This is a unique and lovely story-based experience that is distinctly different from the other games in the jam. It's lovingly written and designed to convey an impression of a setting, of characters, and a general mood, and I think that approach serves a jam game well where resources are constrained.
The designs are great! The 2D billboard character sprites are fun and immediately identifiable, and they are juxtaposed reasonably well in the dark, dingy 3D environment, which at least has a bit of colour to complement them as the player goes around chatting to each of the characters.
The character writing is good. The writers of the game use different emotional approaches to loss - grief, regret, indifference, apathy, or no response at all - as a hook to engage the player with the different interactions in the game. Through this the player learns a lot of contextual information.
Obviously one of the limitations with this approach is that not a lot happens, but that's okay. I think the purpose of the game, if I'm right, was to convey a certain mood and narrative, and it did that particularly well. The sombre and uneasy conclusion leaves a lot of things open for more stories!
I think that, if there had been time, slightly more environmental interaction and potentially some errands around the ship could have improved the player's engagement with the ship, rather than feeling that the game is a talk-a-thon. But of course that is no easy design task for a jam.
I did a playthrough video below:
This is an excellent collaboration! It's definitely one of the more unique games in the jam. I sincerely hope everyone involved continues to write and develop - keen to see more!- FSV