This week, with all of the terrible news, I wanted to play something light, so I picked up Tales from Deep Space. An Amazon Game Studios Kindle adventure, Tales from Deep Space is a cute adventure game for the Kindle Fire HDX and 2014 Kindle Fires, so the game is pretty limited platform-wise. But, I have a ton of Amazon coins that I got for free along the way, so I figured I would pick it up and give it a shot. My initial impression of the game was that it’s super cute. The main character, E, and his luggage droid are sent on various missions throughout an intergalactic airport. Along the way, they must solve puzzles, find their way around the airport, and fight the guards (Red Meeks).
I played my first tablet game, Spirits of Spring on the iPad a few weeks ago. I liked that game, but I wasn’t sure how much I liked playing on a tablet. The controls in Spirits of Spring are a bit wonky; the game was constantly doing the opposite of what I wanted it to do. I find the same problem a bit in Tales from Deep Space, although to a lessor extent. So far, in Tales from Deep Space, I find the trigger to shoot is very sensitive, although random shots don’t seem to affect anything. Given that there are a lot of NPCs standing around, I would think they would react in some way, but they don’t. But, I think the main reason I don’t love playing games on tablets is because I like to become immersed in the story and the graphics. This is hard to do with my finger right in the middle of the screen. I love the handheld experience of curling up with a good game on the couch, but I like controls. Playing games on a tablet feels somewhat awkward to me.
The game is beautiful, though, and the characters are cute and quirky. I was pretty impressed with how good the game looked on my Kindle. They have included a surprising (to me anyway) amount of detail in each of the levels. I did get a little confused when I was given the map to the airport; the map is not as intuitive as I’m used to or would like. In my admittedly limited play experience in this game, I found the map to be useful only in telling me which direction to go, but it’s not that great at giving me a sense of my progress. For example, I felt like my character walked forever and I was still in the same section, but then suddenly he jumped past 3 sections, and I have no idea why or how that happened.
In the first hour, I found the narrative somewhat entertaining and somewhat disappointing. It’s not a terribly difficult game, and I never came even close to dying. Amazon lists it as rated for all ages, and I think kids might find this game fun. I like the narrative and it sort of sets up a mystery (i.e. why the Red Meeks are taking over), and the dialogue is cute at times, but I wished for more depth both in narrative and dialogue and in game play and mechanics. But, if you have a Kindle Fire HDX or 2014 Kindle Fire and are looking for a cute game, you might want to give this one a try. Currently, it’s selling for $6.99, and I haven’t noticed a sale. But, as it’s an Amazon Game Studios title, it wouldn’t surprise me if the game does go on sale soon. You can also buy it with Amazon coins, and Amazon often offers coin promos, so, if you watch, you could get it for cheap or even free. I’ll probably keep the game around for something mindless to play when I’m away from my other consoles, but I’m not sure it’s something I’ll ever want to drop everything to play.
