The music of this game is top-notch! I also like the gameplay ideas, although it's a little difficult sometimes. But that's okay. I always end up reaching a solution. The Makoa language is a really interesting touch and makes the game unique.

This is what an indie game should be: original and bold. It may not be perfect, but dares to offer a different experience.

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A Rite from the Stars is an interesting point-and-click puzzle game that is purely played with the mouse. The game has a lot of interesting ideas, from the creation of a new language just for the game, to the many different puzzles featured within. The puzzles range from simple to challenging and a good variety as well. It also contains a significant amount of original music that is fairly pleasant as well. The game offers six ending possibilities based on the player’s decisions. The freedom to choose to tackle any part of the game is also nice. Anywhere that you stop in any of the three paths, you can just go do something else and come back to where you had left off.

So why am I not recommending this game?

Your main character moves on the whim of your mouse click, and he does so way too slowly. Even on double click allowing him to run, on the scale of things he just moves too slowly. This also applies to the meerkat in the the Path of Courage.

This also applies to overall speed. the dialogue turnover is too slow. While the made-up Makoan language is pleasant, it really does not need to drag on for such a long time. Fortunately I discovered you can click and hold the right mouse button to speed things up. Unfortunately I discovered this kind of late and that fast-forwarding gives the typical sped-up tape effect with the high pitched rapid sounds, blotting out any pleasantries from the spoken “language” itself.

Also to accompany the slow-paced movement speeds, in this section of the game, you need to pick up some objects to use. But you can only carry one item at a time. So this involves the player to do a lot of nonsensical walking around, back and forth, that just wastes a lot of time again. An inventory would help reduce this clutter of time-wasting segments. Not to mention there is no way to fast-forward through any active actions.

There are a couple of places that leads the player to an almost stuck location with positional dependence that is very specific. There are a lot of places along this path where you use these balloon plants to help you navigate. At a couple of these locations, I found the area where I could stand was fairly sizeable and should offer potential solutions to that small section of the puzzle, but the game did not think so. Instead I had to be within a very close step or so from what the game perceives as an ideal location to move on.

While this seems wildly unnecessary, the fact that you can just walk off a ledge and have to restart a section doesn’t work too well with this game. It’s a point-n-click game and the precise movements should not matter as much. But wherever you click that is a attainable position for movement, your main character will walk towards it in a straight-line path if possible. And if not possible, well, he still does it, he just likes to fall down path edges, forcing you to restart that section.

At the end of the day, you have a game with good ideas, but perhaps not the best execution. It does not feel polished and perhaps was not well play-tested before being released. You need to be very patient with this game, and you will face some interesting and challenging puzzles. The game mechanics change slightly among all three paths and there are different endings available. The story is nice, and there is even a whole new made up language for the game alone. The music is pretty good and also showcases a good variety. However, these do not remove the clearly visible flaws that pervade the entire game, making this a less than fun experience.

Here’s a blind look at the game, involving some running around in circles and trying again and again to perform some actions. You may get a sense of why it is so easy to find this game not so fun:

https://youtu.be/ORjGDQswBdA

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

Not a Point n'Click.

Although mouse-only, this is in fact a puzzle-platformer, with emphasis on the platforming.
Very annoying platforming.
Every misstep, every misclick, every mistiming, you die and the current puzzle is entirely reset.
Half the time, you'll die because your click didn't register at all. Sometimes, because you clicked 2 pixels too much to the right, so the path-finding didn't feel the need to wake up and thus your character didn't move. Because of...

Timers.

That's right, everything is timed.
You clicked on a "button" ? Quickly move away from it or you die. Move both characters at once, on different paths, as soon as you've clicked, for if any one of them dies, you die. Sometimes the thing you clicked has a delayed response, so you have to order your timings and your moves to avoid the dreaded full reset.

Hey! More incompetent design: The game starts with you listening to 10 minutes of gibberish. Or, in fact, reading subtitles, since the sound is... you know... gibberish. I like made up languages as much as the next masochist but come on guys, 10 minutes? And that's because I found out the acceleration key and skipped from then on.

And it's buggy, to top it all. You have objects losing their interactivity, so you'll need to die to reset. You can get soft-locked when 1 character goes too far and can't open the path for the 2nd one any more, and there is nothing to kill him, and no key to reset, so you have to quit and come back and redo some previous puzzles. Barely in the first puzzles, I'm already covered in bugs.

Not a good puzzle-platformer.
At all.

an entertaining game, with a spectacular soundtrack, and a very interesting and original narrative. Some innovative stuff like using the mouse to move two characters at the same time. highly recommended

I backed the game on Kickstarter and thus got to name a star in it (Lacrima, just left of the centre of the screen, in case you're interested). Although I was expecting a more traditional point-and-click adventure and I needed to adjust my expectations a bit, but in the end I am not disappointed as yes, I did get a good game. (I only have a few minutes on record on Steam, as it was a requirement to post a review, but I have spent over 7 hours playing the game with the DRM free copy I got as a KS backer)

Whereas most adventure games focus on exploration and inventory puzzles, Rite from the Stars consist of three trials that are each a set of environmental puzzles and mini-games. This means the game mechanics can vary significantly. Some of those are better than others (personally, I suck at most puzzles that require timing or good reflexes) and there were some sections that I got through on trial and error or just by repeating the troublesome parts over and over again. I think the game could do with some streamlining in those areas to make certain parts a bit less frustrating. My suggestion: improve collision detection, speed up the main character's movement a little, maybe add a difficulty setting that would allow less gifted players to enjoy the game more by easing up on the time constraints and perhaps on the number and frequency of rocks/asteroids.

The look of the game has changed considerably since the original Kickstarter campaign and is cute in a cartoony way, which goes well with the setting. The Spirit World in particular looks very nice and colourful. The game is fully voiced, though you won't understand much if anything, because it's all in a made-up language. While it fits the island tribe setting and was obviously beneficial in not having to record many different languages, it does make it a bit more difficult to relate to the characters (especially as the protagonist is mute). The voice performances themselves are pretty good though and the sound and music are generally good yet unobtrusive.

Other things I really liked are the multiple endings (and how you don't have to play through the entire game again to see all the possibilities), being able to tackle the three trials independently and even switching from one to the other when you get stuck or frustrated, the storyline and the courage of the developers to try something different.

ARGHHHHHHH.....Yes i definitely recommend this game but not for me..Its a lovely little game with quirky little characters speaking their own little language but...well at first i thought it was my mouse..changed the battery hoping it would speed the little dude up because he was a tad too slow but no..it was me i was pants..jesus not for the want of trying..i died that many times i cried but the game itself is awesome..one of these days i go back to it a kick its butt....oh the musics pretty cool too.

I'm really loving this game!!

Everything to it is charming, as if you were on a spiritual trip. The puzzles are challenging but not overly hard, and they are always fair. I specially loved the one where you have to conduct an orchestra of stones, never seen anything like that. Cheers to the designers for that!

And speaking about musical puzzles, the score of this game is incredible, specially the tune played when you complete a path. Awesome work and cheers to the composer!

It has some issues, like sometimes the movement flow of the charachters seems a bit off, but it doesn't take anything from the experience.

I would love to play more games from this developer!

Cute, challenging, fun.
Some of the puzzles are a bit of a chore.
Music is really good, and the original Makoan language is unique.

https://youtu.be/6gxEZvsO-n0

A hidden gem. Cute characters, great music, easy but entertaining puzzles. I love the graphics, kinda early 2000. As for the story, I was quite surprised by the endings: the whole game feels like a kids' tale but the endings are sort of more grownup. Note that this is a mouse-only title because most of the puzzles are designed accordingly. One last note: I can't believe they invented a whole language only for this game, quite impressive, and it sounds nice too!

[Note: Game completed with a walkthough]

The Game is good, minus the maze in wisdom, and that orbiting level in spirit.

The music is nice, I think I'll buy the DLC thing. the art has this feeling of being from the early 2000's but I like it.

The universe is cool, and I cannot wait for the eventual titles of "A Left from the Stars", "A Straight from the Stars", "A U-Turn from the Stars" and maybe "A Wrong from the Stars"

My money was well spent.