Indie Adventure Game Review - Quantumnauts Episode One: Speed of Light, Space Pirates and Multiverses

Quantumnauts Episode One (Speed of Light, Space Pirates and Multiverses) is a tantalisingly promising glimpse of what could become a truly great sci-fi adventure game series.  You play as Bob, a musician (or at least wannabe musician), staggering home one night after a gig, a little worse for wear, about to go home and collapse into bed.  A misplaced transport beam later and he’s onboard a ship – an encounter with space pirates later and he’s marooned on a strange planet, trying to work out how to fix the ship, travel the multiverse and back to his own time and space.  And, of course, his own universe.  However, the universe he’s in at the moment holds intriguing problems and possibilities of its own...

There are many things to like about this game, but also quite a few things that could be improved.  Let’s start with the good...

The background artwork is superb, and the music (by Digital Orchestra) is also high quality and very moody.  Between them and the solid sci-fi storyline, the game creates a very good atmosphere and a believable game world.  There are some good puzzles, and the dialogue is very funny in places.  Loads of skiffy references for fans, obviously heavy influence from Star Wars but also a bit of Star Trek, a plot that wouldn’t be out of place on Star Gate SG-1, and some parts of the game reminded me of the Mars-based section of Zak McKraken.  All good stuff.

Quantumnauts can be played in English or in the original Italian - not sure if the English translation misses much, but the jokes are still funny!

On the other hand, the main character walks very slowly (particularly a problem as he often has to walk long distances), and the character animation is a little jerky.  Many locations feel rather sparse, and there is a bit of pixel-hunting (not too much though).  The characters are clickable, resulting in them getting in the way of hotspots at times – however there are logical puzzles related to using items on the player character, so it’s forgivable.  By far the most annoying problem is the fairly frequent lack of a response to interactions; I guess to some game players this won’t be much of an issue (as you know it doesn’t work if you don’t get any response at all!), but I’m guessing that most adventure game fans will find this a little annoying.

On balance the good points make the game well worth playing for science fiction adventure game fans though, and as mentioned, I enjoyed the story and several aspects of the game.  I’m hoping that a few of the issues will be addressed in the second episode – at any rate, I want to see what Bob and his new friend (/love interest) Neena find to do next.  My overall rating for Episode One: 6/10.

Quantumnauts Episode One costs £3.95 and can be ordered on this page.

Quantumnauts Official Website

All blog posts about Quantumnauts:

Further Thoughts - Quantumnauts
Midian Design release Quantumnauts
First Thoughts - Quantumnauts
Quantumnauts - Coming Soon


CaptainD's PC Gaming Blog



See also my Star Trek TNG Episode Guide

Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online - Digital Deluxe Edition