
but there are enough different locations to keep it from being boring
across the two and a half hours it took me. It was nicely detailed too,
in that pixelly way that more and more games are utilising. The musical
score did get a bit repetitive, but it can be turned off in the menu
should you want to do so. As can hints and voices.
The latter is a relative concept. You read everything anyway, as the
voices are gibberish. I have played a few games like this recently, and
actually think it works rather well. Like a subtitled movie, I still
want to hear sound when someone is speaking, even if I can’t
understand it. It works the same here.
There are some gentle out and out puzzles, and if you fail to dock
with the space antenna at the end on the first try, you should easily
manage it on the second. Perhaps I missed the parameters first time
round, but once I had them it was smooth sailing.
After which Odysseus has had enough for one day. Having stated he
will tend to the rest of the tasks tomorrow, the game ends. But not
before a surprise.
Oh yes, you can save at will.
Odysseus Kosmos and His Robot Quest isn’t Thimbleweed Park (but
what is??), but it has a bit of the same heart in its making. If you
like these types of games, you should have some fun.
I played on:
OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit
Processor: Intel i7-6700 4GHz
