When a wormhole tears open in space, an astronaut crashes down on a distant and unknown planet. But where is she? Is there anyone else here? If there is, where have they all gone? But, most importantly, how is she going to get back home? Well, by solving loads of puzzles and piecing together the mystery in this retro-inspired 2D, pixel art, first-person, point-and-click adventure, The Abandoned Planet.
Platforms: PC (Steam), Andriod, Apple
Players: 1
Genres: Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Exploration
Developer: Dexter Team Games
Price: £12.79
(This product was received for free)

The Abandoned Planet Review
Crash landing on an alien planet, more often than not, would be bad – I’d imagine. However, the planet we crash land on actually seems like a pretty nice place. Lush forest, advanced civilization, a transport system that looks much better than what’s on offer in many cities here. You’ve lucked out pretty well I’d say. That being said, the aforementioned civilization does seem to have vanished so getting off the planet might not be a bad idea, but how?
The Abandoned Planet will have you exploring many different locations looking for items that will help you open long-locked doors, or tools to help overcome obstacles. All with the goal of trying to get back home.
I’d say that it’s your pretty standard point-and-click adventure. You’ll move around from location to location finding areas that you won’t be able to get through and you’ll backtracking and searching every nook of every scene for the next item or hint of what to do next.

Puzzles Galore
There are a lot of puzzles to solve throughout the game. Many of which, are multi-staged, meaning you’ll need to find numerous items to solve just one puzzle. The difficulty of them does vary quite a lot as well. Meaning some you will breeze through, whilst others will take more time. To help you with some of them you find a book early on that, whilst written in an alien language you don’t understand, provides many visual clues as to how to solve certain dilemmas. It’s a neat little mechanic and helps bring to world to life just that little bit more.
I will admit that some of the puzzles did have my partner and I stumped for a short while. At times it will get your brain ticking.

Lucious Lands
With over 300 unique areas to explore, you’re not short of locations. The hand-painted pixel art looks brilliant throughout giving the game a lovely retro feel. There’s a nice variation of places to see as well. From forests to beachy deserts, cities, and more. It keeps the game feeling fresh and interesting.
I always find it interesting to see other people’s interpretations of what alien planets could look like. I think this one is as close to being human as possible whilst still feeling alien. Which makes sense in the ‘realm’ of it being a video game as it helps you to understand the context of the environment without it being spoon-fed to you.
It’s also fully voice-acted, which I wasn’t expecting.

A Good Space-Faring Adventure
We spent just over 5 hours completing the game and I’d imagine that will vary a little bit depending on how quickly you can solve some of the puzzles. On the whole, it was a really fun time. There were a few times when the back tracking got a little tedious – especially towards the end. However, it wasn’t so bad that it spoilt things.
Overall, The Abandoned Planet was a really fun game. At a little over £10 I’d say it’s probably a no-brainer for point-and-click fans. A decent length, enjoyable puzzles and a good looking retro game. Definitely worth checking out.
-Will