'Still There' Relies Too Heavily On Its Story To Carry It, And The Tasks Aren't Worth It

Still There is an adventure puzzle game that centers its story around a father named Karl Hamba who is aboard the spaceship Bento. He is in charge of completing daily tasks for his employers with the help of an advanced A.I named Gorky. In some moments the story can get intense and will captivate you, but all of this is soon overshadowed by the puzzle aspect of this game.

As soon as the game begins, you're introduced to Karl and Gorky, and we see a little backstory of Karl, his family, and Gorky's purpose. All of that comes to a halt when the first assignment comes in, which is to do a regular check of equipment. There is no tutorial or anything like that to point you in the right direction, but Gorky is there to give you subtle hints on where you need to look. It's simple enough. However, as the game progresses, the hints drop and you're left on your own figure out how to perform your tasks.

As I said before, there never was a tutorial or a layout of the ship. It's a cluttered mess, and trying to find something in there is so frustrating. For example, one of your tasks is to get something to eat. My first instinct was to open the fridge, of course, but there was nothing to eat, so I then had to concoct something edible. Nothing was labeled, so it was constant pointing and clicking til I could find something. If I was struggling with this, I knew I would be I'd be in trouble as the game progressed forward.

You would get harder tasks later in the game, like install a connection with Brane Co. or install a duplex connection. It's convoluted tasks like these that are a major turn off to the game. The game actually has the player read a training manual to see how the tasks can be done. This leads to constant referencing of the manual, which honestly made me want to stop playing. You're always going to be flipping buttons and switches like crazy. Some are so small you have to actually use a magnifying glass to even see them, and that wouldn't even help at times. Sometimes I resorted to just pressing random buttons, which sometimes actually worked.

What I love the most about the game is its story. It shows a rich narrative and relationship between Kat and Gorky and can be humorous and then when you least expect it turn pretty dark, and I love that. You can view Karl's diary entries and inspect certain items around the ship that would reveal his past and give more of a clear explanation of what's going on.

Still There was a game that relies too heavily on its story to carry it. Due to its unnecessary and complicated puzzles and repetitive tasks and functions, this game feels like I'm back at home doing my daily chores around the house. As I said, the story itself was great, but in order to progress, you would have to perform the daily tasks. The story was good, but not good enough to put up with all that.