Video games have frequently featured dogs. Man’s best friend has taken on the digital form with fantastic video game canines over the years, like Boomer in Far Cry 5 and Dogmeat from the Fallout titles. The game Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home from creator Enjoy Studio goes a step further by having the user assume the role of a devoted and able dog.
The protagonist of Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home is Bea, who was sent on a space voyage but became separated from her human companion and must reunite with them. In a 2.5D puzzle platformer, this entails getting to know and befriending exotic species as well as learning about weird technology. Thankfully, despite being simply a puppy, Bea has the agility and acute senses of a dog to aid her in her mission.
Puzzles are a big part of the gameplay in Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home. The stages of the game usually have a central idea that the player must work through using some of the crucial abilities they have either practised or mastered beforehand. A strong progression system is in place, with the player gaining skills as the difficulty of the journey increases.
Many of these abilities are very basic for a puzzle platformer and are likely what the player would anticipate, but there are also some pleasant surprises. Bea’s many dog senses are one of Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home’s pretty distinctive aspects. Bea can use her sense of smell, for instance, to determine where to go next and to identify things like poisonous substances in the environment that she should avoid. It works nicely as a gameplay gimmick and is never unnecessary.
The method that Bea must speak with extraterrestrial entities throughout the game is a little more hit-and-miss. The player can select from a variety of alternatives, such as barking, wagging the tail, or rolling over, which correspond to the alien’s fearful, furious, or pleased reactions. Despite having a clever mechanic in theory, there are simply too many options to test and learn about.
Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home is a very effective visual story. The game has a great diversity of settings, from sterile stations to living planets, and it really gives the player the impression that they are travelling through an alien world. Given how fantastic the environments are, it’s simple to ignore some of the character animations that feel a little static.
A game like this is, of course, frequently motivated by the quality of its narrative as well. Even though the plot of Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home isn’t the most intricate in the world, it has a lot of emotional heft. Even while it lacks the complexity of Stray in comparison to other animal-based games, Bea’s adventure and ambition to reunite with her human companion are both compelling.
Although it undoubtedly helps that Space Tail: Every Journey Leads Home doesn’t require a lot of graphics, the atmosphere is consistently high and the game plays smoothly on a handheld device. It actually works well as a game to play on the go thanks to its puzzle-based gameplay and brief levels.
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