Star Story: The Horizon Escape

About

"Star Story: The Horizon Escape" is a turn-based adventure game with text-RPG elements, where you play as an aspiring space-archaeologist named Van Klik, stranded on the mysterious planet of Horizon. Your choices determine the non-linear plot development, with 24 alternative endings. Survive, explore, and make decisions that will shape your story in this sci-fi adventure.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

Star Story: The Horizon Escape screenshot

70%

Audience ScoreBased on 77 reviews

story15 positive mentions

grinding4 negative mentions

The game features a unique blend of engaging storytelling, turn-based combat, and crafting mechanics, providing a fun and immersive experience.
With 24 different endings and choices that significantly impact the story, the game offers high replayability and encourages exploration of various paths.
The graphics are visually appealing, with a charming art style that enhances the overall atmosphere of the game.

The game suffers from poor translation and numerous spelling and grammatical errors, which detract from the narrative experience.
Gameplay can become repetitive due to the limited variety of enemies and the need for constant resource gathering and crafting.
The combat system can feel unbalanced, with instances of random encounters leading to frustrating situations where players can be easily overwhelmed.

story
76 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
76%
4%
The game's story is a mixed bag, with some players finding it engaging and well-integrated with choices that significantly affect outcomes, while others criticize it for being overly simplistic or padded with repetitive elements. Although the narrative features multiple endings and a charming presentation, issues such as lack of depth in character development, translation errors, and gameplay bugs detract from the overall experience. Ultimately, the story's effectiveness varies widely among players, with some enjoying its interactive nature and others feeling it falls short of expectations.
- “Incredibly fun game with quite the compelling story.”
- “The game plays out almost like a choose your own adventure story and the choices you make throughout can greatly reshape the direction the plot takes.”
- “There are a total of 24 endings and it's very entertaining to replay the game with the knowledge of your previous runs to see how you can change events in the plot around.”
- “The biggest reason this game is a thumbs-down from me (and a big thumbs-down at that!) is the story.”
- “This is just an insane level of padding masking a paper-thin story.”
- “So far, the storyline is a bit slow, and the characters lack any depth, which is pretty disappointing for a game that is set up as a story game.”
gameplay
25 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
12%
76%
12%
Gameplay is characterized by a mix of simplistic mechanics, including text-based choices, point-and-click exploration, and turn-based combat, which some players find boring and poorly explained. While the crafting system and resource gathering add some depth, the overall experience feels unpolished, with issues like unbalanced enemy encounters and distracting writing errors. The game may appeal to casual gamers, but many reviewers express concerns about its lack of engagement and depth.
- “I finished the game with 11 hours of pretty dedicated gameplay, but there was still more to explore.”
- “Simplified and straightforward RPG mechanics and turn-based combat mixed with an interesting enough story in text-based form, with choice-oriented progression - wrapped in lovely art design.”
- “The gameplay is pretty much a combination of a visual novel (without endless texts), turn-based fighting scenes (very short), and crafting and upgrading your inventory at your base.”
- “The mechanics feel lazy.”
- “It almost feels like they ran out of money/time and then just slapped the assets they had together in different orders until they'd stretched the 'gameplay' out long enough.”
- “Having an entire loop ended by a single random encounter is very bad game design and I frankly don't think I can advise this game to anyone unless this mechanic is fixed.”
graphics
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
57%
13%
Overall, the graphics of the game are generally praised for their vibrant colors and appealing art style, with many reviewers highlighting the quality of the 2D visuals. While the music is considered decent but repetitive, some players noted a lack of customization options and found the graphics to be mediocre for the game's price point. Despite some minor bugs, the visual presentation contributes positively to the game's atmosphere and storytelling.
- “The graphics are all well done, and the music and sound effects are also well done.”
- “Graphically, Star Story: The Horizon Escape is gorgeous, with vibrant colors and striking artwork.”
- “The unique blend of atmosphere, graphics, sound, and text-based elements with surprisingly enjoyable turn-based combat compels me to recommend the game.”
- “There's a number of flaws with this game... the writing is quite bad, there's no proper graphics customization settings.”
- “The $15 price tag is extremely high given the very mediocre quality of the game (2D graphics... it's 2018, come on...).”
- “If the art style is what brought you here, don’t be fooled because this pretty package has some depth to it.”
music
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
57%
29%
14%
The music in the game is generally well-received, with many players appreciating its quality and immersive qualities, though some find it repetitive and lackluster over time. The soundtrack enhances the overall atmosphere, combining ambient sounds and combat effects effectively, contributing to a charming and engaging experience. While the music is enjoyable, it may not stand out significantly in the long run.
- “The music is nice and sounds really good on a sub.”
- “The soundtrack lends another layer to the immersive experience.”
- “Everything about Star Story: The Horizon Escape was charming and engaging, including the soundtrack.”
- “The music is a little lackluster though.”
- “The modifications that we can do in the settings screen are minimal; they only include the volume of the sound and the music, the resolutions, and the fullscreen option.”
replayability
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
25%
38%
The game offers significant replayability with 24 different endings and additional scenarios that encourage players to revisit it. However, some users feel that while the replay value is high, the overall experience may not be compelling enough to warrant multiple playthroughs. Overall, it is seen as a hidden gem with plenty of surprises for those seeking replayability.
- “This game has replayability in spades.”
- “This is certainly a hidden gem, family-friendly, with a massive amount of replayability and 24 different endings.”
- “So many fun surprises, and a lot of replayability with 24 endings.”
- “This is not a rogue-like where the replayability is important.”
- “With 24 endings, there is a lot of replayability here, but I don't think the game holds up well enough to finish an ending and then turn around and do it 23 more times.”
- “Additional scenarios give more reason to replay the game, adding to its replayability.”
humor
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's humor is highlighted as a strong point, with players appreciating its witty dialogue and creative character interactions reminiscent of classic titles like Space Quest. While the humor adds to the enjoyment and relaxation of the gameplay, some users feel that the overall experience could benefit from more diverse puzzle design and longer content. Overall, the small development team's sense of humor is well-received, making the game a fun sci-fi adventure.
- “Reminds me of old-time games such as Space Quest a bit (may not be as deep, but the humor is the same).”
- “This small Russian development team has a wonderful sense of humor and creativity, which was evident to me both during the live stream event and during gameplay.”
- “Nice game, pretty funny dialogues and characters... but sadly it is pretty short. Hope it will get more lengthy over the course of early access. Overall, great work!”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding mechanics in the game to be tedious and poorly designed, often feeling like a deliberate attempt to extend gameplay by forcing them to repeatedly gather resources for crafting. While initial gameplay can be enjoyable, the repetitive nature of encounters and the potential for game-breaking bugs contribute to a frustrating experience that discourages completion of all content.
- “The whole thing seems to be designed to just make you grind out stats and resources to lengthen the runtime since using any of the items or weapons you can craft locks you into a never-ending cycle of grinding resources to replace or refill those items over and over.”
- “It's tedious to play, badly designed, and quite likely made that way on purpose.”
- “I was playing it for a couple of hours and it was fun, but after a few resets of the story, some parts get more and more tedious. The game sometimes even throws at you two exactly the same random encounters one after another. But what really breaks the game for me was a game-breaking bug. After another reset, you start in the desert, and after a while, your character takes out sand from his boot and teleports to base. The problem is that after going out from the base, I ended up just before checking the bot for sand and automatically teleporting back to base. No matter what I tried, I was stuck in that loop. The only way out of this situation would be to start the game once more and hope that I will not get stuck somewhere again, and I'm not looking forward to testing my luck again.”
stability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game has been criticized for its stability issues, with users reporting various bugs that detract from the overall experience. Despite these problems, some players recognize its potential and enjoy the gameplay, indicating a mixed reception regarding stability.
- “It was a buggy game with great potential. I uninstalled it and forgot about it until I found out that it was released, so I re-installed it, played it, and really enjoyed it again and again.”
- “It's killing me, but I can't give a thumbs up for this one. It is a good game, but also a buggy one.”
- “It sort of reminds me of a well-made puzzle, although I'm having a bug where the top of the screen is buggy.”
atmosphere
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's atmosphere is highly praised for its unique combination of graphics, sound, and text-based elements, which enhance the overall experience. Players appreciate the enjoyable music and distinctive art style, contributing to a compelling and immersive environment.
- “The unique blend of atmosphere, graphics, sound, and text-based elements, combined with surprisingly enjoyable turn-based combat, compels me to recommend the game.”
- “The music is nice to listen to, and I absolutely love the art style, so the atmosphere is great.”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
300%
The monetization strategy of the game relies heavily on microtransactions to enhance the free-to-play experience, but players feel that this approach leads to a frustrating cycle of repetitive gameplay unless they spend real money, particularly on PC where it is less effective.
- “If the aim was for a free-to-play game with the option to sell upgrades and resources via microtransactions, then this is the structure you want. However, forcing users to buy items with real money to avoid endless repetition just doesn't work on PC.”
- “The monetization strategy feels exploitative, as it seems designed to push players into spending money rather than enjoying the game.”
- “It's frustrating that the game is built around a paywall, making it difficult to progress without spending real money.”