Sci-fi retro turn based shenanigans with a gun totting guineapig, and just that’s the Beyond Galxyland demo.
Grab a towel, hold onto your pets, and prepare for the end of the world because its coming to charm the socks off you on 24 September 2024. Beyond Galaxyland is coming to PC later this month, and we’ll be watching it escape into orbit after our Gamescom 2024 playthrough.
Pulling inspiration from by classic sci-fi movies, Beyond Galaxyland is planet hopping, 2.5D adventure-RPG. Featuring retro tinged graphics, a full featured narrative, and homages a plenty, this inventive slice of space chaos invited us to tour the system during Gamescom 2024. Having just about got our Earth legs back, I think you need to get this on your Wishlist ahead of the big day.
That Plot
Beyond Galaxyland follows the fate of high-schooler Doug, as he’s whisked away to ‘Galaxyland’ – a bizarre menagerie of planets, full of orphaned civilizations, all on a quest to save Earth. After experiencing a plot that sounds like something straight out of a Douglas Adams novel, it’s clear that space fantasy and sci-fi silliness is the order of the day. Mixing elements from classic suburban kid’s films like Flight of the Navigator and squashing in its very own ham Solo, the pistol-wielding guinea pig Boom Boom, things still continue to get more outlandish. Across a range of worlds, from the blizzard-swept planes of Arcos to the tropical jungle ravines of Erros, you’ll fulfil quests and unlock secrets that might every well save the day, or not.
Dropping us on a 2.5D level We has the chance to usher Doug through an abandoned world and what seemed like a mine. Accompanied by Boom Boom and a robot called MartyBot, this trio wind their way through a high-res pixel textured backdrop that balances the nostalgia of playing Chrono Trigger of Another World without feeling slow or just old.
Combat scenarios dropped us in against a small selection of the brutes that stand in your way. These minions in part of a larger conspiracy come barrelling out of the darkness with a range of potential attacks, and each member of our party can use a range of options to take care of the problem. Turn based combat plays out along the horizontal plane but has plenty of options. Light, Heavy, and special attacks are on offer as you wind through every character’s turn. If you’re sneaky, a scan could uncover some possible actionable intel, that might save some precious Action Points. Those Action Points can be spent or recovered depending on the choices made, so you’ll need to decide whether to attack, heal, buff, or defend to get through. This isn’t too intimidating for new players, but the wide variety of possible interactions each attack can have with a different potential enemy makes combat a little nuanced, without being overly obnoxious.
Pulp Perfection
With 30 minutes of bashing through bodies, unlocking secrets, and navigating the map behind us, it was evident that there’s an extra level of care taken when piecing together Beyond Galaxyland. To say that it draws on pulp media would be to dismiss that care in applying those flourishes to the world. They are overt but work within the chaos of this system. Survivors from across the galaxy with no home of their own mingle in a multitude of worlds. Of course, talking animals, sentient robots, and dinosaurs to all seem like something you could conceivably see.
Overall direction, similarly, is far more careful than you’d first realise. When entering a boss battle, in game cut scenes move the camera view, tilting and panning focus to feel cinematic. Backgrounds and environments are constructed with obvious layers of detail, giving the whole thing a truly 2.5D perspective. Even little things like combat encounter music are a deliberate, and very telling of what’s to come.
Beyond Galaxyland is nearly here and if you’re as well matured as I am then you need to keep your sneakers close at hand for the day this takes off in the charts. Wishlist Beyond Galaxyland over on Steam now.
