The other day I decide to go online & check all the games that had been released in 2017. Some of them I had played, some I was going to play & others I had never heard of, one of them was a game called Milkmaid of The Milky Way (available on iOS, Android & PC). The premise seemed like an interesting idea, normally I don't play many phone games but I thought, let's give it a go.
Milkyway's are awesome, I don't just mean the cosmic kind I mean the chocolate one too. They are tiny fluffy little bars which are kind of a snack or maybe an appetiser before your main course - maybe a Yorkie for example. I often find though if it is the only treat I am having one of them is not enough & having a few is sickly. Playing Milkmaid of the Milky Way I found myself asking was this a tasty little treat or was it too much of the same.
The story is simple, well sort of, well at least it starts that way. Ruth has recently taken over the family farm since her father passed away a number of months ago. It's a tough life doing it all by herself but she never complains about it. Ruth has her cows for company, her favorite is Lykke.
Things get crazy early on & you end up having your cows abducted by aliens (which isn't as cliche as it sounds). Your mission; retrieve your cows & survive contact with an alien race. If I say anymore than that it will spoil the story so that's your lot.
Visually the game goes for an 8-bit style which looks really well, being both simple & beautiful. The mountains where the farm is located looks really well especially with the combination of snow & lush green areas. The ship & interior look really cool & there is some great use of colour, there are also random alien looking items that are just fun.
The soundtrack has two very different sounds, the first is a nice tranquil one featuring strings, the other is more a sci-fi type sound, which sounds a little cheesy but works well & features; synths, keyboards & the Theremin.
The composer/creator of the music & game itself is Mattis Folkestad who is from Norway. I tried finding a little more about his previous works & could only find out he was the director of two films; Halvseint & Joy meg for en Jul.
The soundtrack is just under an hour-long but there are some interesting pieces, my favourites include; 'Milkmaid Theme', 'Lykke Is Drowning', 'Ship From Above', 'Old Ruth' & 'The Oracle'
The entire game was created by one person, Mattis Folkestad. I think it's important you let that sink in for a moment, one person created the whole game & the music, solo. I looked into making a game before & I found the sheer undertaking of it to be overwhelming so I really have to tip my hat at Mr Folkestad.
The gameplay is old-school point & click adventure. The touch screen actions work most of the times but there were points where I checked a walkthrough to make sure I was doing something correctly. I am unsure if this was because I played it on a mobile device or was this something that was present in the PC version too.
While I liked parts of the game I found it frustrating there were no objectives that you could read like in many other games. While I don't need my hand held it was sometimes days between playing & I found it difficult to remember what exactly I was doing. Additionally some of what you had to do was not the easiest to figure out, for example; you need to get an oil can, naturally, you need to catch a frog put into a machine, poke him with a needle to make it croak & then the mechanic comes along with his can of oil to fix the machine but really you just tricked him. This has to be done multiple times until eventually he empties the can & leaves it behind him. These kinds of things stopped the game being more fun.
I played the game for just over 4 hours, but was it worth it? Initially, I really liked it but as time went on I got frustrated with the game. While it has a lot of charm & I respect the fact one person alone created the game I just didn't really enjoy the puzzles they were overly awkward & took away from the game as a whole. In all honesty, I can only givethis one 3 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment