Light Years Apart
By Anaea Lay
Like all of the back-worlds, Calvary was founded by the ICA as part of its extensive experiments in social engineering. This is, of course, why the back-worlds are such ripe places for anthropological research. Most of the back-worlds were established well before the Aydan-machine made its demands and there has been extensive debate, particularly among the Kempari, whether the ICA even could found a place like Calvary without violating their agreement with their computer.
Sometimes you get the impression that you are missing something, that a world existed well before you interacted with it. I play a board game named Call to Adventure, and love it. The creators released an expansion based on Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive, and I picked it up not knowing that it would make no sense to me. I’ve never tried to play the expansion again, nor read the books it is based on because I feel like the amount of work involved might outweigh the enjoyment gained due to the massive amount of books and information already introduced about the world.
General Story:
You are a deactivated spy trying to live a normal trading life who gets roped back into your old world (both location and metaphor) when the planet you trained on is blockaded. The organization you were part of makes promises to let you be completely free of your past, if you help them.
The world felt a little like it borrowed from Firefly, but with more developed technology. Almost a cyberpunk space-western, complete with glowing tattoos, AI, and nanites.
The writing is wonderful, but this seems to be an extreme example of the opposite of being an audience surrogate. Your character is a master of information regarding the planets and cultures you encounter. Descriptions are great, but every paragraph feels like it’s adding onto a book you should have already read to understand the plot in depth. In most cases, it just made me feel like I was barely keeping up with the plot and the various organizations and actors within the plot.
Format and Typos:
Readability was good and I did not see any typos.
Game Mechanics and Stats:
You’ll manage opposed pairs for personality, a mix of skills that determine your specialties and physical and mental health. Code reveals some hidden stats that you’ll unknowingly manage to help determine your success towards the ending, examples including sympathy with the ICA and Kempari.
Replayability:
There is actually a decent amount of replayability built into the game, just based on branching choices and various endings. There are only two ‘romance options’, but these did not actually feel like the draw of this title. They feel like they satisfy a requirement, and only one of them actually feels like it was intended from the start. They are completely gender variable. Two major portions of the game (coincidentally involving doing the same thing, in different places) have very different paths to complete the same quest. These were some of the most interesting portions of the title.
Dislikes:
- This feels like the sequel to a wonderful book I could not find, with no attempt to catch us back up.
- For as much as the title wants you to pick a side, you spend almost no major time with anyone except your computer AI. This makes it difficult to forge attachments that lend weight to the final choices.
- This feels like it might have actually been antithetical to the character and theme, but if any title could have used a glossary of terms and information in the stats screen, this was it.
Likes:
- Writing is great, and the potential in the world screams to be revisited in a slower paced installment.
- The twins make an impression, and keep that impression going. I’ve never wanted to rage so hard over a haircut.
- The anthropological approach works wonderfully at a planet that your character doesn’t know everything about. We get to learn some of the approach, all the while marveling over the world alongside the character.