Phoning Home

The game is beautiful, aesthetically and musically. The environs and characters are poignant. I like the feeling of vulnerability. The controls break the experience. At times, I needed to reach a particular location, but the poor physics engine meant that pathing was unpredictable, and I might die many times before finding the path I was * supposed* to take. Eventually I got tired of guessing, and deleted the game.

Phoning Home is a chill little adventure platformer from Ion Lands (Cloudpunk.) The core gameplay loop involves wandering around a strange planet as fragile mute explorer robot ION, collecting crafting resources, and babysitting fellow mechanical lifeform ANI on your friendly mission to eradicate all organic life as dictated by your ship's AI. (Note: The character design is heavily "inspired" by a certain Pixar flick.) Outside of the dialog and journal notes, the story is sparse and mostly forgettable. The world itself is pretty, but jarring technical issues prevent a smooth experience even on hardware well above the recommended requirements. The platforming is annoyingly imprecise, but becomes a little easier after learning the timing and crafting upgrades to minimize fall damage and fuel usage. There is some combat, but most hostile beings are best avoided if possible. A cinematic soundtrack and solid sound effects round out a presentation marred by a clunky, yet functionally basic UI. At the end of the day, this indie project is probably not for everyone, but could be a relaxing time for those seeking a fairly low-pressure journey and possessing the patience/perspective to overlook its tediously formulaic design. Not great, but not too bad.

its an exploration game with survival elements. see it, hoard it. not too hard and the story was alright. I got my money's worth (I paid $2 I think). No replay value. it is an indie title but I kinda liked it. could've been a hit with a little more devlopment imo. Wall-e and ET walking sim? There is a little combat btw.

One of the main gripes I have with this game is the same I have about most 'open-world' games: traversing the terrain that looks traversable but in fact is not, and the game does a very poor job of telling you that, instead resorting to janky physics to force you to take another route. The number of times I had to reload a quicksave because the game just wouldn't let me climb over a hill or a ridge by following a smooth slope and forced me to slide back (taking damage, obviously) was so high that eventually I just stopped looking around. It's not like there is much to see anyway -- most of the game world is rendered as a mostly empty sandy/snowy/lava wasteland with very few distinctive features like ruined settlements and occasional metallic contraptions to help you navigate it (there is no map, you see). Which is sad, because this game pretends to be telling a story of a dead world, but does a poor job of doing that as your only source of game lore aside from very few wall scribblings and occasional signs that you find in ruined settlements is this EXTREMELY ANNOYING sidekick you have to carry around. Taking care of ANI isn't just a chore, this very job actively nudges you towards ignoring its musings, because most of the time it is just being annoying for no apparent reason. I get that authors wanted the game to have a 'touchy-feely' character to counterbalance the rational-to-a-fault protagonist. Sorry game, but no, you won't make me feel like ANI is my girlfriend. Overall, there is probably a game behind all the janky physics, wonky terrain that you often get stuck in, empty world and poorly told story, but I'm just not seeing it. As a side note, compare this to a very minimalistic "In Other Waters" that not only does a great job of telling its story, but also makes you actually care about the alien world you are exploring.

Needs a map, got lost so many times and couldn't find my way back to the ship. Then lost everything i collected since i had to die to get back to it