Buy MirrorMoon EP

I am slowly learning to travel in space.
Time is a meaningless variable that slips through my fingers.
Stopping requires a lot a energy while moving feels almost like staying still.

Breathing is hard inside the machine.
I need to stay calm.

OK, I bought this game a couple days ago and started by putting a couple hours on it. I made it through Side A (basically the tutorial) and visited a few stars in Side B (the main game). If I had written the review at that point it would have been a fairly negative one. The next day I decided to have another go at it before writing a bad review. My intent was to only play an hour or so... I ended up spending basically the whole day and logged about eight more hours on it, lol. Needless to say, MirrorMoon had really grown on me and I had slowly fallen in love with this game.

I think my initial negative reaction was because I was expecting something more of a puzzle game along the lines of Kairo, which MirrorMoon is not. The A Side of the game is definitely a puzzle and there are some nice "ah-ha" moments when you first figure out how to do something. The game doesn't do much hand-holding and you're thrown into this mysterious world without even a clue as to what you are even doing. The "tutorial" part is only some very brief tips about the basic controls of the game (as in what keys do what). You are left to try to understand everything on your own and it works hugely to the advantage of this title. A huge part of the enjoyment of this game is the mystery of it all. A side note here: if you look an any guides about this game before playing you'll be doing yourself a terrible disservice.

In Side B you are left to explore the universe and I think the "puzzle" part of the game mostly ends here. Every star you visit will be a variation on the puzzles you've solved on Side A. Some take a few minutes to solve and sometimes the exit it literately right in front of you. You should already know how to solve them though and it becomes simply a matter of doing it. At first I found this tedious and repetitive... then I realized I was looking at this all the wrong way. If you approach each star as a problem to be solved I don't think you're going to enjoy it very much. The better approach is to look at each world as something to explore and experience. Just relax and enjoy the atmosphere (this game tons of it). Once I started looking at it from this point of view I found the game to be quite enjoyable.

The good: Simple but nice looking graphics, wonderful soundtrack, very atmospheric and mysterious universe to explore.

The bad: Not much variation on the look of the planets or the puzzles to be solved.

The ugly: I've had a few crashes. It's always just as I arrive at a star and the game closes without warning. Not a huge issue but it's annoying since it always starts me back at the star I started from instead of the one I just arrived at. It doesn't happen very often and I'm on the Linux version so it may not affect everyone.

MirrorMoon EP is definitely an interesting exploration game. I like the visuals and the music, and the "mystery" concept is also quite intriguing, but it is so incredibly frustrating and tedious to navigate through the game.

While on a planet, I spend most of my time wandering around aimlessly on an almost empty surface. Often there's a big "map" in the sky in the form of a moon, but I can't look up at it, I can't look around me, and I can barely see a few feet in front of me.

While in space, there is a 3d map of the galaxy, but I can only scroll through the available destinations in a really tedious and error-prone way. There is a somewhat obtuse coordinate system for the planets (mystery!), which I wouldn't really mind, but there's no way to input coordinates or do anything other than scroll through the map.

The manual basically says that you have to cooperate with other players to find the end of the game, but from my experience, what they meant to say is that one person will stumble on it by accident and will maybe tell the others on the forum.

All in all, I'm trying to like this game, but it's just too frustrating.

So far, this game looks like it's going to be one of my favorite games of all time. However, I cannot say that it's perfect or spectacular without a lot of bias. This game happens to have just about everything I love in a game, so of course I really, REALLY like it, but it is not without faults.
The reason why I like this game so much probably has to do with my favorite attributes to have in a video game. They would be: exploration, puzzles, atmosphere, huge size (why I like games that use procedural generation so much, which this game has) and space.
So, what's good about this game:
-Very atmospheric. This game is so relaxing and calm, while also keeping that mysterious air. The 'artifacts' are all interesting to look at, and the isolated feeling this game brings is just niiiiice.
-Quite a bit of exploration. Each planet is unique, with lots of different artifacts to find.
-Interesting puzzle mechanics. I've never seen a game with mechanics quite like this one.
-Nice aesthetic. The colorful minimalist style is just really enjoyable to look at.
-Basically infinite puzzles to solve.
-The search for the 'Anomaly' as it's called, is really nice incentive. The very existence of the Anomaly gives this game a lot more purpose than it would have had otherwise.

What's not so good
-Not friendly to people just starting out; not much explanation is given as to what to do. The mechanics and stuff aren't too confusing, and one could figure out what to do by going on the Mirrormoon EP forum on Steam, but this is still quite a problem.
-If exploration isn't your thing, you probably won't like this game much, unless you really enjoy the puzzles. The main appeal of this game is split between the exploration/atmosphere (I'm lumping the two together) and the puzzles.
-The puzzles are a strange mix of confusingly abstract, and too straightforward. The tutorial puzzle and the anomaly both show just how amazing the puzzles in this game can be (and there are multiple anomalies, so don't worry about there only being two really good puzzles), but then the rest of the puzzles are kind of simple. I tend to be really good at puzzle games, so I encounter this problem to some extent in most puzzle games, but this one feels like it would be a little on the easy side even to someone who wasn't good at puzzlers. Maybe that's a good thing(?) but honestly, trying to say it's a good thing, when it is clearly a turn off for those looking for a mind bending puzzle experience, would be outright lying,
-I have heard of people despising the art style. Not going to lie, I think this is a stupid argument, because if you hate the art style THAT much, then you can see from the screen shots that the game won't be for you, but I can agree the art style is somewhat hit or miss. Most people I know like it, and think it looks pretty nice, but there are definitely those that hate it.

So, of course, I recommend this game. However, I have to point out flaws to be fair.

P.S. I've heard this game called 'pretentious' and 'a walking simulator' before, a few times. I think both comments are completely off base, as this game isn't pretentious at all, and calling it a walking simulator totally ignores the puzzles, you know, the main point of the game.

This game is based on exploration, and traversing through space. It has a great style; but if you dont know what to do you are pretty much stuck on the spaceship menu thing. Not much besides the controls are explianed to you, as you learn through exploring the various planets.

[there may be a bit of spoiler in this review] this game felt big and small at the same time. I wanted more from it, so the experience was ultimately unsatisfying. it does a great job of making you feel lost in the immensity space - and just plain lost - and the exercise of figuring out the ship's controls was interesting. the controls themselves, though, felt a bit awkward and limiting, both on board the ship and while on a planet's surface (e.g. a game about space and star mapping, but I cannot look up at the sky when standing on a planet surface? please!) this detracted from the puzzle solving aspect. not that the puzzle aspect was that great. from what I could tell, the game has a pool of puzzle components (tools you gather, alien artifacts, astronomical effects, etc.) which interact with each other in various ways, and each planet is a quasi random arrangement of these components. once you solve a planet's arrangement you are rewarded with the opportunity to name the planet/star system. although the game is about puzzle solving for the sake of puzzle solving, and exploring for the sake of exploring, there is a loose "final" goal of identifying, reaching and solving a specific planet (the Anomaly). maybe I got (un)lucky and was able to accomplish this goal fairly quickly, affecting my impression of the game. I only explored about a dozen planets (0% of the galaxy generated for me) when I reached the Anomaly. of those that I did explore, many had trivial solutions, or seemed unsolvable. too few were in the "happy medium" between these extremes, with worthy, interesting puzzles.

the graphics are minimalistic, eerie and in tune with the openness and emptiness of space, but quickly repetitive, each planet just a barren polygonal ball of some color, with a sun and a some "random" landscape features and puzzle artifacts. something as simple as varying textures would have made the experience more appealing. between this visual barrenness and the disappointing puzzle generation, there really isn't much to entice me to return to this universe. maybe those unsolvable planets are actually solvable, and I'm sure there are alien artifacts and puzzle elements I haven't seen yet, but it just doesn't feel enough is there to put up with the long blind search through space. ultimately I expected something like the game Antichamber but in space, with planets and space wonders instead of rooms to solve. it didnt live up to that, although I admire the concept behind this game.

(contrary to what I wrote above, I did give the game another try, this time on multiplayer, but the first thing I run into is the game forcing me to play the tutorial again. really? forget it)

I was excited by the solid style that this game seems to radiate from every screen shot and marketing image, but what really sold me was the engaging and addicting exploration. I became a space traveler... I learned to navigate the stars through trial and error. Space became meaningful to me. I am now an experienced astronomical navigator. Even making simple pit stops to check out an unnamed star system, that I knew wasn't a destination I was looking for, was really satisfying.

Yes, it's a little slow paced, it requires a little patience, but it rewards you for your curiosity. This game is serious fun, and incredibly beautiful! I can't recommend it enough.

beautiful.

Abstract.

This game is a very interesting one. I got it when it game out and was on sale, and decided to play it. The abstract art and music is very unique, in the fact that I have not seen it in many, or even any, other indie games. It is somewhat of a puzzle game too, tagged along by the concept of space exploration.

Overall, I would recommend this. It is a very different experience from most games you will find on Steam, and is well done as well.

An incredibly strong aesthetic combined with peaceful and mysterious gameplay. A great spiritual successor to Noctis.

This is a very, very very strange game. I don't mean that in a bad way, but I'm still not sure to what extent I mean it in a good way. I have 7 of 10 achievements, and I might (?) be approaching the final goal (?) but I still have no very clear idea what I'm doing. For example:

The Other Way Round: Lose the keys in SideA in a different order. I've got that achievement! Yay me! Ummm ... different from what? Was I losing keys in the same order before? I wasn't aware that I was "losing" anything, I thought I was putting stuff back. (In no particular order.) What are keys? They must be those coloured geometric thingies that give my gun-sort-of-thing different abilities.

Side A completion was at 50% the first time I noticed it, and it stayed there for many planets until it suddenly jumped to 95% ... and I hadn't noticed that I had done anything remarkable on that particular planet. Side B completion started off at 55%, I think, and has climbed all the way to 56%. Side A vs. Side B, and the purpose of each, is an interesting puzzle in itself. Some say that Side A is a "tutorial" ... unless my game is broken, it's a very strange tutorial indeed. Sort of a DIY tutorial?

This is a very, very very strange review. I guess that what I'm trying to say is that if you like the idea of a game where solving a puzzle is easier than solving the puzzle of what the puzzle is that you're solving, this is the game for you!

Do you like space? Exploration? Puzzles?
If so, this game might be for you. But it might not be.

Do you also like really vague goals? What about being dumped into an unfamiliar environment without any intrinsic help? Quiet emptiness? What about all that?
To many people the above might be very negative points, but I feel they together paint an interesting narrative.

This game doesn’t hold your hand. It refuses to stand in the same room as you. Doesn’t even look in your general direction. Remember that one puzzle near the end of Myst where you were in a cart and had to find your way out by choosing which way to go at every intersection? A different sound effect was played at every intersection, but without some serious trial-and-error there was no way to know that the sound that played corresponded with the direction you were supposed to go in. To solve it without help, not only did you have to somehow connect the sound effect to the direction, but you had to somehow sort out *which* sound effect corresponded to *which* direction. This game is a lot like that puzzle, only the answer isn’t published anywhere and you sure as hell can’t ask your dad for help.

I’ve landed on unnamed planets where there is nothing to do at all, the only thing present is the gate to get back on the ship. There are also planets where there are things to see, but no real puzzle to be solved. When there is a puzzle to be solved, it’s back to trial-and-error, but at least you have your prior experiences to go on this time. This game is slowly paced and doesn’t spoonfeed you—sometimes you find some neat stuff on a planet, but sometimes there is nothing. I mean, even that “nothing” planet gets you closer to your goal of “find that anomaly somewhere in the universe” but that isn’t what most people are accustomed to in a game.

The minimal sound effects/soundtrack is great, and I find the game itself quite relaxing. The only annoying bit is the “in media res”-type beginning. Just like when you needed help with that Myst puzzle, I suggest you look for help on Steam with guides/forums, as well as looking through youtube videos (or I guess you could just brute force it until something sticks, like those who mapped out that entire puzzle by hand, but that too could take a while). Once you’ve grasped the first tutorial planet, you should have an idea on how the game is played and what you should be looking for.

The atmosphere is haunting and serene at the same time. After about an hour in the game, I just want to continue getting lost in Mirrormoon's universe.

The minimalistic graphics and atmosphere are fantastic...but after three hours of playing I still don't know what I'm doing. If you are looking for calmness and relaxation this is your game.

Absolutely fantastic. I have played hours of this game on my Fire TV, and I just found out it was on Steam as well. This is an atmospheric first-person puzzler that perfectly emulates a genuine sense of lonely, aimless exploration through space. To access this however, you have to figure out the cryptic controls of your spacecraft and the mysterious objects you find on planet surfaces.

My brain hurts

This game really confused me. I have no idea what I'm doing. But I like it.
This game feels more like a weird lucid dream rather than a game. I dunno, I might not be playing it right.

If statistics are true, you were probably born in the 80's or 90's with parents, teachers, and counsellors all telling you that you're a special little snowflake and you're a genius. Well they're all wrong. You're not a genius, you're a babbling idiot, and this game will prove it. This game will make you feel so dumb that a child's wooden block toy is beyond your comprehension. 10/10.

This game makes me feel stupid. I probably am stupid.

This is certanly a unique game. you travel through space on a 3d star grid, visit these strange small technicolor planets, solve strange puzzles and name the planets as you go (i've been leaving ciphers in the names :P out of bordom. you can do fun stuff like that if you please). The only drawback is that the puzzle dynamics have to be similar from planet to planet because it's a huge galaxy that's full of an almost endless amount of places to visit. That makes the game very much worth the money because you will get a lot of gameplay out of it. I found the puzzles got addictive and they do throw you a curveball once and a while. It's also great to play when working on something else in the background because you can run it in a window if you want. I always appreciate that. What is cool, is the fact that if you play it in online mode, you and other people and naming stars in the same galaxy. Anyways, I'd definitely recommend it for your collection even if you're looking for a normal adventure game because of the fact that this has almost infinite replay value. It's the most innovative game I've played recently and I usually find games like that gimmicky. I'd usually rather stick to a quintessential game of a genre like puzzle solving adventures but this is one of the few unique genre games I'd recommend