Lost Alien

One of the most important thing in video games is exploration, because it allows you to discover things and feel like a pioneer, even if that’s not always the case. However, procedural generation makes things even better, because you can truly see new things every time you start playing. Attention to detail is not that great in such cases, but then again there’s a lot of room to explore instead.

Lost Alien is a 2D platformer in which you play the role of an alien who crashes on a weird planet and damages his ship in the process. The goal is to travel around the local solar system and visit various planets in order to get the necessary parts to fix your ship and go back home. However, there are all sorts of enemies and natural obstacles that make the adventure a lot more annoying.

Each planet poses a certain challenge, such as a toxic atmosphere or various other obstacles that prevent you from making it without the proper equipment. In short, it’s important to visit the available planets in a specific order, otherwise you do not stand a chance. There’s a walkthrough to help with that, but it’s also fun to try it yourself and use trial and error.

Enemies can make your life hell as well, even if they are not very smart. Most of them can be dealt with using your simple ranged attack, although it is also possible to just ignore them entirely and make your way around. Granted, this is not always an option, but it’s not that difficult to fight either, at least if you keep your distance and pay attention to the enemy’s attack pattern.

As for the graphics, the retro style should please most fans of the genre, even if the color scheme is a bit annoying sometimes. The level design is simple and empty most of the time as well, which is not good news for an exploration game. However, at least you get to visit different environments, so there’s plenty of variety in certain aspects.

In the end, Lost Alien is clearly a basic jam game at the moment, but it has the potential to grow into a lot more if the developer keeps working on it. Thus, it certainly deserves a try from platformer and exploration fans.