Bik

What a delightful point-and-click space adventure!

If you enjoyed the lighthearted fun and wonder of the old Space Quest games, you will enjoy Bik. It's not a clone of those, but rather an original concept and story, a homage to the genre.

The game is surprisingly long and varied, taking you to several settings (planets, ships) with different moods, things to do, and characters to meet. The story will keep you on your toes, and the puzzles will (for the most part) keep you engaged without being too frustrating. (There are one or two that don't make much sense, but if you persist you will solve them.)

The many charms include the lovable characters, the original music, and the family-friendly humor. The graphics and animations, though, might fail in striking the right balance between retro charm and being just bad. There are some cool cut scenes, but sometimes it seemed that the artists were just lazy. For example, characters will fade in and out instead of walking into rooms. Was it really so hard to animate a door opening?

Despite the retro, pixelated graphics, the game is a bit heavy in resource use. My dinky little netbook would heat up considerably when playing it.

Very much hoping for a sequel! What adventures will Bik, Ammut, and Tatenen get into next? Also very much hoping that the devs will invest just a bit more in fleshing out the art.

Finally, many thanks to the devs for supporting Linux! It made my gaming experience so much easier.