In Alone With You, you begin your adventure as a lone space-suited figure on the desolate surface of an inhospitable planet. Your only companion is the artificial intelligence whose core resides at your home base, which is in a serious state of disarray, as everything is essentially crumbling around you.
The AI tells you that the situation on the planet has become so unstable that there is nothing left for you to do but to flee. However, there are repairs and modifications that need to be done to the ship if it is expected to get you home. The catch is that the people who had the knowledge to make those repairs are all dead.
Fortunately, the AI has stored copies of their consciousnesses in its databanks and, using a holodeck-esque bay on the station, sets up scenarios that allow you to interact with these constructs in order to glean the information you need to make the repairs necessary to save yourself from imminent death. I won’t go any further into the plot, because I feel like I’ve strayed a little too close to spoiler-city as it is. Suffice it to say, there is a lot in the narrative that deals with the question of existence, consciousness, etc.
The story is pure, nostalgic sci-fi. For me, it harkened back to the good-old-days of sci-fi where a guy in a spacesuit marooned on a planet with an AI was enough to set your imagination racing. And maybe the point of this story is that, at the end of the day that still is enough, even though Hollywood has made us think that we need ultra-complex over-the-top settings and storylines in order to make for “good sci-fi” anymore. Sometimes, less truly is more.
The pixel graphics and basic interaction with the environment around you reminded me of classic games like Sierra’s Space Quest, LucasArts’ The Dig, or even Planetfall, even though that was only a text-based game. Still, the tone of the story will feel familiar to fans of games like these.
The one place where this game falters, where its predecessors shone is in lack of choice, or rather lack of puzzles to solve. The one thing that I felt was lacking in this game is the fact that its focus was more on being a “visual novel” than a “game”. You control the character and find the breadcrumbs that lead you along the path toward the conclusion of the game, but at no point, did I feel like I was actually affecting the outcome, or that I could make a “wrong” decision.
There were occasional roadblocks that the game put up in order to force me to backtrack and find a certain item, or activate a certain trigger before I could continue, but these were never anything more than a temporary inconvenience. At no time did I feel that the game was challenging me to complete a task. If it told me that I needed a tool to open a door, I knew that the tool would be nearby, I just needed to find it. The same goes for the interactions with the AI and the crew “constructs”. There are dialog options, but at no point did I really feel that what I chose really mattered.
But…maybe that’s the point?
And I realize that the game is pitched as a visual novel, which by definition is less focused on “gameplay” and more focused on being a means to deliver a narrative. But, in other “visual novels” that I’ve played, I guess they’ve done a better job of making me feel less like I’m on rails and given me more of an illusion of agency.
I will say, though, that if you would like to experience an interesting, thought-provoking piece of science fiction, then you won’t really be disappointed in Alone With You as long as you aren’t expecting much in the way of “gameplay”. I feel like the genre of “visual novel” hasn’t really been very well-defined yet and some people may buy this game expecting…you know…a game.
Still, I enjoyed Alone With You. Reading the developer’s goals in making the game (giving homage to the Sega CD and creating a game that provoked “real, honest feelings” are among these goals), I feel like they achieved them. The game is presented in such a way that it feels very nostalgic. It made me feel like I was playing a game on a console from my childhood. And I felt that sense of wonder and confusion about what meaning, if any, there is in human emotion with respect to an artificial construct, among other things. These types of ideas are what make great sci-fi stories. I would consider the concepts of Alone With You to definitely be worthy of their place among other notable mind-benders and thought-provokers. And for that, I can say without a doubt that this game is a success, but, I need to use the term “game” very loosely.
This game retails for $9.99 and, at the time of this review, it is currently on sale for $8.49. I can say that for about the price of a paperback at a bookstore, you could just as easily pick up this game and experience a story on par with some of the classics of the genre in just a little different light.
