Phobos: A Galaxy Jones Story
Phil Riley
Weirdly, this is the second game in a row (out of only three so far!) to almost defeat me with constant mini-games, this time in the style of ‘lights out’. But! This time, there was a way to skip them! And, probably, a clue in the game that I sort of saw and then mostly ignored because I was already tired of that puzzle. But! It meant that I could actually play through the whole story, which was fun. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty much just ‘rollicking space secret agent’ vibes, but the end sort of dips its toe into some relatively convincing pathos. And I absolutely loved being able to deduce the correct sequence of events at the end, with ‘show’ and ‘remove’ (he said vaguely). So! A fun game with fortunately-skippable minigames.
I also appreciated how the translations evolved over time.
Did the author have anything to say? Yeah, kind of! Nothing too deep, but enough to give the story some heft.
Did I have anything to do? Yes! ‘Skip puzzles’ and ‘deduce what to do and feel clever’.