One of the best things about modern gaming is how much creativity it allows for. In the past, it was tough for individuals or small teams to create and release games, but that has changed and gotten a lot better since the invent of the Internet and through initiatives like Xbox Live Arcade. Steam is, of course, another huge contributor to the rise of indie games, such as Universe for Sale.
Developed by Tmesis Studio — which has a confusing team page on its website, which suggests it’s made up of two members, but might be made up of three — Universe for Sale is a unique game that was unlike anything else I’d ever played. This is both for better and worse, because its uniqueness comes with notable pros and cons. In the end, it resulted in a game that I respected more than I ever enjoyed.
Set in a colony on Jupiter, which is plagued by storms and acid rain, Universe for Sale begins with a skeleton wearing makeup awakening on the street. He soon makes his way into a cafe, where he meets a young woman named Lila for space tea. It’s during that meeting where the man — who’s part of a cult that cuts its own body parts off to move away from want and need — learns that she is able to make universes.
You see, Lila runs a shop in the mining colony’s post apocalyptic looking market, where she makes custom universes of varying types. People come up and place their orders. Then, she (well, the player) mixes two ingredients into a bowl and moulds the resulting spheroid into any shape. Depending on the ingredients, there will be varying types of ‘life’ and flora on each universe, including but not limited to massive beasts, rusted machines, gigantic flowers that shoot lasers, black holes, tons of energy and more.
The ingredients you can choose from are water, eggs, rust, soot, moss and a couple of others. Each mixture and recipe creates a different result, and it’s unclear as to whether the bowl type matters as there are three to choose from.
I did not enjoy this part of the game much at all. In fact, I kind of dreaded it. Why? Universe for Sale does a poor job of introducing players to its universe creation mechanics, things are unclear and the written directions you can access are gibberish. There is far too much trial and error, as the recipes are unclear, and it’s all so slow and sluggish. You are basically using a cursor, and the controls for this part of the game are poor.
Sometimes the residents of Jupiter will ask you for a specific shape. At other times, they won’t, making you think it doesn’t matter. However, a customer wouldn’t take a basic galaxy, but did take it when I made it a line instead of a ball, despite not specifying this. Another customer asked for one shaped after his friend’s name, which started with an L. However, he wouldn’t take the L shaped one and eventually walked away.
The text is small, the orders are unclear and it’s not an enjoyable experience. I respect what the developers had in mind, but I do not think they nailed it whatsoever.
There are other mini games or such, including climbing a tower of windmills and snipping vines to get their flowers for space tea. The mechanics for this are also frustrating and bad; especially the snipping. The same is true of when you cut parts off a cultist, despite the game awarding an achievement or trophy for a perfect cut.
The best part of Universe for Sale is its narrative. There is an interesting story about religion, life, family, love and the universe to be found in here. However, a lot of it is oddly presented and muddled. Something major will happen and then you’ll just wake up on the street or in bed (when you’re playing as Lila) as if it never happened.
It’s an interesting story, and the best reason for playing this four or so hour long title. It’s all bookended by a young mother reading a story about the creation of galaxies to her small daughter.
When I first received a press release for this game, what I read suggested that it was a dialogue driven narrative. I maybe didn’t read far enough, but I didn’t expect all of this universe creating, recipe puzzling or vine snipping. This game would’ve been so much better without that frustration.
Presentation is another area where this game excels, though. The visuals are hand drawn, and kind of like a comic or graphic novel, and they are really well done. It’s a looker, but its text is small. The writing is also interesting and pretty good. There’s also decent music and good sound effects.
I was admittedly hopping between the game and a browser to try to follow a recipe guide for the storefront segments, and I don’t know if that caused this issue. However, there were times where this game became incredibly sluggish. The cursor you use for movement and going through doors became so slow, and the characters seemed to move sluggishly too.
Overall, Universe for Sale is an ambitious, pretty and interesting game. It doesn’t deliver much in the gameplay department outside of tedium and frustration, but it’s worth playing for the story.
This review is based on the Xbox Series S version of the game, which we were provided.