STASIS

₊˚｡ﾟʚɞ•━━┈꒰ა ⊱✦⊰ ໒꒱┈•━━ ʚɞ ₊˚｡ﾟ Stasis is a sci-fi isometric adventure game set in the future aboard a spacecraft. The protagonist, John Maracheck, is an ordinary school teacher who wakes up amid utter chaos, despair, and desolation, with the utmost goal of saving his wife and daughter from the haunting and wretched spaceship of Groomlake. [h2] Story and A Bit of Spoilers [/h2] John awakens from his stasis alone aboard Groomlake, a medical research ship run by Cayne Corporation which is worth mentioning that he wasn’t supposed to be on it for an unclear reason, and questions who has awakened him, how he got here, and why. He along with his family was supposed to be on a trip to Titan. He is mentally and physically suffering from the effects of stasis, which causes him ongoing distress throughout his journey. Later, he encounters the corpse of someone named Yuri and discovers a radio with someone speaking on it, who is later identified as Te’ah Hensley. This is where the game truly begins. According to Te’ah, [spoiler] this ship is conducting illegal research on innocent civilians for a project called SEED created by the scientist Dr.Malan. The purpose of this project is still unknown according to what I read through the leftover of dead people’s PDA logs. Some claim it is for creating a healing compound for impossible diseases and others claim it is for creating undying supersoldiers. Basically, they were playing “God” and that resulted in creating an animalistic and viscous mutant humans referred to as “Hybrids”. These hybrids escaped and slaughtered the entire crew. Simultaneously, a fungus infestation suddenly damaged the ship’s systems[/spoiler]. [h2] Atmosphere [/h2] The atmosphere of Stasis profoundly captured the haunting tragedy that happened aboard the Groomlake, shrouding it in a chilling and eerie aura of despair and gore. Corpses were lingering everywhere across the ship, the reflection of blood splattered and splashed on the floor, wall, bed, and every object there. Additionally, some areas were infested by fungus and others were filled with acid and toxic gas. A strange pool of corpses with a bizarre substance. It was completely chaotic. While it may not be connected, when I read into each log of dead crew members, an unsettling intuition washed over me. It felt as though the people behind those entries were not merely flawed, but rather displayed a kind of wickedness that was almost palpable. The overwhelming sense was that many of them were devoid of any redeeming qualities, teetering on the brink of being utterly malevolent, like sinister sociopaths, and mentally ill individuals who used each other or killed one another. There was no genuine connection to be found in any of them. Yet, my heart aches for both John and Harry; they didn't deserve the fate that befell them. I believe in their innocence. [h2] Gameplay [/h2] It’s a point-and-click adventure filled with cleverly designed puzzles. As it was my first experience with an isometric game, I found myself utterly astonished by the immersive gameplay and intricately detailed environments. The mechanics kept me engaged and left me feeling incredibly satisfied. [h2] Conclusion and Final Thoughts [/h2] Wow… I was impressed, shocked, and teared up towards the end. The plot is very well-written. I was utterly immersed in it even though reading through all the entries took most of my time to get a grasp on the lore. It was worth it! I intentionally avoided mentioning important info for fear of spoiling it. I understand now that saying when an indie game traumatizes you. It literally made me gasp! It also had a huge vibe of Dead Space and Event Horizon yet it was absolutely unique. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the developers for creating such a masterpiece and for their hard work. Thank you! ₊˚｡ﾟʚɞ•━━┈꒰ა ⊱✦⊰ ໒꒱┈•━━ ʚɞ ₊˚｡ﾟ [quote]You can find more detailed recommendations on my curator page [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45628294/]Raghad's Choice[/url].[quote] ⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Hate to give this a negative review since I actually *do recommend* this game to any sci-fi body-horror fan. That being said, however, Stasis feels a bit too amateurish to recommend it without any reservations (which is natural as it's the studio's first project, afaik). While the visuals, locations, and story look and feel interesting most of the time — albeit a bit too on the nose with its "hurr-durr, callous, soulless, human-experimenting corporations are evil and bad, hurr-durr" — the voice acting is tolerable at best. I'm also not a huge fan of COUNTLESS crew members' text logs being dedicated to who screws who or at least really wants to. Totally unwarranted and out of place. But the worst thing is that the farther we progress, the more cartoonishly comical/adsurd and "moon logic-ey" the puzzles become. Don't get me wrong, I've been an avid gamer since mid-90s and had my share of utterly deranged point-n-click/quests of that era. However, I never liked them then and I don't like them now — exactly because of the puzzles' cuckoo nature. Sooo, If you're easily frustrated when a game wants you to make random decisions rather than actually applying common sense and logic + tends to waste your time, prepare to resort to walkthoughs (which I personally hate but what the hell). While there are nice and logical puzzles, there's also a lot of others, especially the later ones, that barely make any sense, so be warned. Still like the game though and hope Bone Totem is better in this regard.

It's clear why this style of game has been largely abandoned, with only a few small developers still making point-and-click adventure games. This game would be better as a simpler game. Maybe a walking simulator with some reading, some dialog, and some more logical puzzles? The pixel-hunting nature of finding items, the obtuse nature of using items or combining items to use them later, the "where do I go now" nature of exploration. It's all very outdated and not really fun. Thankfully, the environments, story, and writing are carrying the game for me, as well as a walkthrough to help with the more ridiculous puzzles. The game reminds me of [i]Sanitarium[/i], [i]Soma[/i], and the movie [i]Event Horizon[/i]. If I remember right, the puzzles in [i]Sanitarium[/i] were more logical, and the items were easier to notice. And [i]Soma[/i] is more of a walking simulator, but that genre might have fit this game's story better. Slight recommend for the devs even trying to make a game like this in 2015. I'll probably finish it, but will probably be forced to use a walkthrough for 80% of the puzzles. [spoiler]I'm not smart enough to know nylon tape + crowbar = grappling hook.[/spoiler] [h1]Similar To[/h1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/284050 https://store.steampowered.com/app/282140

I recommend this game with the caveat that you'll enjoy it if you're mostly just here for the vibes. The atmosphere is pretty cool, very sci-fi body horror. Gorgeous backgrounds, though sometimes difficult to find items and doorways in. The writing is eh and the plot twists are pretty standard. Puzzles are mostly fairly simple, though there were some times when I felt like I was doing things without knowing why I was doing them. If you get stuck, just try to ask yourself what the most disgusting thing you could be doing is, and that'll probably put you back on track. I didn't find it super scary, mostly just gross. There are some jump scares and sequences where you have to act quickly or die, but the checkpoints are generous. The worst part of the jump scares is that they're very loud, and there's no individual volume control for different tracks so be aware you'll just get your ears blown out occasionally if you want the dialogue to be audible. Despite my criticisms, I still recommend this game if you like the setting, because there's nothing else quite like this in the point-and-click genre.

Truly an incredible point and click experience. I bought this forever ago and ended up never playing through it, but came back to it after playing Stasis: Bone Totem for more of this world and storytelling. Unfortunately suffers some from not being totally compatible with newer, higher resolutions which made it impossible to play in fullscreen, It was still worth it despite the technical flaws.

nice little sci fi horror.