Fellow Traveller and Copychaser games have announced a closed beta for their upcoming robot journalist game, Times & Galaxy. The beta will run from February 26 to March 11 and consists of the first 30% of the final game.
Times & Galaxy was first revealed last year. It’s an adventure game where you play as a robot and the brand new intern at the titular news outlet. You’re sent to scenes of happenings and must gather information to create your articles. The great twist here is that crafting your article is actually a part of gameplay. The flow has you first checking out the scene and interviewing witnesses and gossips about what happened. Once you think you have the full story (or can at least throw together something passable), you pick your headline and content based on the information you gathered.
I had early access to the beta and was hoping to have more time with it, but I didn’t get much further than the opening section. Obviously, that part wasn’t very difficult. I was able to crack the case before even the police had any clue what was going on and left with a hot scoop. Then Times & Galaxy told me to meet my co-workers, but that’s something I typically avoid.
I crafted my exclusive investigative article with a human (robot) angle, but it made me curious to see how far I could get if I just did the absolute bare minimum. Can I speedrun the game with bad journalism?
This is going to sound weird, but part of what stopped me from playing further was the fact that the game would crash whenever I minimized it. Not only does the game’s startup have (a lot of) unskippable logos and disclaimers, but having the game crash gives me a clear out to go and do something else. However, I checked, and a recent patch has fixed the alt+tab problem, so you’re good to go. There’s no escape.
According to Copychaser, the beta will provide 4-6 hours of gameplay and consists of the first six cycles. The goal is to gather “player feedback on what works, what doesn’t, what feels good, and of course squishing bugs and ironing out hardware compatibility issues.”
The beta is PC-only (that’s the only confirmed platform for the game) through Steam. You need to fill out a form over here to get in, but it doesn’t ask a lot of questions. If you’re not interested in such a sizeable early slice of game, there’s a normal demo for Times & Galaxy available. The finished game is set to drop sometime this year.
