Beyond Galaxyland – A Pre-launch Experience

I was given a chance to play a special three-hour preview build of Beyond Galaxyland, an interesting and quirky RPG by Developer Sam Enright and published by United Label & CI Games. This article will contain my initial impressions and thoughts on the game, so let’s get space-faring!

Beyond Galaxyland places you in the shoes of Doug, our protagonist of the story, who after an evening of being with his friend, maybe girlfriend it was unclear, returns home to show her his pet guinea pig, Boom Boom (no that’s not a euphemism).

After a brief chat, with his parents, he takes his pet outside only to discover the girl has gone missing. Upon searching for her, Doug comes across a person who has something visibly wrong and chases him into an underground cave, where he discovers a portal that takes him to Galaxyland. Here, Doug is informed by some extremely advanced AI robots that his home planet of Earth is being destroyed, however, they have spared him from this fate. Doug then is taken to a new planet that almost seems stuck in a medieval age despite other planets having far more advanced AI and technology to start his new life, this is where the true story begins.

Right off the bat, we have a lot to unpack with a story that starts with a bang and, during the time I had with the preview, this continues at a nice pace, only slowing down when I decided to go for side quests and explored what I could. The gameplay itself is a 2.5D affair as you’ll be exploring in a 2D plane, but will be able to dive into the back-drop and fore-drop as you explore, complete quests and solve puzzles.

The combat itself is turn-based with an active time gauge for your characters, with a mix of mechanics involved. You can multi-hit and actively dodge, like in the Mario RPG games, with a skill bar that fills with successful hits. This is used to activate skills as well as beat down a creature to low health and catch it like a Pokemonto equip and use in battle for varying effects of damage/healing/buffs just like using a skill. Despite it being a blend of a few mechanics it works extremely well when pulled together.

Visually, it appears like the game is made in a 3D engine but all the sprite work for characters, enemies and locations appears to be done in low pixel counts. For example, people’s faces tend to have what appears to be a single pixel for the eye its absolutely charming to see and play. The environments that you explore all look jaw-droppingly beautiful with the way this art style works from the medieval-looking village to the planet of Doug’s new home to the high-tech science planet you get to briefly go to (well briefly in this preview build anyway). The score for the game is phenomenal, ranging from synthwave to electronic some piano-heavy blues and even more.

When I read the preview was three hours long, I thought that it seemed like a big commitment for a preview, but that was very quickly changed. I was absolutely left wanting more and I am now eagerly waiting for the full release of the game. The writing dances a fine line, being humorous while also deep and meaningful at all the points where it mattered. I feel Beyond Galaxyland would appeal to anyone who enjoys retro-futuristic sci-fi as a genre and also RPGs.

My first impression is a solid 10/10 and I am hungry for the full release.