|
Have you played this game?You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in. |
Playlists and Wishlists |
RSS Feeds New member reviews
Updates to downloadable files
All updates to this page
|
|
About the StoryA text-only space sim. Game Details |
Awards
Winner, Best Game; Winner, Best Implementation; Nominee, Best Use of Innovation - 2016 XYZZY Awards
9th Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2019 edition)
Editorial Reviews
Chris Klimas
What I especially liked, and I think distinguishes it from other, shorter Pacian games I’ve played (and would also recommend — especially Castle of the Red Prince), is the sense of depth to the world. Where Red Prince feels allusive, SVT is expository. For example, there are some characters who exist only to point the player to other locations to visit, from a mechanical point of view. And yet, the few sentences they’re given often give a sense not only of the politics and culture of the world, but also of the characters themselves. It’s pretty masterful to be able to do so much with so few words.
See the full review
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
Meanwhile, Superluminal does as good a job as I’ve seen at a trade-and-exploration parser game, even including a little light grinding but without becoming too dull or frustrating.
See the full review
Tags
Member Reviews
| Average Rating:  Number of Reviews: 12 Write a review |
Most Helpful Member Reviews
Jump to Conclusion, July 29, 2018In Superluminal Vagrant Twin, you explore the galaxy as you attempt to collect enough cash to rescue your twin. The game's main selling point is the sheer size of the galaxy: by the end of the game, I had visited no fewer than 44 planets, and I think I may have missed out on a few, since I didn't seem to have the necessary objects to complete absolutely every side quest. In order to make this size manageable, the planets are implemented very lightly: there's just a few things you can interact with, and those interactions are mostly restricted to "talk", "take", "buy", and "sell". Even the "examine" verb has been disabled. This gives the game its strange feel of being both extremely limited (at any location you can just do a few things) and extremely expansive (from each planet, you can jump to every single planet you have discovered, and you keep discovering more).
We have, then, a game that is sharply focused on a few activities, but gives us a lot of freedom in when and whether we engage in them. First, we explore. Exploration is simple -- you just "jump" to a planet, although you'll have to learn the name of the planet first. Or you have to guess the name, something that is by no means impossible and got me to quite a number of planets I would not otherwise have encountered. (A nice reward for out-of-the-box thinking that the game's restricted verb list otherwise cannot provide for. Unfortunately, you cannot "jump to Conclusion", although the game does acknowledge the command.) At those planets, you buy or sell exotic goods, upgrade yourself and your ship, restock on fuel, arrest some criminals, deliver some packages, and perhaps learn about one or two other planets. As you proceed, you get a good understanding of the universe around you, although the complicated social and political arrangements never become entirely clear. Great fun; and I suspect the game has the exact right length to maintain a sense of wonder without becoming tedious.
The game this reminded me of most is Sunless Sea, which also features journeys from port to port and very limited, text-based interactions when you arrive. But Superluminal Vagrant Twin is smaller, faster, less impenetrable, and a lot friendlier. Highly recommended.
The joy of discovery, April 10, 2016
Currently the biggest, most complex and most polished game by the author, Superluminal Vagrant Twin is a space trading simulator - an old and noble genre including such classics as Elite, but tragically underrepresented in IF until now. There's a huge universe waiting for you to explore with lots of different planets to visit, people to meet, goods to buy and sell, side quests to complete.
You can rush through the main plot fairly quickly, but there are many other things to discover (even after getting all the achievements) - which I naturally won't spoil here. And, of course, rushing through this game would be completely missing the point, because the best part of it is not making the money but savoring the wonderful descriptions - terse and colorful, poetic without being pretentious; closing your eyes and trying to visualize all the various worlds you travel to (Spoiler - click to show) (there were 53 of them in the beta version I played).
My favorite character was the deep space explorer on Splinter. I instantly imagined Ursula K. Le Guin.
Space is the Place, March 30, 2016First impressions are of a text-based Elite, but it's only a superficial resemblance. Sure, you're travelling from planet to planet buying and selling, but there is no economy to speak of, only fetch quests - which is perfectly fitting, given the text adventure format, fetch quests being the atomic unit of adventure game puzzles.
Money is used as a gating mechanism, your limited resources only granting access to a few planets and low-paid activities at first, you will need to use your ingenuity and wits to gain the big bucks - opening up more and more untold vistas for your delectation.
The writing is ultra-sparse but extremely evocative. A whole galaxy of strangeness. There is humour, creepiness, sadness, awe, sometimes all at once. It touches on themes of humanism and racism whilst delivering a rollicking science-fantasy adventure. Brilliant stuff. I recommend the hell out of this game.
See All 14 Member Reviews
If you enjoyed Superluminal Vagrant Twin...
Related Games
Other members recommend these games for people who like Superluminal Vagrant Twin, or gave both high ratings:| Ruiness, by Porpentine Charity Heartscape Average member rating: (15 ratings) |
| 4x4 Galaxy, by Agnieszka Trzaska Average member rating: (11 ratings)4x4 Galaxy is a space exploration game with 16 planets that are different every playthrough thanks to procedurally generated content. Discover new worlds, battle space pirates and strange beasts, sell goods, explore abandoned mines, go... |
| dripping with the waters of SHEOL, by Lady Isak Grozny Average member rating: (10 ratings)A ghost of a peculiar origin stalks the corridor of your flat. Maybe you should go talk to it? A story about gay love and how all things hidden become evident, featuring a bigender protagonist and their trans boyfriend. Written for... |
Recommended Lists
Superluminal Vagrant Twin appears in the following Recommended Lists:RPG-style interactive fiction by mg51
Keyword Parsers by ImaginaryTalkingRabbit
[LIST IS A WORK IN PROGRESS] Parser games that use keyword input, for example a game where only the words in bold are usable commands. This often means eschewing the standard 'x cat' or 'get banana' style of gameplay. So instead of...
Great games set in space by MathBrush
My list for best sci-fi games has grown too large again, and so I'm splitting it off again. This list only includes games whose primary action is off-planet, or which feature exploring an unfamiliar planet, or which feature...
Polls
The following polls include votes for Superluminal Vagrant Twin:Best sci-fi games by Ant-Fan
I'm looking for games from the sci-fi genre. I would prefer classic-style games, even if they're not classics (such as 'Across The Stars') because one of my all-time favorites is Planetfall, but really, anything goes.
The Best Games of 1st Half of 2016 by Anya Johanna DeNiro
Sometimes by the end of the year and after the Comp it's hard to keep front-and-center the games that appeared earlier in the year! Here is a place to list what has tickled your fancy so far. One vote per game only please.
For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible NPCs of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best NPCs in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here will...
This is version 8 of this page, edited by Zape on 3 May 2021 at 9:52pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item