Dexter Stardust - Adventures in Outer Space: Night of the Hollow Moon Demo

Explorers always had to take huge risks in order to discover new places, but it was usually worth the effort most of the time. There is no land left to be discovered on Earth, on the other hand, which means that the only explorers we can look forward to are those who are going to set foot on other planets. Granted, that takes a lot more guts and effort than jumping into a sailing ship and waiting for it to float somewhere new.

Dexter Stardust - Adventures in Outer Space: Night of the Hollow Moon is the excessively long name of a point-and-click adventure game designed to resemble the classics of the genre. It also features a more humorous approach to the subject, because neither the characters nor the plot are very serious. Hence, the formula is same as in every other adventure game out there: explore the environment, pick up items and solve puzzles.

The story revolves around a spaceship captain by the name of Dexter Stardust, who is also a hula-girl salesman. It may not be the most prestigious job out there, but Dexter is not the type that looks at the world through that lens. He is dragged into a mystery regarding the existence of an ocean beneath the Moon’s surface, which implies that our celestial companion is actually hollow underneath a thin layer of rock.

Dialog is an important part of the gameplay as well, and Dexter usually has multiple queries for every character he meets. However, the rest of the gameplay is all about spotting items and using them to solve puzzles. You can also use the spaceship to travel between planets and moons in the solar system, but it’s just a two-click operation, so it’s not as exciting as it sounds.

In the technical department, things are a tad weird, for multiple reasons. The first one is that the graphics are pretty cool, but they include some actual photos of people rather than drawings. The same seems to be true in the case of a few level backgrounds, which causes a slight discrepancy with the actual assets created by the designers. The voice acting is quite obviously non-professional, but it’s good enough not to be irritating most of the time.

In the end, Dexter Stardust - Adventures in Outer Space: Night of the Hollow Moon draws inspiration from a variety of sources, but the result is something a tad too sketchy. However, the plot has potential, and the humor is actually on point in certain cases. Hence, it could become a lot better with more dedication from the developers.