Starman

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Starman is a character-based Puzzle game released in 2018 on PC and Nintendo Switch, then ported to mobile devices in 2019. This game has you playing a character who looks like a glowing astronaut, moving blocks and solving puzzles to progress to each new area.

Starman has a minimalist presentation, using simple 3D visuals that are mostly in monochrome, that are stylistically quite nice. This is backed by a faint, dreamlike soundtrack and muffled sound effects that work to give this game an ethereal sort of atmosphere that I would argue is its best quality.

The gameplay has you moving a cursor to points of interest, where the game’s protagonist will move to and interact with as needed. There are some decent puzzles here involving filling clear cubes with light and then using that to power mechanisms you need to continue.

Having said that, there are multiple problems here. First, this game frequently shifts into a slow-motion mode whenever you move the cursor, and can only go back to normal speed when holding the A button. This absolutely ruins this game’s pacing, making it unnecessarily tedious and frustrating. In addition, the game isn’t clear about what you can and can’t do, and what you need to do. At one point, you need to place a cube on an elevated platform – no problem. But need to drop a cube down to a lower platform? The game won’t allow it, and it won’t tell you that it won’t allow it, it’ll just refuse to follow your command to position your character to do it.

Another issue here is the controls. Since your interactions are through your character, it seems like you’d want to control your character directly, but the game works more like a classic LucasArts-style Graphic Adventure, which doesn’t suit the gameplay. It seems like the sort of control scheme built around touchscreen controls, but on Nintendo Switch there’s no option to use touchscreen controls in portable mode.

I’m frustrated that Starman’s controls are so tedious and frustrating, because this seems like it would be a decent Puzzle game. Unfortunately, the pointer controls and odd time slowdown mechanic both work to make this a game I can’t recommend. You have plenty of other options to look into instead.

tl;dr – Starman is a character-based Puzzle game that has players moving around a spacesuit-wearing figure in monochrome worlds solving puzzles with boxes you fill with light. There’s a lot of potential here, but that potential is ruined by terrible controls and a time-slowdown mechanic that is far too overly-aggressive in when it activates. As a result, despite the good features this game has, I cannot recommend it.

Grade: D+

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