Merge Games are releasing their adventure/puzzle/shooter hybrid Albedo: Eyes From Outer Space through Steam’s early access program this Friday, October 3rd.
Much of the time when a small developer feels the need to include the terms “stunning 3D graphics” in their bragging rights for a game you can rest assured that you will get anything but. Combine that with the phrase “in the Unity engine” and you have a recipe for comically inept disaster.
Or, sometimes, you have Albedo, which from all the screens and video available seems to actually deliver on the former using the latter.
It’s all a bit shocking, really.
Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space is one part stock first person shooter, one part puzzle game, and two parts 60’s style schlock sci-fi. The developers advertise the gameplay as “escape the room,” but from everything that seems to happen in the game that seems about as accurate a description as describing Portal with the phrase “jump through holes.” It may be technically right, but it sheds little light on everything involved in accomplishing that goal.
So what content will you have access to if you choose to dive into Albedo’s Steam Early Access? Well, for starters, you’ll be able to play through the first twelve levels of the game, complete with a promised cliffhanger ending! Fabrizio Zagaglia (the game’s single developer) and Merge Games’ plan to release the game’s next 8 levels in semi-regular fashion, along with new enemies, mini-games, environments, and other content, building up to the game’s final official release in February of 2015.
With environments that stand out versus much of the other content we tend to see from Unity-driven games along with a creative plot and diverse gameplay, Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space certainly has our attention. Will the final product live up to the expectations that are already building around the game? We have less than two days until we get our first real taste of the action.