Over the last few years Humble Bundle and GoG have handed out dozens of free games, most of which I've yet to even try. I think it's time I at least acknowledged their generosity.
Symmetry is a short but intriguing survival game about astronauts escaping a distant planet. I liked it.
It took three attempts and around three and a half hours to finish it, which might not sound impressive but I was quite ill at the time. On the first attempt I had no idea what was happening, despite the game providing lots of helpful popups. And then one of my astronauts died suddenly.
On the second attempt I started to understand how the game worked and was building a kind of strategy in my head when one of my astronauts died again.
On the third attempt I used all my knowledge of the previous runs to good effect and completed the game. However, my most enjoyable play through was the second, because by the third I already knew what was coming.
Uncovering the mystery behind the situation the astronauts find themselves in is part of Symmetry's appeal. Some context is provided at the start, and more comes in snippets of radio chatter and internal musings from the astronauts themselves. It's not up there with the sci-fi classics, but it whiled away an afternoon quite well.
It's not without its faults. Interacting with objects and characters involves popups, some of which have further slide out menus, which I struggled with at times. It would also be really helpful to have keyboard shortcuts for pausing and speeding up time.
Minor gripes aside, this was a decent game. It's not a gaming classic, but as a free gift, it was enjoyable.