Beyond the Chiron Gate

…and not exploration/discovery. Ship damage and crew injury/death is what the game revolves around. All else is secondary, and that’s just a little sad. It’s too unrealistic to think people would put up with that. They wouldn’t. Everything else is fantastic for the genre, almost perfect. But I get tired of not developing crew for they will end up in hospital! You constantly turn back for crew injury/ies. Sure you can take an MD, but there you go, back to the counter-productive doctor’s injury. Not you have 2 MDs in the hospital. The game focuses on the negative. That’s not fun and the fact that it’s popular, that’s scary.

Seedship was great, but lacking in narrative depth. This game somehow manages to feel even more narratively sparse, probably because the expanded adventure highlights the repetitive gameplay even more. The systems play out like mad libs in space, you land on a [hot/dense/rocky/icy] [planet/asteroid] and then discover some [ruins/anomalies/microscopic life] that has been destroyed by a [cosmic ray/weather event/interstellar war], and on the way your [engineer/pilot/scientist] is imperiled by some [radiation/heat/cold/crushing atmosphere] and your other [engineer/pilot/scientist] has a [25/50/75%] chance of saving them from [injury/death]. All of these situations play out identically, with identical impacts from your pass/fail result. Get some biology points, or don't. Get some xeno points, or don't. Repeat for the entire game, like multiple times. In a single play-through your engineer is going to fix a space suit radiation leak like a dozen times, identical dialog, identical choices, maybe 5% bump to success because you gained a level. Every system description ends up reading the same. Once you've read the description for a gas giant, you've read every description for a gas giant. Completely soulless dialog, probably assembled on an excel spreadsheet. $10 is just a joke of a price for this game. It's a shame, the concept is there, but the execution completely misses the mark. 2/5

Really enjoyed the mechanics and the focus on exploration, like the Out There chronicles. I was a little disappointed by replayability, after playing through 2-3 times (which took maybe 1-3 hours), I felt like I’ve seen pretty much everything.

I really wanted to like this game. I love the creator’s other game, Seedship, but BtCG doesn’t quite live up to it. The narrative aspect is too weak for an entirely text based game. Every star system is essentially the same, every interaction with an alien civilization will play out the exact same way, and even every playthrough is going to be virtually identical. If it just had more variety this would be a much better game. It’s still a nice little space game, but it’s hard to justify $10 for a text-only game that fails at the only thing text-based games are supposed to be good at. I do hope this game gets updated, and maybe someday this will really be an awesome game, but right now it just isn’t.

Strategic and challenging. Really engaging. Strongly suggest going slowly and reading the immersive descriptions.

I love the story to this app, but VoiceOver clicks on links when I'm trying to read the story. It actually ended the game once. This game really deserves 5 stars, but I'm not playing it again until the error with VoiceOver is fixed.

Space is vast and mysterious and wildly interesting but it is also cruel and unyielding. This game captures space exploration better than nearly any I’ve played, and that includes $70 AAA titles. This game is at heart a random number generator with a text adventure overlay. The theme is sci-fi: humanity has discovered a way to travel to other systems. Like the author’s other game, Seedship (which is free but nowhere as developed as this - but will whet the appetite), you must explore the galaxy on a ticking clock. You will mess up. You will lose lives. You will make incalculable messes. But eventually you’ll learn from your mistakes, and you will learn about the universe … and yourself. Don’t stop just buy this game.

:)

A fascinating and fun game. I played it non stop on a long flight. I know the price seems high, but it’s just like a long, replay-able choose your own adventure novel. Pick it up before a long flight: you won’t regret it!

I’ve played a let’s Ply of Beyond the Chiron Gate! This game was complex, to me, at first, but, then, I discovered how to play it. I slowed down, read the text, took my time to understand the interface, tutorial, game play and rules. Then, I began to min-max everything, getting my scientist up to level 6 and discovering weird science from all over the universe! I love this game and I can’t wait to unlock further game modes! Unfortunately, there is a small, but nasty bug, that makes you choose actions without your consent after picking the “continue” option. This has lead to me losing valuable crew members! I hope this bug can be fixed. I play on iOS iPhone 13. Mobile. I use voiceover, as I am blind and visually impaired. I’ve also trouble shooted the problem by turning off background apps, etc. the bug remains and keeps choosing options for me. I hope this can be fixed! It’s a sad mark on a beautiful game, that’s incredibly accessible to the blind and visually impaired! Thanks!