Reviews by Kinetic Mouse Car
inkJam 2025
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This is what you trained for all your life. This is what your squadron died for. The expeior queen, helpless, at your feet.
Helpless, she is not.
The Selfish Gene is a sci-fi game about dealing the final blow, only for victory to remain out of reach. Perhaps violence isn’t the answer. But what alternative do you have when Earth and the human race is on the line?
It’s a submission to inkJam 2025, though made with Unity instead of Ink.
Overview
Earth has been taken over by the expeior alien race, aka “expys.” Meanwhile, humanity has taken refuge on Earth’s moon. You are Captain Aster on a mission for the Human Resistance. Your task is to infiltrate the alien mothership and slay the expeior Queen, Queen Ismin. By your side is your squadron and Lieutenant Latif, your friend and military engineer.
Gameplay
The gameplay uses a cyclic trial-and-error structure. It kicks off with the characters breaking into the mothership’s hanger. You then choose which of the ship’s six locations to explore. However, locations can only be visited once.
The Queen is camped out somewhere onboard. She’s able to control time locally, allowing her to escape death, as shown in the opening scene. The protagonist kills her, only to find himself outside the ship with his crew, moments before the infiltration begins (they are at least vaguely aware of this).
Same deal with the gameplay. If your showdown with the Queen ends in failure, you are sent back to the beginning.
THE LANDING - AGAIN
Therefore, the objective in the gameplay is to experiment in the order in which you explore the ship’s locations to maximize your chances of success against the Queen. Each failure informs the next “loop.”
Mechanics
Choices are made by selecting a card from a spread shown at the bottom of the screen. Cards determine how you approach a task, and include things like “Violence” and “Smarts.” The cards you receive at the start of each cycle will also change.
Nothing fancy, but streamlined and quite easy to learn.
Story
The human vs. expeior war is an intriguing one that we know little about.
We learn that expeior genetic material can mutate human DNA. The Queen’s plan is for all humans to mutate into expeior subjects. It’s referred to as the “Great Switch” or as Haplo more accurately puts it, the “Great Erasure.”
Speaking of Haplo, the expeiors we meet prior to the Queen are surprisingly reasonable. Rather than hostility, they share a we’re-just-following-orders-but-we’re-also-sorry-that-your-species-is-going-to-be-wiped-out-all-hail-Queen-Ismin attitude that makes you think, you know, maybe we can reason with this alien race…
The Queen, too, proves to be fairly reasonable as well. If you manage to start a conversation, that is.
I do wish there were more backstory. Not only is this a war, it’s an interplanetary one. However, its coverage in the game feels one-sided.
(Spoiler - click to show)It appears that humanity has a valid reason to be angry: Earth has been claimed by aliens who want to mutate every human to eliminate them as a threat. Surely, humanity deserves to reclaim their home world, right? I have a feeling that the truth is more complicated than this, that both sides have done questionable things.
But this still leaves a key question: why do the expeiors have Earth while humanity hides out on the Moon? Is this war solely to liberate Earth from the expeiors, or is it something broader? ‘Cause at this rate, human leadership intends to bombard Earth so no one can have it.
Despite coming off as the default “bad guys,” the more you examine the expeiors, the more complex they seem in their motives. For example, (Spoiler - click to show)Queen Ismin says, "I do want to preserve the Earth," and agrees that its preservation is of greater value than trying to win at all costs. Her concern feels genuine. If the player succeeds in their negotiations, the situation becomes a matter of “I’ll put my weapon down if you put down yours.” So, maybe there’s some hidden depths there.
As for the title, I interpret it as considering the other side rather than merely focusing on what you have to lose or gain. The game has four endings. I found all of them except Ending 2.
Visuals
The visuals are awesome. When I first played The Selfish Gene, I kept thinking, wow, this game looks really professional. The characters look cool, and while we only get a glimpse of expeior biology, it seems that they can come in variety of physical forms. (Spoiler - click to show)Poor Vicky looks like a dehydrated stalk of celery. I would love to see more.
The screen is divided into three columns. The middle one is for text. To the left is Captain Aster and his allies, while everyone else is displayed to the right. If you gain a new ally, they move to the left side of the screen. Cards are colour-coded with neat symbols. Even the clickable map of the ship was impressive!
Final thoughts
The Selfish Gene offers a gameplay experience that felt new and innovative. A good use of Unity’s visual abilities. Arguably, the game is an equal mix of combat and diplomacy, and the character art and card mechanic are notable features. And while it’s not a “time travel game,” it does borrow the looping structure used in games like Vicious Cycles where you repeat the gameplay and learn from failure. If you like choice-based sci-fi games that rely on visuals, definitely give The Selfish Gene a try.
There are parts that could use refinement. I noticed more than a few spelling errors. Additional context on the interplanetary war would also give the story needed perspective and make it less one-sided, but that fortunately (Spoiler - click to show)doesn’t stop successful negotiation from feeling satisfying. As the game puts it: It’s a start.
Growth under the Dome is an Ink game that describes itself as a “Solarpunk coming of age story.” A compelling story, but also one that is hobbled by various issues.
Being a submission to inkJam 2025, it appears that the author created an improved, post-comp version of the game. According to its itch.io page, this is identified as Growth under the Dome - fixed. My review will be based on this version.
Overview
Everyone lives in a structure called the “Dome.” Life thrives, but has rigid societal roles. Reminiscent of the Divergent series, the transition to adulthood occurs in a ceremony where young people publicly select the role they will have for the rest of their life. This ceremony serves as the game’s intro. The ceremony involves placing a wood tablet engraved with one's name into one of four baskets: farming, maintenance, lake management, and record keeping/public speaking.
The night passes, and you certainly enjoy this last party as a child.
Tomorrow, you’ll wake up as an adult.
The time has come for you and your peers to make this decision.
Gameplay
After the ceremony, gameplay moves in monthly increments. At the end of each month, the game asks where you want to do next. It’s (highly) expected that you stick with the role that you initially chose.
What will you be this month?
Sun Director (level 0)
Lake Tickler (level 0)
Dome Fixer (level 0)
Voice Lender (level 2)
I will be none of that
However, switching roles, while frowned upon, is not forbidden (slacking off is also an option). The game makes it clear that you must change roles to advance the story. A happiness mechanic is used to illustrate this.
You sense it’s taking a toll on your moral and your body.
(-1 happiness)
The aim is to sample each role to discover a new insight about the Dome, opening up opportunities to cause mischief and better understand the Dome’s limitations. With enough persistence, (Spoiler - click to show)it’s possible to leave the Dome entirely. Otherwise, the game ends with the Cloudmouth festival, 21 months after the intro.
Unfortunately, the gameplay doesn’t always acknowledge the player’s choices.
Your second month as a Sun director flies by… People seem to avoid you since you left and came back.
Left and came back? I was only here for two months! When the Grassgrowth season begins, your friends inform you that your constant switching of roles is making people nervous. Except, this conversation still occurs even if you never switched.
Story
Backstory is scarce with only brief mention of an “Accident” prior to the Dome’s construction, but it’s not enough to answer basic questions we may have. Was it built in response to a natural or human-made disaster? If we break one of the roof panels to see outside, we glimpse a thriving wilderness, not a wasteland. But people are more interested in remaining in the familiarity of the Dome where the sun is displayed on the ceiling via a control panel. I am curious about the history behind all of this.
My main frustration is how the story starts out strong concept but starts to deteriorate and towards the end. It loses focus.
(Spoiler - click to show)One ending is a confusing trainwreck where new developments are thrown at the player with little context. If you behave yourself for the entire game, your mom is friendly towards you at the Cloudmouth festival (which we know little about). She embraces you. Alright. But then:
When you enter the Dome, your father is here.
Enter the Dome? Since when did we leave?This is your father, after all. With just the face you remember.
This must be your father.
This can’t not be your father.
The game then ends. Nothing else appears on the screen.
The protagonist’s father is dead. Even if the ending is meant to be more interpretive, leaving the player with, “This can’t not be your father” is abrupt and feels like an incomplete conclusion.
It would have been interesting if the game elaborated on the purpose of singing. Apparently, singing is used to direct sunlight to crops among other applications. I wonder how that works.
Characters
This game also reminds me of The Giver in the sense that there is a growing divide between the protagonist and their peers when it comes to questioning the status quo of the world they live in. In both works, there is an “outside” world said to be full of danger. Fortunately, everyone is content to stick to their assigned roles in the safety of a sequestered community. The protagonists find themselves at odds with said community when they start asking questions that no one wants to consider, especially questions about (Spoiler - click to show)leaving.
It’s suggested that the game’s protagonist is somewhat of an outsider. They seem to have a history that sets them apart from everyone else. The closest answer get is through the protagonist’s relationship with their mother. She wants them to follow expectations and adhere to tradition. Apparently, something happened to their father. He is dead, although their mother is strongly in denial of this.
The protagonist’s central trait is their rejection of conformity and how they challenge the taboo of changing roles. Why should one’s life be determined by a tablet in basket? It leaves no room for flexibility. The game does a nice job in conveying the quiet scandal people associated with such abnormal choices. Everyone’s all did you see that? They changed roles! Meanwhile, the protagonist shrugs off any disapproval, though they do find themselves growing apart from childhood friends.
The bottom line is that the protagonist doesn’t fit in with the society inside the Dome. (Spoiler - click to show)They want out. Only then will they have room to grow.
Final thoughts
It seems that solarpunk stories are becoming more common, and I’ve enjoyed playing games like Growth under the Dome.
The game’s overall premise is intriguing because it allows players to choose their own role in a structured society and whether they want to commit to it or go against the grain. By choosing the latter, we get an exhilarating sense of freedom anytime we break the rules. The protagonist’s imagination of the outside world is contrasted with the stifling life inside the Dome, (Spoiler - click to show)setting stage for when they finally leave it all behind.
That said, it has glaring flaws that detract from the experience, even as a post-comp release. Besides the implementation and narrative issues that I’ve already discussed, there are a lot of spelling and grammar issues, particularly with formatting dialogue. But as a coming-of-age story with a slight sci-fi bent, Growth under the Dome is still worth your time.
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