Grade: A
Point and Click Sci-Fi Adventure
Created by two developers, J.U.L.I.A. Among the stars was released as an enhanced edition of the original “J. U.L.I.A.” in 2014 after a long and challenging publishing journey. The two independent developers had been scammed out of royalties by the publisher from the original 2012 game sales and used much of their remaining funds to get the legal rights back for the game. Once they got back the rights, they were able to crowdfund a project to build out an enhanced edition of the game, which they then published on Steam and Itch. Just the fact that this game exists at all is a testament to the perseverance and passion of the two devs. (source: https://www.juliathegame.com/part-i-breaking-the-curse/)
To summarize the gameplay, J.U.L.I.A. is a point-and-click sci-fi adventure that starts with a strong cold open. Rachel Manners, a crew member on an extra-terrestrial mission to a distant solar system, wakes up from a cryogenic sleep as an asteroid hits the space probe. First, Rachel stabilizes the station, and now that she’s awake, Rachel starts asking questions about where the rest of the crew is and explores the solar system. The story unfolds from there.
The story takes you across the ancient lore of a solar system and the mystery of your crew’s deaths.
After waking up, fixing the probe, and getting your bearings, you are introduced to the main characters in our story.
Rachel Manners is an astrobiologist, specifically chosen for this mission to a far-away solar system that seemed likely to hold life. Unfortunately, she was put into a cryogenic sleep early on in the journey and missed all the action.
J.U.L.I. A is the A.I. that runs the ship and gives input back to Rachel as the exploration occurs.
M.O.B.O.T. is the exploratory vehicle that visits landable sites and has its own personality, albeit a bland one.
As you explore the solar system, you are tasked with uncovering a series of recent and ancient mysteries.
- There are several settlements and places among the various planets of the solar system, but all of the crew have died. What became of them?
- Explore the history of this solar system. How did things get to be the way they are?
- What are the lifeforms of the solar system and what science can we collect?
I won’t put spoilers into the review, but I will say that for me, J.U.L.I.A was a satisfying and engaging story. It’s not often I find myself engrossed in the text and lore of a video game, but J.U.L.I.A kept me pushing forward looking for the next clue at each point along the way.
Exploration through the eyes of a robot
As you explore, you get to experience the journey through the eyes of the exploration robot. M.O.B.O.T. travels to each location and has the capacity to survive any of the climates you visit. There isn’t equipment on the probe for Rachel to visit these worlds directly, so she interacts with objects vicariously through this exploratory vehicle.
The areas you visit include 6 different planets, and you can visit them in any order you’d like. Each Planet has its own eco-system and story. The game excels at creating visuals to go with each of these environments. From Xenophon, a barren rocky wasteland, to Ambrosia, a rich jungle environment, to the moon of Elpis Alpha 1, a cold ice planet. J.U.L.I.A. Among the Stars is consistently a pretty game to look at.
Each area you explore in the solar system might have some places that are gatekept until you reach a certain point in the story. The developers cleverly designed the exploration so that it’s completely open, but, there are certain MOBOT upgrades that you have to uncover and install to get into different areas.
As you get into tight confined locations, MOBOT has different exploration modes he can go into and is quite a nice multi-tool robot.
Huge variety in the puzzles
Over the course of the game, you are challenged with a large number of puzzles.
The puzzles included reconstructing corrupted memories, doing pattern analysis, engineering circuitry, deciphering an alien language, soundwave analysis, and even some encryption hacking. There were more than a few times when I was utterly stumped with no idea what to do next. Partly, this was because there were a number of things you needed to do in a particular, exact order, and anything outside of that just didn’t work. Thankfully, the included hint booklet and online walkthroughs hooked me up when I was stuck.
My favorite challenges were the visual puzzles. The others often felt like “work”, but these visual puzzles were legitimately fun to do.
Here’s an example of an early visual puzzle. You have five different jumbled images, and the tiles for each image are randomly spread across all the different pictures. You have to lump the like tiles together, and then also figure out the ordering to make the image.
Wrap-up
Puzzles aside, the story and art are the real reason to play this game. I “ooed” and “ahhhed” multiple times at how gorgeous many of the scenes were. It was a genuinely creative piece of fiction.
There was something really attention-grabbing about being a scientist exploring this alien solar system. The horror of finding your dead crew mates who died dozens of years ago while you were in cryo-sleep juxtaposed with pure wonder/joy at interacting and studying alien sentient life was a good mix.
Game time was about 8-10 hours to really read and absorb all of the text and story throughout the game and not rush it. I played this over a few days.
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