Continuing my adventure to fill the hole left by Outer Wilds, I found this small game made by a game developer in-between their normal game dev job by the recommendation of some guy on Reddit. Once again, word of mouth proves to be the main way games are found...

This is a game where you play as a scientist who arrived to investigate strange markings in some nearby ruins called the moonstone equation based on how it looks and the moon rocks and ruins that dot the landscape. Overall, it's a simple block-pushing puzzle game, but there's a sizable world to explore, plenty of NPCs to talk to, and makes you really pay attention to progress, because the game won't tell you outright how to beat it. If you aren't used to that kind of game design it can be frustrating, but it made me feel like I was actually an archologist trying to explore and understand how this world worked, which is exactly what I was looking for.

The game matches your real-life time, so if you play during the day everyone will be awake and working, but if you play at night the majority of NPCs are asleep. As someone who can only really play games with my full attention in the dead of night, my only complaint is that it made me feel like I was missing out on a lot. Plus, I ran into a few odd bugs and game crashes, though I'm willing to overlook it since it was literally made by some guy in their free time.

Some people also complained in the reviews that there is a lack of a minimap or other easy to get around, but the world isn't that big and it's easy to get a good idea of where everything is and backtrack if needed. I'd say that's just a skill issue.

It took me 13 hours to beat without any hints or guides, and that's because I got stuck a few times and because I took my sweet time. It's a solid experience if you want a good puzzle/exploration game that respects your ability to look around and put pieces together yourself.

Favorite OST track: Nightlight
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