Planet RIX-13

The thing I love about New Years is how it affords everybody a chance to start fresh. Usually that's just the thing you say while vowing to exercise more and drink less, but sometimes the old adage rings true. I went into 2019 hoping that this would be the year when Sometimes You would end their losing streak and finally release a game worth playing. I'm not sure if I would label their first game of the New Year a must-buy, but science fiction adventure game Planet RIX-13 is about as close as the publisher has come to giving us a genuinely good game. Maybe this is a sign that 2019 won't be the nightmare hellhole we've been dreading this whole time.

You take control of a space explorer who is part of a team looking for a suitable planet for life. Unfortunately, we pick up the story after the mission had failed and all but one member of the team was killed. It's now your job to continue the research, remain living and then get off the planet in one piece. It's a tense and terrifying situation to be in, but don't worry, Planet RIX-13 will only take thirty to sixty minutes to beat, so it's not quite as epic as it sounds.

This is a fairly straight-forward side-scroller where the emphasis is on picking up items and using them to solve puzzles. It's sort of like Maniac Mansion, only nowhere near as intricate or good. You'll start out seeking medical help, but this quickly transitions into getting the servers back on line, 3D printing useful items, opening up a bunch of safes and eventually tracking down four space rocks. Along the way you'll run into a few basic puzzles and emails that help fill in the story.

As an adventure game, Planet RIX-13 isn't especially deep. Every item you can interact with will eventually be used for something, so most of the job is just walking around and looking for objects that light up. The locations are all incredibly small, as you're usually investigating tiny interiors and single-screen crash sites. The good news is that the game is easy to control and I liked how quickly you can bounce from one part of the planet to another.

I also think the throwback 8-bit graphics look good. They aren't flashy and won't win any awards for detail, but they are clean and the dozen or so locations all look a little different. First-time developer 9 Eyes Game Studio should be proud of what they've accomplished here, especially when it comes to some of the trippy moments connected to the planet's mystery. I also like that the ambient sounds of the planet do talking, since pretty much any music would have only hurt the experience.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

There's an argument to be made that I'm grading this game on a curve and more impressed that it's not a complete failure like many releases from Sometimes You. There's some truth to that, but would counter that this is a good game on it own. It's not groundbreaking and won't blow you over with its originality, but it's executed well and doesn't bite off more than it can chew. It's also cheap, making the short run time a little easier to swallow. The fact that it's not a complete dumpster fire like North and SkyTime is a nice bonus, but I think Planet RIX-13 holds its own as a solid debut release from a new studio.

That said, there are a few things I hope the developers will think about when making their next game. Personally, I don't mind the short length and limited scope, but it would have been nice to have a more compelling story. This extends beyond the email narrative and into the visual storytelling, especially when it comes to the ending. Outside of a few trippy moments, there isn't a lot about the story that will stick with me. And the multiple endings are also anticlimactic, which is disappointing. It would have been nice to see more work go into the creative deaths and some sort of closing cinema. It just feels like something is missing.

As both an adventure game and a debut release from 9 Eyes Game Studio, Planet RIX-13 is a solid effort. It's not especially original, the story isn't as compelling as it could be and it will take you no longer than an hour to complete, but it has a clean look, good gameplay, multiple endings and a few genuinely trippy moments. It's also a marked improvement over every other Sometimes You game I have reviewed, making me cautiously optimistic about the year to come. Here's hoping that Planet RIX-13 is a turning point for the much-maligned company.