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Mars After Midnight was one of the Playdate games I was waiting for a long time. It seemed to be funny and quirky, just a game I like. The developer Lucas Pope is known for Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn -games. I haven’t played those games, but I know what they’re about. The long wait is over as Mars After Midnight was launched just couple days ago and I did play it through.

Story, gameplay, controls and visuals

As it is written in the official game page, Mars After Midnight is about “The Off-Colony Community Support Center offers a wide variety of help sessions for qualifying Martians”. Shortly, you are in off-colony at Mars and your job is to keep helping sessions for Martians who needs it.

The gameplay is to upkeep the community center and let in only those that qualify for the day’s help, that changes daily. Anyone can come to the door and your job is to inspect them and let them in if you see them fit for the help. In the end you must help certain number of Martians on certain problems and for the thanks you might get credits (money) from them. The credit is spent on posters (to get more Martians to the community center) and other servings for the visitors.

Controls in the Mars After Midnight are pretty straightforward and easy to use. There aren’t honeslty much I can tell about them, other than I’d wish Playdate’s crank gimmick would’ve used more in the game. Visually the game looked good. All the places and characters were designed well and it has an unique taste to it. If you wonder why the game is colourless, that’s because the Playdate console screen is 1 bit only.

Final Session

Mars After Midnight is about 2-3 hours long and I did enjoy my time with it. I also must say (as all Playdate games) this was very cheap only $6 and I could’ve easily pay double of that, because of what the game offers. I did love how odd the game was and rather easy to play. I do wholeheartedly recommend this little game.

Mars After Midnight is only availabe on Playdate. Here is link to the game page.

SCORE:

5/5

“The gameplay is to upkeep the community center and let in only those that qualify”

RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2024
GENRE: Adventure / Puzzle
DEVELOPER: Lucas Pope
PUBLISHER: 3909 LLC
PLATFORMS: Playdate

 

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