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Casual Friday

Beyond: Light Advent is a science fiction game, a rarity in the Hidden Object casual universe. It’s set in the 1950s in the US, which inspires some charming environments – a town with an old-fashioned diner and drive-in movies, a Wild West film shoot, and a Native American village near Arrowhead National Park. You assume the role of Diana, an astronomer on duty the night that a war of worlds breaks loose and a fleet of Worldeaters invades the Earth.

Although the bulk of the game takes place on Earth, via a nifty bit of alien technology, you temporarily leave your home and relive the experience of three people from the planet Iridessa, which has also been attacked by the Worldeaters. This includes the lovely and determined P’Tula, who is featured in the screenshot above. Happily, this gives you a chance to visit a few of Iridessa’s eye-popping, bizarre landscapes.

Wacky human characters add to the experience. Sci-fi fanboy Melvin – the one with the tinfoil hat – has found a situation in which he can actually make himself useful. Diana’s geeky, bow-tied co-worker Carl… um, who would choose to wear a bow tie to work? The grim-faced General Flint, who’ll arrange for tanks to roll into any town in America with just a few minutes’ notice, begins to act like he owns the place. Well, until the Worldeaters drop by for a personal chat. And Diana’s childhood friend Nix turns out to be a hero from someplace far, far away.

The challenges in Light Advent are not as unusual as the plot and characters. You’ll find lots of list-based HO screens, inventory challenges, patterning and matching-stuff-mini-games and assembly puzzles. Some puzzles have a sci-fi surface gloss, but mechanically they seem pretty familiar. Apparently there are only so many ways to charge electronics and repair mechanical devices, no matter what galaxy they hail from.

One downside, common to casual games with so many non-player characters—everybody except Diana seems to be standing around marking time (or lying around recovering from injuries). They are often useless while Diana does the running about, solving puzzles and fixing things. She’s more effective than the entire US Army. Of course, she does have access to a significant dollop of inside info, plus some seriously out-of-this-world technology…

Anyway, I was won over big time by the monster invaders, explosions and crashes, surreal interplanetary vistas, offbeat characters, and cheesy sense of humor. As the swinging rockers blithely sing in the opening sequence, this game goes above and beyond and reaches for the stars.

The Bonus Chapter extends the story, but the SE ending is good enough that you don’t need the extra chapter to feel satisfied. I was hoping that Light Advent’s Bonus would answer a question – why didn’t the Iridessans erect better defenses for themselves? And why did they feel responsible for the people of Earth in particular? These issues weren’t ever addressed, though. (Maybe I missed an explanation at the very beginning.)

The final Bonus challenge was way out there—the setting, the opponent, and the means of proving your worth to once again save a world. It was intriguing, but I’m not sure it quite worked on all levels. I’m curious as to what others might think of it.

In case you’re wondering, I’m standing in today for Tim (rtrooney) who is experiencing computer issues.

This sounds like a game I would really enjoy and will look for it.  I’ve been wishing for casuals with more varied settings and characters and this looks like it fits the bill nicely.

Lady K., a playthrough of this sounds great!  I’d vote for it.

The game seems intriguing enough if not quite up my street but I’m very tempted non-the-less to try the demo! 

Millenia—the game is more notable for its characters and environments than for its gameplay. But if the gameplay had been wildly different, along with the unusual-for-casuals theme and story, that might have been too rich an “eccentricity” cocktail.

Lady K and Dara100—I think it would be fun as a casual playthrough. My chief hesitation—it does have a lot of list-based Hidden Object screens.

Chrissie—if you do get to play it, I’m curious as to what you think of it.

Tim—hey, sometimes it’s good to step away from the computer! Or, at least, so I’ve heard.