Hoist Sail for the Heliopause and Home

Creativity is one of the most important things to remember about in IF, and like other games Plotkin has made, the creativity wfas very evident from the beginning. Of course being a trek fan (and basically any other scyfi show out there excluding vampires), the universe created is unlike anything I've seen in my IF, with sails, strange creatures and exploration.

I suppose what struck me first about this, was that it wasn't a combat mission like most space adventures are. Instead, it utilized the exploration component of space. Furthermore, the exploration isn't simple south, north east, west, up, down, in, out system, but uses sails to direct the spacecraft. through a series of furrowing and unfurrowing, tightening and untightening the sails, the player can move around the universe. Of course going left and right is not possible, but the puzzles utilized well, the inability to move anywhere but straight. Furthermore, it was impressive to not how well everything was implemented in the game. There were so many commands which could be used to do each action, making the game run extremely smoothly.

plot kin, as always, makes good use of characters and storyline. Like so many of his games, everything is well thought out, and just enough information is given so the player can fill in the rest using their own imaginations. Quite frankly, the descriptions in the game were done so to give the player a sense of awe at the beautiful universe around them, and let them picture it mostly themselves. The character was a little on the bleak side, but i think enough was known about him, and his excitement of the unknown was very clear.

I'll say it right now that I absolutely hate mazes with a passion. I've always hated mazes (for an obvious reason), and I didn't really think I'd ever like them. However this game has a brilliant maze that I even enjoyed. I don't want to spoil it because it is so well done, but I will say this: the maze was interesting because it took skill to maneuver through it and it wasn't just guesswork the whole time, which I just love in a maze. As for most of the puzzles in the game, they are not difficult, but instead very interesting and fitting in this story.

I loved this game and I'd recommend other players to go to "the heliopause, and Beyond"!