J.U.L.I.A. Among the Stars

J.U.L.I.A. Among the Stars is a puzzle point & click adventure in space. You are Rachel. You are on a space ship and have been in cryosleep for a while. The ship's smart-ass AI wakes you up because everything is on fire. Your crew has abandoned you and you're just kind of floating around in space, in a strange far-away galaxy, so naturally you go and send your robot Captain Obvious down to the planets to figure out what on earth - excuse me, what IN SPACE happened. Graphics are very detailed, varied, and overall pretty, though the cutscenes seemed a bit low-res at 1080p. There's voice acting which is pretty good, but I turned it off towards the end since it annoyed me a little; occasionally it interrupted my thoughts because when you discover something relevant, the characters will start speaking before you can actually get an understanding of the situation. The music is nice, though not very memorable except for the end credits song which is beautiful. The game is more puzzle than point & click. There's not really an inventory; you simply explore different environments, examine everything, pick up stuff, read notes and diaries, and fix things. Most of the puzzles are different which keeps things interesting, though a few also involve a lot of going back and forth which can get a bit tedious. The story is rather intriguing as you go along and piece together what DID happen. You get to explore several very unique planets and solve puzzles along the way to make the ruins left by humanity work again and explain everything to you. Some parts of the plot are very predictable, but that doesn't make it less enjoyable. What's nice about J.U.L.I.A. is that it's not linear; almost from the start you have a choice which planet to go to next. You might be unable to proceed at some points if you don't have the required things, but that doesn't diminish the prospect of exploring a galaxy much. Basically, if you like puzzles and/or story, I very much recommend this game.

This was a small scale crowdfunded adventure game produced largely by two people (with a tiny support staff). Most of the puzzles are well designed and fun, a few of them are complete nonsense which is not unexpected in a point and click adventure doesn't make them any less annoying and immersion breaking. Voice acting is generally good although marred by some poor translations (the writers are not English speakers). The game thinks it is doing hard SF but the science is pretty bad. The narrative itself is interesting enough in places but also takes some rather bizarre turns (and jarring enough that it makes me feel like parts were cut out in production). You go nicely from A to B to C and suddenly everything is at G. The UI is servicable but you will be fighting it in spots. It's not a bad game but it's not a great one either.

It's a rather simplistic point and click game at first glance, but in a good way. Nice graphics, music and subtle effects, interesting places to visit and puzzles are quite nice. I wish there was more to explore. Exploring the places and finding out what happened was super exciting, especially ones made by humans. I just got that Prey and System Shock feeling while digging through datapads, logs, messages and other data while figuring out what happened to the remains of humans there. Don't want to go into more details, but I was really pleasantly surprised by this game. Would recommend.

It is a very linear game. After you're done with the first planet you are what it seams like left to roaming the galaxy. This is sadly not the case, as the story actually expects you to do them in a specific order or the story becomes confused. The story is to quite a degree cut short cause of this and this is quite sad, cause the game sure has potential. (even though a bit predictable) The puzzles is top notch for the genre, and is definitely one of the games strong points. They are artful without cheating. All In all definitely worth a play.

This game is full of surprises and i enjoyed playing it even though the ending was poor. The puzzles are ok, the fact that i am a sci-fi fan helped liking the game. The story is well thought and the investigations to know what happened to the crew is interesting: the more you discover, the more you realize that human beings are bad. Some stuff i didn't like though: the dialogues. J.U.L.I.A and Rachel have some unnerving cheesy exchange and damn how i laughed hearing a robot saying "Shut up" to a human being lol that was outta place, and Mobot being scared, WHAT!!! how can a robot feel fear. It doesn't make sense. A few scare happens in the game with some alien encounters and the story of the solar system inhabitants is good i think. A few things hold up though: when you reach the planet and scan it you discover all details about it and when you send mobot there the cinematic is amazing. I didn't like J.U.L.I.A at all, too arrogant for a robot and does not look like one for me, even for a AI it is too much; she's a human being transformed in a robot by using a robot voice. Overall it's a good game if you can go through J.U.L.I.A annoying lines.