If you are just interested in point and click adventures go here: The Adventure Library

Is this game a masterpiece? No, but its a nice sci-fi detective adventure. The Zephyr - a spaceship with 1,300 people on board - has been on its way to a planet many light years away for many years. The survival of the human race is at stake - things don't seem to be going so well on Earth. However, the expected arrival on the new planet is not for another three generations, which means that the current crew will never see the new planet and will have to spend their entire lives on board the ship. I hope there are enough children on board. We play Stella, the depressed daughter of the current head of security, who lies around in her cabin with her strange pet. Our job is deputy head of security... apparently on the ship, jobs are passed down in the family. Anyway, it's strange to be in such a position as a young woman in her mid-20s. We can no longer remember our mother. She has stayed behind on Earth due to health problems, but we sometimes receive messages from her - with a delay of around a year due to the distance.

Soon there is a security incident on the ship and we have to solve our first case. At the core of our job, we are a detective. Our first "case" consists of looking at network logs to perhaps discover an irregularity. The second case, however, is much more complex, with several questions to solve. Who did what, when and why - the usual challenge faced by detectives and investigating authorities.

On the one hand, the gameplay mainly consists of moving around the spaceship, with more and more parts becoming accessible as the game progresses. If walking is too slow for you, you can also run. For better orientation, we can call up a map at any time, on which fast travel to many rooms is also possible. On the other hand, we must always keep our eyes open and investigate hotspots. Every clue we find is automatically stored on our PDA. We can talk to other people (often with several possible answers under time pressure) or talk to them about specific clues (which are stored on our PDA). All our dialogs are also saved so that we can look at them again later at our leisure. To solve a case, we have to upload the correct clue to the police computer. This automatically closes the case, regardless of whether our investigation was right or wrong.

There is no way back - neither for the Zephyr nor for us. Saving is automatic, and no manual saves can be made. The game is designed in such a way that you have to play through it, and once you have made your decisions, they are final. The only way to change your mind is to start a new game.

The background graphics are quite nice, but of course not particularly eye-catching. Between Horizons is basically a side-scrolling game, but our character can also move forwards or backwards in the picture in some places. However, I would like to know what the developers had in mind when it came to the graphic design of the characters, especially Stella. Stella looks horrible up close - she is completely pixelated. The closer she is in the foreground, the more pixelated. This is an extreme contrast to the background graphics and a complete break in style. What is a pixelated player character doing in a game with high-resolution background graphics?

The game can be controlled entirely with the keyboard, but it plays really well with the gamepad. Voice output is very limited. Instructions, descriptions or conversations are not voiced. At certain points in the game, however, we can hear Stella's inner monologue. Saves are stored in the cloud. The plot is branched, which can be a motivation to play through the game several times.

Conclusion:
Typical narrative adventure game - we talk to other people, investigate things and explore the surroundings. The special feature is the detective work - we have to use our brains to uncover connections in order to solve a threatening situation on board a spaceship in the depths of space. The story continues in any case, even if you are as stupid as Louis de Funès in "The Gendarme of St. Tropez" - but the end of the story may not be a happy ending. All in all, a great indie adventure game.

Great game with an interesting setting a story. The puzzles were fair, although I did need help with one of them.

Nach Lacuna nun das nächste Spiel des Entwicklers DigiTales Interactive. Between Horizons ist ein Gemisch aus einer Folge Star Trek Voyager und einem Detektiv-Roman. Dinge auf dem Schiff Zephyr gehen schief, die wir als Chief in Ausbildung aufdecken sollen. Natürlich darf dabei eine groß angelegte Verschwörung nicht fehlen.

All das passiert in wunderschöner 2,5D Optik. Nur beim verlassen der Räume schwenkt die Kamera für meinen Geschmack etwas zu sehr und lässt die Illusion platzen, wenn man plötzlich die 2D Pappaufsteller-Charaktere sieht. Das hätte man definitiv eleganter lösen können. Auch die Menüführung hätte man durchaus eleganter lösen können. Manchmal hatte ich Bugs, die mir ganze Reihen an Gegenständen nicht angezeigt haben, die in meinem PDA gespeichert waren. Auch verstehe ich nicht, warum man die Auswahl der Charaktere in den Menüs nicht alphabetisch machen konnte.

Insgesamt habe ich für das Spiel ca. 5h gebraucht. Zwischen manchen Aufträgen war es aber nicht immer klar, was zu tun ist. Anscheinend werden da einige Nachrichten von den Crew Mitgliedern verschluckt (z.B. beendet man einen Fall und soll zum Captain. Das erfährt man aber nicht und sucht alle Räume ab. Erst wenn man dann mit ihr spricht, erwähnt sie eine Nachricht, die es nie gab). Insgesamt die Rätsel etwas zu leicht für Profis des Point & Click Genres.

Mein größtes Problem mit dem Spiel ist aber das Ende, was in einem Monolog der Protagonistin runtergespult wird (ursprüngliches Mass Effect 3 lässt grüßen). Das geht auf jeden Fall besser.

Insgesamt hat das Spiel aber trotz der vielen Kleinigkeiten gebockt. Vielleicht ist beim nächsten Mal mit etwas mehr Budget auch ein besser präsentiertes Ende und geilere Menüs möglich. Der Rest war verzeihbar. Fans des atmosphärischen Rätselgenres greifen definitiv zu.