Somewhere on Zibylon

Review

Zibylon command centre . . . do you read me? I repeat, Zibylon command centre do you read me? Oh boy, we have lost contact with Zibylon - one of the most resourceful planets we’ve colonized in space. We need to do something somewhere in Zibylon, and the only option I can think of is to send one of our drones to Zibylon to check it out!

Somewhere on Zibylon is a third person (drone actually) / exploration / puzzle game where you take control of a smallish drone with the goal of recapturing all the stations and mines on the planet.

The game has several phases of play. The first one is the planet control, and this is where you’ll start the game. In a nutshell, you’ll see a rather dark planet and you’ll be able to fly your drone, which is equipped with a light underneath. As you fly around the sphere, orange balls will appear. These balls will represent good places to mine which you can easily do with your drones. After collecting resources, you can go back to the main base (where you started) and craft new equipment (such as weapons), upgrade your hull and a few other options. You can also dismantle objects to extract important components which you cannot dig out of the ground at this point. I must admit I was stuck there for a while. My small tip for you is to gather a lots of debris to dismantle. You’ll need to recapture mines and stations that will lead you to the next phase of the game; the puzzles. Another quick point . . . the enemies will have lasers, canons and also rockets placed around Zibylon, so make sure to equip your drone with weapons and hull upgrades in order to defeat them.

In the puzzle phase, you’ll control another drone which you see on the third person view. Your goal is to figure out the puzzles and find the exit doors to clear the stage. There are around a dozen levels to clear; at the time of writing this review, I am about half way through the game. The puzzles are pretty much environmental puzzles. Your drone enters a room and you have to figure out what does what, and where to put or push objects or mechanisms to get to the exit door. You’ll also have to be careful of enemy drones, and let me tell you, if they get you in their radar, you’ll be gone in a flash! Then you’ll have to restart the level, or on some occasions at a saved point, depending on the size of the stage you are in. Make sure to look everywhere as you might say to yourself on more than one occasion, “What am I supposed to do?”  Every detail needs to be looked at, which can be frustrating at times. Your drone can pick up square boxes, too, and you can use them to lure enemy drones to different locations, but if there are any, you’ll have to use stealth to go around them. Oh I nearly forgot, make sure to turn off the light!

Graphically the game could have been a bit more polished, but it looks ok. In terms of the controls, they works well. I really enjoy the combination of phases of play; it’s refreshing, especially if you get stuck somewhere in a puzzle for a while. I must say that some of the English translations could have been better.