Verde Station

Verde Station feels like a small fan mission for e.g. Half-Life.

You wake up in a space station – all alone of course – and walk from a bedroom to a greenhouse, then to a lounge, the kitchen, and back into the greenhouse. What makes it interesting is that time passes when looping through the sections. Keep circling around in the sections to observe the changes, and you will be led to a new location and a surprise.

As a free game, I’d say the surprise is worth giving it a shot – just don’t expect awesomeness.

Pros

• The surprise at the end makes it worth playing as it's free on Steam.
  
• Some interesting things to try out in the terminals, like simulated DOS commands.
  

• Mediocre graphics and sound effects.
  
• Feels like a fan mission for a commercial game.
  
• Virtually no puzzles except for finding one easy 4-digit code.
  
[*]It shouldn’t even take you an hour to complete it.

5/10

Free, quick, and disturbing. I recommend giving it a try if you want a Jack Torrance simulator in space. At least he didn't bring his wife and kid to the hotel this time. Honestly, I felt really sorry for the character I was piloting. I couldn't do anything to stop the inevitable I sensed was coming. The doors literally closed behind him leaving no alternatives.

The length of an experience is not the stick I use to measure the worth of an experience. If that were the case, games like ICO (on the PS2) would not be as special as they are to me. But if you don't have much in the way of content, whatever content you do offer had better be dense and full of impact. Unfortunately that is not the case with Verde Station. In VS you are in charge of manning a space station in a solo fashion, but as time passes you find yourself (presumably) having breaks with reality due to your isolation or perhaps something else. The crux of the experience is making your way through the aforementioned, and quite small, space station multiple times with each visit to your bedroom (and turning off your alarm clock) representing the passage of time. Upon each trip through things have changed but never in any exciting or really interesting ways. After a few trips you reach an admittedly cool spectacle of a conclusion, but the lead up doesn't offer enough for me to give a recommendation. It's not that Verde Station is a bad game necessarily, but there really isn't that much to it. If they had fleshed things out more, the atmosphere had enough potential to carry things and make the experience worthwhile, but as it is, it feels like an incomplete experience in my opinion. As for my reviews, execution - not potential - earns the grade. A soft 2/5.

Verde Station is by indie developer Duel Boot https://twitter.com/duelboot or more precisely Soren Silkenson a Texan developer who considers himself a jack of all trades, being also a builder, VR specialist and business entrepreneur among other things.

As voiced by himself on numerous occasions, this is a walking exploration game more than just being tagged with the misleading notion of being a walking simulator and nothing more. Exploration is hereby highly encouraged by the game so that each gamer can quickly unravel the mysterious series of events that have already taken place over the year’s solo mission. Verde Station is an experimental prototype space station greenhouse. You control the protagonist who monthly is submitted to vs400 online psychiatric examinations and given impossible tasks to complete and report on a space station littered with potential hazards and rumoured not to be ready by the time it was commissioned for its trial run.

Instead of the events being portrayed consecutively, rather three main points in time are experienced in a random notion as you move from room to room. The time points are when you first arrive, one month after your arrival and need to do your first repeat of the psychology exam and the very last day of your mission. As you loop the space station 3 times, your then granted access to the Stations Command desk and have your sense of reality questioned more than once.

One thing I wish I knew before entering this game was that it is not a puzzle game. You see, after completing the psychology test and confessing that I have a fear of failing. I then entered into the greenhouse where your commissioned to get certain water taps working. I mistook this room as a puzzle designed to test me for failing and spent over 40 minutes in there trying to get the blasted water working, convincing myself that the game must be designed to force you to confront the very thing you fear. For instance, if you revealed in the psychology test that you fear confined spaces then I thought the game would change and force you to crawl through an air vent or something. Alas, the playful algorithm and concept of this game is nothing like that at all.

I assumed this because of the misleading sentence on the store page, ‘The game reacts in subtle ways to how you play.' In truth it doesn’t, the core game is completely fixed and the psychology test your confronted with, as well as the number of things you pick up and look at really have NO bearing in the game whatsoever. The only things that alter game play is what you type your name as being, what you put down the kitchen waste chute being retrievable further below and whether you turn all the water valves off at the very beginning. You do get presented with a number of commands that you can enter in the game and these will playfully change font colour, speed up your character, or produce crashing mechanics.

Essentially everything else is FIXED and requires you to loop around the four rooms of the space station, your bedroom, the greenhouse, the lounge/library and the kitchen. There are 7 computer disks that you can also find and this will reveal a Sci-Fi story, the origin and truth of which will be revealed on a SysAdmin,cmd that you need to type in every single computer you come across if you want to get all story aspects to this game.

Regardless of the initial unfortunate misunderstanding I experienced with the water taps, personally I really valued the time spent on this game as I tried to unravel its several layers of skilful story telling. I bow respectfully to the developer who while stating that he prides himself with getting results than he does with getting credit, I believe with all the time spent in creating it and the many hats he had to wear in developing, that applause, salute and celebration is long overdue. In fact, I loved this experience so much that I have only one request for this jack of all trades. Can you please put on a Director cap and make this into a movie. Again Big Thanks for making this world, your world, our world a bit more special…
Complete Game by me Below. Its Free check it out…

https://youtu.be/lWnw2xB7KZ0

https://youtu.be/NX4Je68ooqk

https://youtu.be/_o5zS81DaJY

If you enjoyed reading this review, feel free to subscribe to my curator page. Thanks...

http://store.steampowered.com/curator/6843548/

[quote]My days have grown so lonely
For I have lost my one and only
My pride has been humbled
But I am his body and soul
―Annette Hanshaw, Body and Soul[/quote]

Foreword

Quick Review

Conclusion

A very short, but very enjoyable experience that is similar to other mind bending walking simulators before it. The atmosphere, mood and setting pull together quite nicely and Verde Station does well in showing, rather than telling. I would certainly recommend the play through.

Ran well on Ubuntu Linux. Had to restart because there was no sound, initially.
I recommended this game at a five dollar price, and now that the game is no-cost, I whole heartedly recommend trying this game. The scope is very small, but it is an interesting and memorable adventure. Not a stupid joke like the Stanley Parable. I played this game on ubuntu 18.04 desktop with radeon mesa graphic drivers and a keyboard and mouse controls.

It'll only take you about an hour to play through Verde Station, but it's a good hour. You're sole crewmember of an isolated space station that grows trees. Trees grow very slowly and don't need much looking after, so naturally you have a lot of time on your hands. Take your time to look around and interact with everything.

Verde Station is a great little game clearly made with a lot of love.

I wouldn't say it's _like_ Gone Home or Dear Esther or The Stanley Parable, but if you're the type of person that finds those games enjoyable, then you'd probably like Verde Station.

Lots of reviews will say not to read the reviews first... I'd have to agree. ;-)

Oh, Duelboot, I hate you. Why do you do this to me?! Why do you make a game that's so good to experience but so hard to talk about without completely spoiling?! I feel like I'm in some kind of weird verbal bondage where I can't really say what I want and have forgotten the safe word. Oh well, I'm still going to try treading on eggshells here and talking about this and we'll just see what happens. Here goes...

I originally saw this on sale and had the words "walking simulator" and "adventure" and "sci-fi" jump out at me, all things which I'm a fan of, so I figured at 99c I probably couldn't complain either way no matter how it turned out. I didn't read any further on it beyond the general positive score, and, boy, am I glad that's as much digging as I did. This really is a game that benefits from some blissful ignorance before going into it, save for maybe the fact that it's pretty much completely devoid of conflict of any kind and is instead based mostly on "purpose". At least in as much as you have a role to play and a function to fulfil and that will pretty much be the extent of the gameplay.

You awake on the titular station and are immediately given a test on your mental state and told to perform it again every 30 days. You are then given the task of maintaining the station's plant and tree life for future endeavours and to also check them every 30 days. What follows is the strange juxtaposition of tasks of tedium among a spectacular setting... basically a janitor in space. There's more to it than that, as you'll explore the handful of rooms that make up the station and read various log entries, but all that is best left to your own discovery.

I know it sounds like a total non-event, but I promise you there's more to it than that.

It kind of reminded me of the classic '60s TV show The Prisoner. It was weird and never really explained itself and by the end you probably had more questions about everything than answers, but still thoroughly enjoyed your time with it the whole way. That was definitely my experience with it.

The only complaint I'd probably have is I was left wanting more. Sniffing around every inch of the station to try finding new things to see or possibly interact with took up the lion's share of my hour or two with this title, and I do wish it could have been eked out to something longer and the concept expanded upon. But otherwise, the brief time I spent is something that still managed to have great impact and will stay with me for a while, and I strongly recommend you take the time with it, too.

Oh, I just remembered... the safe word is Verde Station.

While I enjoyed the game well enough, I think I'd qualify it merely as a Nice Try. There's some great ideas in there, but there's not nearly enough context or development of those ideas to really make a great game out of them. I appreciate the attempt to mash together Gone Home with The Stanley Parable by way of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the results are just too unsatisfying to live up to any of those elements. It's like a meal of popcorn, tasty enough but far from filling.

I'd say get it on a very deep sale or as part of a bundle, but that's about it. Be interesting to see what the dev does as a followup though, and lessons learned from this game.

Station Verde - Steam PC - 7 / 10
Only for those players with properly calibrated expectations…. Thumbs Up.

Alone in the Space Station, travelling from room to room you monitor and report your status. Why am I here? Hack the Computer with nerdy {.cmd line} clues that you discover and earn 100% achievements; those are the goals. Lasting no more than 4 hours for my six iterations, I enjoyed this game because it was smurf short with a gentle twist of wry humor. Other reviewers have noted feelings of unfinished business after it was over. Was there more to find or is this a sign that they were entertained? This was probably an experiential project for the author, maybe a dry run for a project in development? Let’s hope for more.

Worth about 1/10th the price of a BigMac. Also, it is low in salt and has not a single trace of exogenous hormones.

ATTENTION Achievo hunters: 100% Achievement in 4 hours. [/seriously this will probably make some of you wet yourselves]

eol

Just... love... it!

Short enough to make you want more - long enough to not get out of track...

Although I know not much will happen (if you're expecting loads of action of any kind, so this game is not for you), it ALWAYS makes me look over my shoulder when playing... even in real life! oO

Consistent story, fluid gameplay, shocking finale... gotta get more of it!

So what is Verde Station?

A "walking simulator", a is-it-a-game-game like 'Gone Home'? A puzzle adventure light on the puzzles? Maybe. I couldn't say.

All I can say is that I loved it.

Do not look up anything about this game that's not already part of the store page and you'll have a great experience.

Verde Station managed to surprise me a few times before I reached the ending and I'm still pretty sure I missed something.

Definitely recommended.

I like what another reviewer said about this game providing Lego pieces for the mind. Verde Station gives the player an incomplete set of building blocks from maybe more than one story and asks them to put it all together however they see fit. If you treat the game how it's looking to be treated, you should come out with some things to think about. If you want the game to entertain you passively, this might not be the game for you.

Some people are saying they did everything in the game in under half an hour. I didn't come close to doing everything and completely ignored certain segments of the game and I took almost two hours to finish it with 2 out of 12 achievements.

I am really disappointed - there was absolutely nothing interesting to discover. Maybe I missed something but the game did not last much more than 30 mins for me. First I thought I was stuck but than I realised: that's it. There is no way out with the third walk around the station. This 'experience' directs you to a partly forseeable conclusion.

It's not even a good walking simulator. Interacting with stuff was more than messy. In my opinion the game's not worth the 5 bucks I spent on it. To make for a game or experience, a lot more story is needed.

Intelligent, thought-provoking, and more than a little unnerving. Verde Station follows in the footsteps of Gone Home and The Stanley Parable; it's a game about exploring an environment, and in so doing, coming to understand that environment. Or, to try anyway.

Like Gone Home or The Stanley Parable, it's easy to "win" Verde Station. You can go from the opening to the ending in half an hour if you put your mind to it. But that's not the point; don't do that. Take your time and, more to the point, think about what's going on. Expect to be confused. Expect to be misled. Expect to be surprised.

If you say the phrase "walking simulator" with contempt, you probably won't enjoy Verde Station. That's fine. But if you're willing to leap into the unknown (and Verde Station is one of the very few pieces of media that actually is improved by approaching it without knowing what's going to happen), I cannot recommend this game more highly.

Imagine Portal and Gone Home hooked up and had a kid. Moon and Silent Running did, too.

Imagine those kids met and fell in love playing Digital: A Love Story. That grandkid would be Verde Station.



Based on that lineage, I thought I was going in with pretty clear notions of what to expect, one of them being the paradoxical expectation of the unexpected. In spite of that, I was genuinely surprised by twists and turns in the narrative within 15 minutes.

I was not expecting to see an ending in under two hours. Those seeking a game to play moreso than a space to explore or a narrative to unravel will probably get there sooner, and probably be disappointed- there are other Steam reviews that claim to have finished in 20 minutes. But Verde Station seems clearly designed for multiple playthroughs. Exposition via recursion. Nothing here is as it seems, including the fade to black. The narrative IS the game.


At this juncture, all I can definitively say is those two hours have left me itching to go back, and as a fan of these experiential setting-sims, that's worth my recommendation.

If you are the type to embrace "walking simulators" because the term "game" is more of a pigeonhole, keep this one on your radar.

Well I have a mixed feelings about this game. I was about to recommend this game, but I was waiting for something more to be in a game before I do this. Well, it didn't work out.

What's good

First, it's very impressive to see such game to be developed by one man. I had a lot of fun providing feedback and bug reports on the forum while the game was in Early Access.

Second, the idea of the game is good. Attempt to present it looks a bit dramatic. There are some good moments in the game which can create an illusion of something interesting happening.

What's bad

The idea of the game is undeveloped and presented very shallow. It looks like a very short and linear story told us via game. If you compare a game devlopment to a movie development this game reminds me of a short clips directors make to present their vision to producers before they are hired to film a full movie.

There is absolutely no challenge in this game. You just move further because you have nothing else to do.

The game interactions that affect your story progression boil out to just moving around and using terminals. All other interactive objects are secondary and give very little benefit.

The overall design of the game is very unobvious. The game lacks explanations and player assistance. You can discover some pieces of information scattered around only if you'll be ignoring story progression and specifically looking for them. These pieces of information are very disconnected from each other and won't give you a full picture or even a hint about it. Maybe if you collect them all you'll be able to see something. It seems I haven't found them all.

The game still contains bugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAS7nwjsjcw

Summary

I was expecting this game to be in development for at least a year more. I was excited about what this game could be.
I never expected it to end like this.

I can only recommed it only if you're interested in studying game design. There are very good examples of bad design decisions, and a few good ideas. I would like to read post-mortem for this game.

I just finished my last playthrough a couple of hours ago and it left me with a mixed set of feelings.

At first, when I started the game, I thought like: "Okay, cool, I'm about to manage and explore a huge space station."
But, as things turned out, it went completely different. That's, just to say, not a bad thing, because it provided a nice surprise regarding the experience and it felt kind of nice.

On the other hand, the experience itself was not so terrific in the end. That's probably because you know exactly what's
going on when you take a close look at your surroundings. (I'm not going to mention any details.)
Take a second/minute to take in the details and you might be able to figure out what's going on yourself.

Another thing I didn't really like, but that's probably because it's still in development, is the short gameplay of each playthrough. Depending on your play speed it can be done in less than, let's say, 40 minutes.

What's good? Fear, by answering a set of questions you're supposed, or you believe, you get a custom tailored portion
of fear presented to you. If that's completely correct, I don't know, because I don't know how the game has been designed. But, it's done in a good way and makes you act careful for as long as it lasts.

I recomend the game as far as it concerns the concept, but I don't recommend it based on actual content. It's too little at this moment. The experience doesn't last long enough at this time to be regarded as a full gaming experience. It feels more like a test setup for psychologic gameplay elemenst to see what works and what doesn't. (Depending on your goal as a developer)

Conclusion:
Verde Station has potential, but needs more work. It needs longer playthrough time. At the time of writing the presented content is not enough to keep you satisfied for long. For the current price you expect more material, story and interaction with your surroundings.
But, I do recommend Verde Station, because at its core it's a great concept that does work in a fast way. And if the developers do something with the feeback, they'll be able to create an awesome game in the end.

This game and I already have a love-hate relationship.

I've explored everything I can seemingly explore and read everything I can possibly read and it only took me about 20 solid minutes. I hate to say it but in its current state, it's not worth the price tag.

That being said, what I did experience, I really enjoyed. I just think it's really lackluster given the premise and the atmosphere. Everything was very linear, the inability to backtrack at times was extremely frustrating. I expected a lot more than I received.

I know it's Alpha and I really hope it grows and evolves because it has SO much potential. Every other reviewer seems to think its the best thing since sliced bread and I just don't believe that yet.

I'll be watching it closely to see just how it does shape up and I fully expect to rewrite this review in the future. Keep up the good work guys, you're REALLY on to something here, but you haven't quite gotten there yet.