An Alien Mystery: The Video Game

An alien spacecraft has just entered our solar system, but to everyone's surprise, it only contains a video game. As the world's leading Video Game Scientist, you have been tasked with unraveling this enigma. But you won't be alone in your quest; a snarky narrator will accompany you, making sure you don't take all the credit and glory.

Gameplay

Each level presents a navigation puzzle: how do you find the exit while collecting all the necessary objects, some of which may be hidden or difficult to reach? The levels are small and bite-sized, but offer multiple paths to explore. Find the fastest route to unlock extra rewards, or take your time for a more casual experience. Speed running is optional, but encouraged. Casual players can enjoy the game at their own pace, but for a greater challenge and some competition, try to beat the in-game time trials or compete on the Steam Leaderboards for each level.

Features:

• Not a precision platformer - death simply means quick travel back to the last checkpoint, which can be specified by the user
• Mazes always have a tell, guiding you in the right direction (but feel free to wander randomly if you must)
• Soundtrack can be muted at any time, but we hope you won't want to
• Plays equally well with a mouse or gamepad (compatible with all brands through Steam Input)
• Verified to work on at least one Steam Deck
• 38 hand-crafted levels

Our Gameplay Philosophy

A good collectathon game allows players to choose their own path to the end, decide which collectibles to obtain, and determine how efficient they want to be. This is the foundation of our level design - there is no single path to completion, but there is likely a best route that may not have been discovered yet (or even intended by the designer).

To avoid the tedium of large, sprawling open world levels with excessive backtracking and getting lost, our levels are smaller and more manageable. Completing a level should never take more than 5 minutes. The only requirement is to reach the end, and for casual players, there is even a hidden option to skip the level if needed. However, for a greater challenge, try to collect all the objects and do it relatively quickly.

Instead of competing against a global leaderboard with slim chances of placing, our speedrun challenges are designed for moderately motivated and agile players to achieve with some planning, knowledge of the level layout, and a few retries at most. Rather than relying on split-second timing, success is more likely with strategic thinking about which areas to visit first and where to place the respawn point.

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  
• OS: 10
  
• Processor: i5 7200u
  
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
  
• Graphics: Intel HD 620 iGPU / GTX 920M / Radeon Vega 3
  
• Storage: 250 MB available space
  
• Sound Card: Sound Blaster PRO
  
• Additional Notes: Playable on most modern laptops, eg 8th gen Intel or newer, with options to reduce resolution/video quality to reach 60fps even on low end machines

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  
• OS: 10
  
• Processor: Slightly better than potato
  
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
  
• Graphics: Intel Irix Xe iGPU / GTX 960M / Radeon Vega 8 / Steamdeck
  
• Storage: 250 MB available space
  
• Sound Card: Advanced Gravis UltraSound MAX 64 PnP
  
• Additional Notes: Gamepad OR Keyboard & Mouse