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Review
Earth is a war-torn world. A surviving faction decides to build a ship to travel into space in search of a new home. Our protagonist is a woman only known as “Traveller.” She is heavily involved in these efforts, and during this time, her daughter, Penelope, is born.
Soon after Penelope begins to speak and walk, it’s time to board the ship, aka the “Ark,” and leave Earth behind. A new, yet unknown future awaits Traveller and her daughter. Whether they arrive there together is another issue...
Gameplay
The Traveller is custom choice-based game that resembles a visual novel. Its story is narrated in first-person from Traveller’s perspective.
And it’s long. Or maybe it feels longer. While the Ark’s departure marks the end of the intro, the “main” gameplay is initiated when Traveller crashes into an alien planet while on a scouting mission. It’s assumed that she’s dead… and the Ark leaves her behind, kicking off the overarching premise: Will she ever reunite with Penelope?
Even then, it takes a bit for the gameplay to get moving. The planet you’re on (Spoiler - click to show)has a friendly alien, “Calypso,” who helps repair your shuttle. You can either stay and end the game here or leave to track down the Ark. You then spend the rest of the game going from planet to planet in search of answers. Unfortunately, it’s not that interactive. I can count the number of choice-making opportunities in the entire game on both hands, and it’s either casual dialogue or a major decision. (Spoiler - click to show)Like whether to stay on the first planet.
Despite the limited interactivity, there is decent replay value. I almost overlooked this. I played it a few years back, and upon revisiting, it felt different. I knew something was off when I got to the (Spoiler - click to show)grassy planet. Due to the length, I didn’t want to keep replaying it. But I also wanted answers. Here’s what I learned:
(Spoiler - click to show)(For context, there are five alien planets. Calypso’s is the first. After that, we investigate the coordinates of three planets that the Ark had planned on visiting.)
You choose the order in which you visit these three planets, and the order affects what you find there because each one is facing its own crisis. For example, if you visit the grassy planet first, you find a reptilian species in the earlier stages of a civil war. If second, the main conflict is already underway, and if third, you are greeted by the winning faction.
What occurs on these planets has no broader effect on the game. Once the player has visited all three, they are sent automatically to the fifth planet for the end. Nonetheless, this was a fantastic way to add variety and worldbuilding!
Having played this years ago, I will say that the minimal interactivity gave the false impression that the gameplay was completely linear. It makes me wonder whether players put the game aside after playing it once without realizing what they missed. However, if it’s meant to be played more than once, it would be nice if the player could skip the opening scenes after their first playthrough. With that said:
SAVE THE GAME AFTER YOU LEAVE THE FIRST ALIEN PLANET.
Only going to play it once? Here’s the path I recommend: (Spoiler - click to show)Grassy (green) planet, Volcanic (orange) planet, Jungle (blue) planet. There is no perfect path, but for one playthrough, this gives you the most content and is generally more optimistic.
Story
After everything the protagonist goes through, the story starts to feel like a saga. (Spoiler - click to show)No, she does not reunite with Penelope.
Too blunt? That’s how it is in the game.
Let’s put it this way.
(Spoiler - click to show)Penelope is dead by the time we catch up to the Ark and the planet it landed on. There is a digital memorial of her being interviewed throughout various stages of her life. As a small child, as a teenager, as a grown woman… as an old woman. She died of old age.
In the video, Penelope reveals that she had no memory of her mother because she was too young when Traveller died. (I don’t think she was that young, but fair enough). The kicker is when she’s asked if she ever thought of her mother. Penelope essentially says, “Nope. Didn’t think of her.”
I must hand it to her; Traveller takes this news remarkably well.
Meanwhile, I was more annoyed than anything else. I am glad that Traveller’s absence was not a burden on Penelope. From what we’re told, she became Governor of the new colony. The memorial alone says a lot about what people thought of her.
But for the player, who’s been waiting it out, the dual reveal of A, Penelope being dead, and B, her shrugging off the protagonist, was a gut punch. It felt like the author decided to sacrifice a carefully woven narrative in favor of a shocking reveal. From the start, the game cultivates this relationship between the protagonist and her daughter, and throughout the game, she appears to communicate with Penelope via her dreams. All this subtly and depth is then abruptly axed.
Or maybe the execution could have been better. In that sense, I suppose I’m not outright against the ending, only how it kicks the player when they’re down. Mixed feelings about it, at best. Mostly annoyance. And that’s probably not what the author had in mind.
At least, you get a choice on how to move forward.
Am I here to stay, or just a traveller?
[I'm here to stay.]
[I'm just a traveller.]
The player can either stay with the human colony or leave and continue exploring the universe. Interestingly, we’ve been away for so long that we’re somewhat of an outsider to the colony. Is it too late to go back to Calypso?
Thoughts
My impression of the ending was not helped by its logistics. This is what bugs me: If Penelope died an old woman, how old are we? As her parent, we should have died long ago. And I’m skeptical that it’s been that long.
While it’s never explained how fast spacecraft can travel in the story, the early gameplay on the Ark gives us a sense of travel time. It appears that these ships aren’t puttering along. Reaching another star system is no problem. The travel time, however, is long enough to justify putting people into stasis to pass the time and conserve resources.
We haven't figured out how to keep a person in stasis successfully for too long, so each 'night' lasts approximately three weeks...
Sleep for three weeks, wake up, repeat. Not perfect, but it works. (Conveniently, Calypso repairs our shuttle with stasis tech that works the same way but allows longer sleep periods.) Anyway, the commander tells us about an approaching star system, the same system of planets that we explore later in the game.
Commander: The first is only a few days away. The others are farther, but if we stretch the stasis systems we could get to the next one within a few months.
Doesn’t seem that long of a wait. And you can skip having to wait at all by using the stasis system to sleep it off in cycles.
Seeing how events unfold on the three planets also provides a general estimate of how much time passes when you go from planet to planet. Considerable time, yes, but certainly not long enough for Penelope to grow old and die. Though the game does say that the coordinates to the fifth and final planet are farther away.
And if it HAS been long enough for Penelope to die of old age, we would have died from old age before that. Yes, stasis tech knocks you out. But it works by injecting you with drugs to fall asleep. No mention of your body being preserved from aging.
I realize that I’m overthinking it. But I’m only doing so because I’m upset about the ending.
Characters/Worldbuilding
Despite what I’ve said already, I want you to know that this game is more than its immediate story. Along the way there are secondary narratives that carry a similar weight. The author has a talent for writing sci-fi that exists on a larger scale where multiple worlds and civilizations are woven together to create a saga-like quilt of a story. Like The Traveller.
Characters are the most compelling when you meet them for the first time. Traveling to a unique, alien world to face its challenges only to leave it all behind is exhilarating! Though the lack of interactivity dampens the effect, I was eager to see what the next planet had to offer. It's only until you leave (Spoiler - click to show)Calypso’s planet that you start to see how long the game is.
PC
From the start, Traveller proves herself to be something of a badass, and this never changes as she looks for her daughter (Penelope is quite loveable). Later, people refer to her as the “savior of Earth,” and while I wish the game would elaborate on this since it’s quite a title, there is no denying that she had a major role in kickstarting the Ark’s journey.
Being a parent is a key part of her character, and we feel this as we experience the story’s events from her perspective. Like when the Ark leaves her behind. Our radio can hear the Ark’s we-are-leaving broadcast… but is too damaged to send a response. We just listen as the broadcast is like, “farewell to those who didn’t survive, etc.” And leaves. With Penelope. Who now thinks we’re dead. Talk about an emotional scene.
NPCs
I don’t want to spoil everything, but we do meet four alien species. While they have different cultures and physical biology, our interactions with them reveal a recurring theme: that family structures can take different forms. For some, the process of raising and protecting individual children is like that of humans. Meanwhile, another species eliminated individualism altogether, making any distinction between parent and child obsolete- this results in an interesting discussion.
The Greek mythology symbolism of Calypso was clever. Their planet, and its depiction of alien life, was one of my favorite parts. Leaving was sad. That said, if you choose to stay on the planet and end the game early, it does feel like a complete ending.
Calypso: It was my pleasure.
:(
Also, the romance with Scout was sweet, but totally came out of nowhere. Does anyone feel the same way?
Visuals
The author’s commitment to the game’s art is impressive. Everything is illustrated, while dialogue is displayed in a see-through text box at the bottom of the screen. For most of the game, the visuals consist of a backdrop with a character portrait facing the screen, though brief cutscenes may deviate from this.
It is a gorgeous game. Especially the planets, which each have at least one unique landscape. The character portraits display a range of emotions. Occasionally, this means that the faces look off kilter, but I much prefer this over static expressionless imagery. I can only imagine the time it took for the author to create everything.
Final thoughts
The Traveller has many strengths that include its extensive art, emotional depth, creative worldbuilding, and a memorable depiction of parental determination. And yet, when all these are brought together, the result is not a seamless experience.
Low interactivity is the main issue. Meanwhile, the parts with replay value are likely to be overlooked. If you’ve played this game once and thought you’ve seen it all, you’d be mistaken. Unfortunately, the game’s length doesn’t inspire replays, unless you had the foresight to save the game in advance. Plus, some frustrations about story execution.
But beneath all this is a truly ambitious and unique work of science fiction. It just also seems like a game that can easily go unappreciated. And in that sense, I consider it a hidden gem. In fact, it’s one of the first games I think of when it comes to parent protagonists in interactive fiction. My advice for you is to approach The Traveller as if it were a visual novel and save the game before exploring the other planets.
