So when I wrote my review of The Starship Damrey I stressed how important it was to go into the game blind, which thus made it a tough title to analyze properly. However, analysis is what I do and I cannot let the experience pass by without discussing in more full detail just why this game was so effective.

If I had the capability of capturing video from my 3DS I’d make a RamblePak episode just for this game. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to modify my 3DS or to purchase a pre-modified one in order to capture video, and thus I must write it all out as a blog post.

Be warned that I will be discussing minute details of the game, and as such I will essentially ruin the experience for you. If you own a 3DS, then please purchase The Starship Damrey off the eShop and dedicate the few hours it requires to play through before reading through this entry. If you plan on getting a 3DS one day or are uncertain, be advised that I still do not recommend reading further. Otherwise, I will try and find as many fitting images to coincide with what I am discussing.

Now then, major spoiler territory ahead.

I made it pretty clear in my review that not knowing how to do anything is pretty key to the plot. I made it sound as if the player character wakes up with amnesia, which is certainly the trope the player’s mind will leap to when starting the game. You wake up in a pod, are given a name, and yet there is no memory of how anything functions or what has happened on the ship. The natural inclination is to believe you are playing yet another amnesiac.

Apologies for already spoiling the game’s Shyamalanian twist ending, but the truth is that you are playing as an alien creature locked into cryostasis by the human occupants of the ship. That is why it is so important that the game provides no instructions or tutorials. Everything is foreign to you. It is not your native technology. It is later explained that the alien race you are a part of has been studying humanity for years, however, and have thus learned how to speak and read human languages. The Damrey’s mission was to capture some of the aliens for study, and you play as one of those captured.

So when the game drops you in a cryochamber with no instructions or tutorials, it is as close to immersion as most games get. You don’t know why you’re in there. You don’t know how to get out. All you have before you is a computer and what few buttons are available to control the lights within the cryochamber.

The beginning is perhaps the most unique part of The Starship Damrey, as you don’t have to use a computer system in this manner again. It gives you simple tasks with easy to follow instructions in order to accomplish one goal, but afterwards makes things more difficult. It relies on the player to now understand how the software works whilst recognizing patterns and relying on memory. It turns simple command prompts into a surprisingly hectic experience as you do your best not to screw up, finally leading to greater access to the ship’s operating system.

Here I believed the game had deceived me a bit, once again providing me information about the operating system. That’s when I realized I still haven’t turned off certain notifications in my current Windows installation, and therefore an operating system providing details to a guest user is actually quite fitting. Just as Dead Space does not stop gameplay while Isaac Clarke messes with his inventory, I was interacting strictly with the operating system within the game. I was being told how to use software, not how to play.

This was made clear when I explored my options, taking control of a camera feed and finding only two service robots online. I thought I was just solving a puzzle, but I was really preparing myself for how I’d play the rest of the game. In order to escape the cryochamber, the player must explore the ship using a robot. By time the functioning robot is dislodged, it is the only functional robot available.

An interesting dynamic is created there. The player is dependent on the robot functioning in a reliable manner. Instead of the player fearing for their life, they fear for the robot. A machine without sentience or willpower, yet I fear for it because it is an extension of me, allowing me to explore the world through this machine.

If there were more evidence to support the thesis I’d hazard a guess that The Starship Damrey is a meta-narrative exploring the relationship between the player and their avatar, particularly in a horror game. However, there is little reason to believe the game is seeking to accomplish such a message or idea.

The robots are also where the game makes true on its promise not to provide any tutorials. The player is given no instructions on how to control the robot. The manual provided in the game’s operating system primarily involves information that will either not factor into gameplay or describes functional limitations. Movement and how to interact with the world must be learned by randomly pressing buttons.

In other words, the game relies on a player doing what any experienced player might do with a new game, and what any player at all should do first. Press buttons and see what each one does. Unlike many modern games which keep abilities locked away for a lengthy stretch of time, Damrey permits the player to use all of the robot’s capabilities.

There aren’t many, however, and the player must be thorough in their search for the dead body near the door. This is where I got a little stumped my first time, as I wasn’t aware of just how thorough Damrey wanted me to be. The corpse has three sections for the player to examine, and in order to get all the information they may have to examine a single part three to five times. Without this knowledge, I merely examined one part of the corpse, was given nothing of value, and proceeded to try and move on. It wasn’t until I concluded there was no way out of the room and nothing else of note that I returned to the corpse and examined it more carefully, and was forced to examine multiple times in order to obtain the key card.

It was a little frustrating that it took so much to find such a little thing, but little did I know at the time that the game was teaching me to look closely at everything and to check it twice or more. This lesson would prove to be extremely valuable.

I claimed the key card, opened the door, and began my exploration of the Damrey.

Continued in part two