Not quite full-game or alternate reality title, Extrasolar is a new indie PC title that ostensibly puts you in control of a rover on an alien planet.
The “in-game” portion lets players take control of a rover unit sent to the planet Epsilon Prime. This takes many real-world hours to travel to destinations, before “beaming back” photos of the surrounding region to your computer.
While waiting for your rover to wander to and complete its missions, you’ll also send in photos and other samples for research analysis. These lead to a chain of emails, missions and more that all take real world time to complete. Lest you think this is some sort of social game, the more “is this real” alternate reality aspect comes in looking through the conspiracies hiding behind the friendly covers.
From scouring the “official” website of the eXoplanetary Research Institute (XRI) or the conspiracy theorist leaker site, players will slowly unravel more of the mysteries of Epsilon Prime and the institute you’re working for.
The alien planet is somewhat based on scientific reality, with alien life forms based on scientific theory. In the meanwhile you’ll be getting emails from other workers and missions to complete, again based on real-world ideas of what science missions on an alien planet would look for.
Extrasolar is out now on PC.
