The Pale Beyond: A dark, icy and challenging adventure | Review
2 years ago - barbositos
Liked by 0 people
The Pale Beyond is an indie survival game, with beautiful graphics, RPG and resource management elements, that has simple mechanics and tells a magnificent story in an immersive and tense way.
A well done project
The Pale Beyond, developed by Bellular Studios and published by Fellow Traveler, released on February 24, 2023, is available for Microsoft Windows and macOS.
The Pale Beyond is a strategy and survival game with RPG and resource management elements, has a graphic signature reminiscent of an animation, and has a primary focus on presenting an engaging narrative, mixing story-changing decision making with an oppressive and tense atmosphere.
A Chance of Fate
First of all, the dynamics of the game's narrative development is done based on choices of lines that will guide what happens in the sequence, and this is how the story is introduced in the very first moments.
We take on the role of Robin Shaw, main character and future Officer of The Temperance, sister ship of The Viscount, who goes missing during an extreme expedition through The Pale Passage. That said, the story begins there, Captain Hunt is recruiting men and women interested in a new expedition, to the same place the other ship disappeared, after the discoveries made by them.
During this first dialogue, inside the Captain's office, it is possible to set up his background story, indicating his origins, his ambitions and goals, which during the game will influence dialogs depending on our choices.
With this in mind, the game already begins to show its complexity, but the real challenge and depth of the story is still to come. The intention of The Pale Beyond is to transmit a dense atmosphere with a lot of pressure on the player, since we assume the role of the Ship's Officer who is responsible for all resource management, crew and decision making.
The game's story is definitely its strongest point, it has a nice length and the whole playable part is quite balanced. I say this based on the dynamics of choosing what to do with the available tools. I had a constant feeling that the decisions made would impact the game in some way, regardless if in a positive or negative way.
Getting to know the crew
As I mentioned, the pressure of decision making is something very constant in the game, and with the intention of increasing immersion, the wrong decisions have an absurd impact on the economy of the game (resources and people).
The rhythm of the game is driven by the dynamics of counting weeks. During the week, you must manage food, fuel, your crew, and distribute activities so that everything goes in a cycle and nobody lacks anything.
As the narrative unfolds, we meet The Temperance's crew, those people who have been hired along with you for the adventure. Each character has a story, and our dialogues are influenced by those choices from the beginning.
In this way, the game is very dynamic and extremely fun to play. The difficulty and tension of the game are striking features that brought me the feeling of immersion and responsibility, especially since the game itself makes a point of showing that the entire operation cannot fail.
Overcoming obstacles
Because it is a game with simple mechanics, the gameplay is very fluid and shows how brilliantly a story can be told while coupled with a very punishing resource management system. In some moments, the atmosphere is so heavy, the resources are so scarce that you feel despair, very interesting dynamics that remind us of titles like Frostpunk.
The Pale Beyond is exciting, the characters are deep, the interactions are well done, the resources are scarce and essential to the well being of the ship as a whole. There is even a meter for the crew's "satisfaction" with you, and if it reaches zero, the game is over.
There is nothing to talk about optimization in The Pale Beyond, because it is a game in the style of interactive story, is very light and will run well on older systems too.
The controls are basic, both on the mouse and keyboard and on the joystick, very few buttons are needed and there is nothing too complex.
Despite the lack of translation and dubbing, the music and sound effects are impressive, with original music, songs and musician NPCs.
A pleasant experience
My experience with The Pale Beyond was very good, what captivated me the most was the story and how it is told. The game brought me excitement and tension and despite being an interactive story at several points, the gameplay as a whole is great and is certainly an aggregator.
In short, it is a unique survival experience, which despite being simple, is brilliant. The whole set is really differentiated and more than enough to hold your attention for hours, as was my case.
The duration of the game varies from player to player, but even for those in a hurry it's a great duration and it doesn't get tiring, I believe that just as it was for me, the game is captivating even for those who are not a big fan of the style.
For this review, the game was experienced on the PC, using the Steam platform. Thanks to Double Jump Communications and Fellow Traveller for providing the access key.
The Pale Beyond, developed by Bellular Studios and published by Fellow Traveler, released on February 24, 2023, is available for Microsoft Windows and macOS.
The Pale Beyond is a strategy and survival game with RPG and resource management elements, has a graphic signature reminiscent of an animation, and has a primary focus on presenting an engaging narrative, mixing story-changing decision making with an oppressive and tense atmosphere.
A Chance of Fate
First of all, the dynamics of the game's narrative development is done based on choices of lines that will guide what happens in the sequence, and this is how the story is introduced in the very first moments.
We take on the role of Robin Shaw, main character and future Officer of The Temperance, sister ship of The Viscount, who goes missing during an extreme expedition through The Pale Passage. That said, the story begins there, Captain Hunt is recruiting men and women interested in a new expedition, to the same place the other ship disappeared, after the discoveries made by them.
During this first dialogue, inside the Captain's office, it is possible to set up his background story, indicating his origins, his ambitions and goals, which during the game will influence dialogs depending on our choices.
With this in mind, the game already begins to show its complexity, but the real challenge and depth of the story is still to come. The intention of The Pale Beyond is to transmit a dense atmosphere with a lot of pressure on the player, since we assume the role of the Ship's Officer who is responsible for all resource management, crew and decision making.
The game's story is definitely its strongest point, it has a nice length and the whole playable part is quite balanced. I say this based on the dynamics of choosing what to do with the available tools. I had a constant feeling that the decisions made would impact the game in some way, regardless if in a positive or negative way.
Getting to know the crew
As I mentioned, the pressure of decision making is something very constant in the game, and with the intention of increasing immersion, the wrong decisions have an absurd impact on the economy of the game (resources and people).
The rhythm of the game is driven by the dynamics of counting weeks. During the week, you must manage food, fuel, your crew, and distribute activities so that everything goes in a cycle and nobody lacks anything.
As the narrative unfolds, we meet The Temperance's crew, those people who have been hired along with you for the adventure. Each character has a story, and our dialogues are influenced by those choices from the beginning.
In this way, the game is very dynamic and extremely fun to play. The difficulty and tension of the game are striking features that brought me the feeling of immersion and responsibility, especially since the game itself makes a point of showing that the entire operation cannot fail.
Overcoming obstacles
Because it is a game with simple mechanics, the gameplay is very fluid and shows how brilliantly a story can be told while coupled with a very punishing resource management system. In some moments, the atmosphere is so heavy, the resources are so scarce that you feel despair, very interesting dynamics that remind us of titles like Frostpunk.
The Pale Beyond is exciting, the characters are deep, the interactions are well done, the resources are scarce and essential to the well being of the ship as a whole. There is even a meter for the crew's "satisfaction" with you, and if it reaches zero, the game is over.
There is nothing to talk about optimization in The Pale Beyond, because it is a game in the style of interactive story, is very light and will run well on older systems too.
The controls are basic, both on the mouse and keyboard and on the joystick, very few buttons are needed and there is nothing too complex.
Despite the lack of translation and dubbing, the music and sound effects are impressive, with original music, songs and musician NPCs.
A pleasant experience
My experience with The Pale Beyond was very good, what captivated me the most was the story and how it is told. The game brought me excitement and tension and despite being an interactive story at several points, the gameplay as a whole is great and is certainly an aggregator.
In short, it is a unique survival experience, which despite being simple, is brilliant. The whole set is really differentiated and more than enough to hold your attention for hours, as was my case.
The duration of the game varies from player to player, but even for those in a hurry it's a great duration and it doesn't get tiring, I believe that just as it was for me, the game is captivating even for those who are not a big fan of the style.
For this review, the game was experienced on the PC, using the Steam platform. Thanks to Double Jump Communications and Fellow Traveller for providing the access key.
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About the game
The Pale Beyond
- Release date: April 10, 2023
- Developer(s):
- Publisher(s):
- Game mode(s): Single player
- Platform(s): PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac
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