Giant steps are what you take in KeokeN’s sci-fi thriller, Deliver Us The Moon. Our review of a nifty sci-fi thriller…
While most Kickstarted games have a habit of shooting for the moon, KeokeN Interactive’s bold thriller has interpreted the concept quite literally. Set in the year 2059, at a time when fossil fuels have completely run dry, Deliver Us The Moon casts you as a humble astronaut tasked with saving a dust-ridden Earth suddenly deprived of its sole energy resource. What follows is a thoughtful and wonderfully ponderous third-person adventure, heavily inspired by numerous classic hard sci-fi works but still boasting a human story of its own.
Completing your ambitious mission revolves around investigating what’s happened to a unique lunar-based gizmo known as the MPT, which up until five years ago did a good job at transmitting to Earth the hefty amounts of Helium-3 needed before eventually going dark. Such a premise proves delectably intriguing for the four- or five-hour journey ahead, always being a great excuse to undertake Deliver Us The Moon’s healthy mix of exploration, item scanning, and puzzle-solving.
Helping you do this is a suite of useful tools no astronaut should be without. Your plasma cutter, for example, allows you to slice open boxes containing vital oxygen within areas of the space station and moon base that are lacking life support, while a floating orb-like device called the ‘ASE’ can be controlled remotely and is small enough to access tight spaces. Clever mechanics such as these are what really elevates Deliver Us The Moon into much more than just a simple explorathon dabbling with some deep themes – and most never outstay their welcome.
Now, of course, setting your game primarily on the moon runs the risk of having environments feel repetitive, but thankfully KeokeN Interactive has done a good job ensuring that this isn’t the case. Whether it’s the believably lived-in crew quarters featuring the sprawled out personal belongings of staff, the Helium-3 mining facilities, or the cratered surface of the moon itself, there’s a decent amount of visual variety offered, always backed up by a musical score that moves between haunting and hopeful. These ideas might have been explored countless times in books and film, but here the thought of being alone in the vastness of space is just as elegantly handled.
Sadly, no moon is without its fair share of cheese, and it’s in the latter half of the game where the story suddenly takes a huge bite, swiftly taking a turn into trope town. You see (and avoiding spoilers), while well-paced and wildly atmospheric for the most part, Deliver Us The Moon’s answer for why the MPT transmitter fell offline wasn’t as inventive as I had hoped. However, while the journey may have been better than the destination, it did nothing to dampen my enjoyment of the game’s mysterious early hours.
Despite this bumpy landing, Deliver Us The Moon serves as a nice trip to the stars that is unafraid to tackle some of the sci-fi genre’s most gripping themes. The puzzle-solving is satisfying, but it’s everything else that kept me inspired from beginning to end.
Highlight
Deliver Us The Moon might evoke mystery most of the time, but certain countdown sequences ratchet up the tension and spectacle by testing out your reaction times. One bombastic set-piece midway through sees you blown out into space, grabbing several O2 canisters as you fight to get back.
Verdict
A strong story and sense of place renders this melancholic sci-fi thriller a worthwhile journey.
76%
Genre: Sci-fi thriller, action-adventure
Format: PC (tested)
Developer: KeokeN Interactive
Publisher: Wired Productions
Price: £19.99
Release: Out now
