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AG Community Playthrough #37: J.U.L.I.A.: Among the Stars

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Welcome to the Community Playthrough of

After countless years of careful space observation, the enormous telescope Chandra 17 suddenly locates a solar system quite similar to our own. As all earthly observatories turned their attention towards this new discovery, a signal of artificial origin is detected from deep within the system.

Reaction was immediate and a mission plan was conceived. No expense was spared in the construction of a massive space probe. It was designed and equipped to be ideally suited for the ultimate challenge: to meet and study extraterrestrial sentient life-forms. Equal care was taken with the crew. Only the most prominent scientists were selected and trained to ideally represent planet Earth. Everything was perfectly planned and success was certain. Yet somehow, everything has gone terribly wrong…
(From the game’s website)

About the game:

In the game we will be playing as Rachel Manners, a 35 year old astrobiologist, who wakes up from cryo sleep only to discover that the rest of the crew is gone and she is all alone on the spaceship, that is except for the titular J.U.L.I.A. the ships AI and Mobot, a reconnaissance robot which she can use to explore all the different planets in the solar system.

Most of the game will consist of exploring the planets, with Rachel remotely controlling Mobot. The game uses a first person view with node base navigation, at least for most of the time. Personally I’m in general not a big fan of node base navigation, but I thought that it worked very well in this game.

A lot of the background story is told through finding and reading different journal or diary entries, not all of these are required reading but they will help you understand what has happened and piece together the story. At regular intervals, when you have gathered all the necessary information, you will also be given the option to solve some so called Mind O’Matics, which will allow you to reconstruct the different events that has occurred. These Mind O’Matics are also optional, but if you do plan on solving them, which I will highly recommend, then you should be aware that much of the information needed is found in these diaries, and you can’t take the diary entries with you, so I will strongly recommend some extensive note taking.

A bit of history:

The original J.U.L.I.A. game was published in 2012, but not long after the developers decided that they wanted to do an enhanced edition of the game. An Indiegogo campaign was made and succeeded in raising 14000$, almost three times the amount they asked for. The Enhanced Edition now given the suffix “Among the Stars”, was released in 2014, and it is this Enhanced Edition that we will be playing in this Community Playthrough.

I never played the original game, so I can’t tell you exactly what the difference is, but I do know that it is much more than just a graphical overhaul of the game. Some of the things from the original that people generally didn’t like, like harvesting materials, has been removed, and many other elements like actually being able to explore all of the planets, has been added.

But I’m sure someone else can tell you much more about the difference between the two versions of the game.

About this Community Playthrough:

This playthrough is open for anyone who wish to participate, new forum members or veterans alike, everybody is welcome and I hope that as many as possible will join us.
For anyone who has never taken part of a community playthrough before, the idea is that we play the game in small parts, and then discuss what we played. I will lead this playthrough, which means that I will post what parts you have to play, and when you have to finish each part.

The game is relative non-linear giving the player a lot of freedom as to the order in which they want to explore the planets, or for that matter, jumping from one planet to another more or less whenever you want. This could have been a rather large challenge for me, if it wasn’t for the simple fact that the game is conveniently divided into different planets Wink

The plan is that I will at the start of each new “section” tell you which planets you are allowed to visit, you can then play these planets in whatever order you chose or jump back and forth between them as often as you wish - but you are not allowed to visit any other planets before I say so.

Be aware that sometimes it is not possible to complete everything on a planet in a single go, because information or items found on another planet is needed. I will try to find the most logical order in which to play the planets, but it might be necessary to revisit planets that you have already been to in a previous section of the CPT.

I will allocate about one week for each section, though add some extra time around Christmas, and the CPT will be divided into 4 or 5 sections, I haven’t made the exact plan yet.

I will give you a couple of days to acquire and install the game, if you haven’t done so already, and we will start the actual CPT on Monday the 14 of December, or whenever everybody has reported that they are ready to start.

Currently the game is unfortunately only available at Steam, but it should work without any technical difficulties whatsoever.

Please tell me when you have installed the game and is ready to go.

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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Does anybody knows how to get in contact with Jan Kavan?

I could have sworn that he has a account here on the forum, but I’m unable to actually find his username. And I neither have a facebook or twitter account, so I also can’t contact him that way.

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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He is at adventurex right here!

Sorry for huge pic size - uploaded from phone.

EDIT: Pic size reduced

     

3.5 time winner of the “Really Annoying Caption Contest Saboteur” Award!

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Intense Degree - 12 December 2015 08:53 AM

He is at adventurex right here!

Cool!
Perhaps you could act on my behalf and inform him about this CPT of J.U.L.I.A., and politely ask if he would be interested in dropping in and perhaps add some comments to the CPT?

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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Installed and ready to go Iznogood. Having played both, although the new one only part of the way due to life circumstances at the time, I can say that there are major differences between the two and it is impossible for anyone who only has the original (a good game in its own right) to join in here.
I actually enjoyed the mining bit at the start of the original. It was simplistic but a bit of hunting around never hurt anybody Smile

During the Indiegogo campaign I did contact Jan Kavan about a couple of puzzles in the original game, as did a number of others with regard to the same 2 puzzles, and these have been changed, one actually completely rewritten. For me one became too easy and the second, whilst a vast improvement on the original, still annoys me. I’ll pass comment at the appropriate times.

Since Intense Degree has Jan in their sights, quite literally Smile, I won’t try emailing him until I know the outcome there. Smile

     

Life is what it is.

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Intense Degree - 12 December 2015 08:53 AM

Sorry for huge pic size

You know, that pic in that size and resolution, a bit grainy, and with forum software cutting it in half looked almost like a spaceship in space to me. Grin

     

Recently finished: Four Last Things 4/5, Edna & Harvey: The Breakout 5/5, Chains of Satinav 3,95/5, A Vampyre Story 88, Sam Peters 3/5, Broken Sword 1 4,5/5, Broken Sword 2 4,3/5, Broken Sword 3 85, Broken Sword 5 81, Gray Matter 4/5\nCurrently playing: Broken Sword 4, Keepsake (Let\‘s Play), Callahan\‘s Crosstime Saloon (post-Community Playthrough)\nLooking forward to: A Playwright’s Tale

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Have pm’d you Izno.

     

3.5 time winner of the “Really Annoying Caption Contest Saboteur” Award!

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Installed and ready to go. First time playing for me, looking forward to it.

     
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Same here, installed and ready to go.

     
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Installed and ready to go. This will be my first time playing the game (and I never played the original either).

I’ll be playing in the “HD Ready” resolution instead of “Full HD”, because my screen’s max resolution is 1600x900.

I’ve watched the intro (and let the title screen loop out of curiosity - I wanted to know how far the ship would go before it would loop Tongue). The start reminds me of Stasis a little, but without the gore.
I like the start: you’re thrown into it, and are immediately presented with a puzzle. Should be good. Cool

Don’t worry, Izno, I quit without saving so I’ll have to watch the intro again when we get the green light - I’m not trying to get ahead.


Also: how cool is it that we can actually approach the devs in our genre??? Gasp

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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I’m also ready to go. I played partway into the original when it first released. Got stuck on a puzzle and didn’t finish.

I don’t remember the original J.U.L.I.A. all that well, but the intro for Among the Stars strikes me as more polished than that in the original.

TimovieMan - 12 December 2015 05:33 PM


Also: how cool is it that we can actually approach the devs in our genre??? Gasp

Amazingly.

     
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Installed and ready to go!!! Smile

It is the first time I play the game and my SciFi vibes (continuing from the previous AGCP) are higher than ever!!

Iznogood - 12 December 2015 08:43 AM

After countless years of careful space observation months of voting, it finally did it.

Fixed.

     
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TimovieMan - 12 December 2015 05:33 PM

Also: how cool is it that we can actually approach the devs in our genre??? Gasp

Yep, makes me love the genre even more when you can go to a convention and walk up and talk to devs like Jan, Dave Gilbert, Theo and many others and they are all really nice and down to earth people.

I’ve managed to reduce the photo sizes above to hopefully keep this thread readable!

     

3.5 time winner of the “Really Annoying Caption Contest Saboteur” Award!

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Installed and ready to go!

Heart

     

I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

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Installing now!  Smile

I think it will be good for me to set ‘Emily Wants to Play’ aside for now… *SHUDDER*

     
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Let me give you the good news: Intense Degree managed to “persuade” Jan Kavan to join us in this CPT. Thumbs Up

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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