Fly Me To The: MirrorMoon Is Smart, Mysterious, In Beta

Developer Santa Ragione has traded pseudo-Mirror's-Edge-ish psychedelic sprints for meandering, contemplative exploration, and the result looks positively haunting in the best way possible. MirrorMoon EP (which John saw a bit of during GDC's Experimental Gameplay Workshop) is a game about the intrigues of planetary exploration, a stark galaxy pregnant with secrets. MirrorMoon spans thousands of star systems, each with their own puzzles, artifacts, and sleeping structures. The twist, however, is that it's all multiplayer, and here's the crazy part: "The multiplayer part of MirrorMoon EP lets players share Galaxy Maps with other players: the first explorers to land on a planet will be able to name its Star System and that name will be forever bound to the star for every other player."

I am all about this sort of thing. I worry that the planets might end up being a little too stark and un-populated, but I absolutely adore the concept. Plus, the puzzle John saw - which involved using beacons of light on one planet to guide the way on another - sounded quite inventive. I do wonder how exactly Santa Ragione's accomplishing all of this, though. Procedural generation? But then, that'd probably make for some pretty lackluster puzzles. Hmmmm.

MirrorMoon EP will launch on September 4th, but you can preorder and buy into the beta right now. It'll only run you $8.99, which is certainly tempting. And I mean, I like what I see, but I'd sort of like to understand exactly what's going on. This, I suppose, is the problem with games about whispered mysteries and resulting curiosity lust: it's hard to find the line between crucial information and full-on spoiler territory. Guess I'll just have to dive in and find out for myself. (And I suppose that, for the developer, that's the upside of games about mystery and slavering curiosity and such.)